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Papers by Anikó Báti

Acta Ethn., 2023

In Hungary, about half of the 3-18 age group has regularly used school food service. This paper f... more In Hungary, about half of the 3-18 age group has regularly used school food service. This paper focuses on the operation and social embeddedness of school canteens and the at-home eating habits of the families involved. My conclusions are based on the findings of my interdisciplinary research group. Ethnographers from the RCH Institute of Ethnology and dietitians from the National Institute of Pharmacy and Nutrition have been studying school food from 2018 to 2023. We selected a few model settlements: in addition to the capital, Budapest, three smaller towns, and two villages. Through questionnaires, interviews, and fieldwork observations, we investigated cooking, serving, meal courses, meal time, eating habits, preferences, as well as the nutritional knowledge of students, teachers, kitchen staff, and parents. Our goal, among other things, is to collect best practices and facilitate communication between participants. Some examples from our research highlight the special role of the centrally regulated school food in local food culture, and difficulties with social and historical roots can occasionally hamper school lunches in becoming a socially accepted model of a healthy diet. The school canteen works best at sites where cooking takes place within the school premises. There is a strong connection between the kitchen staff and the teachers, and they work together in the interest of the children. The value of food and its appreciation is demonstrated by how it is treated and how it is talked about. Communication about food in the canteen should be based on food preparation at home, where parents and children work together. The operation of canteens has become particularly problematic following the measures introduced during the coronavirus pandemic. A sustainable, enjoyable canteen can only be realized through the regular communication of schools and school kitchens, as well as children and their parents. Our findings are presented to our respondents, along with providing them with a comparison of different examples.

Acta Ethn., 2023

The growth in Budapest's population at the end of the 19th century was based on the influx of mig... more The growth in Budapest's population at the end of the 19th century was based on the influx of migrants from the countryside, mostly industrial workers. The examination of the social tensions generated by their arrival provides a good illustration of the changes in social policy, one element of which was the operation of soup kitchens. In the mid-19th century, the main driving force behind the founding of soup kitchens was individual religious charity, although by the end of the century, social solidarity and state involvement also contributed to the relief efforts. The present study examines the development of soup kitchens in Budapest based on the historical sources: official documents, and the contemporary press. Using the ethnographic findings of food culture research, it seeks to explain why official soup kitchens were not popular. From an ethnographic point of view, the process of lifestyle change among workers newly breaking away from peasant life and moving to Budapest and its metropolitan area has been little explored to date, and the same applies to the embourgeoisement of the peasantry. When interpreting the processes that accompany labor migration, parallels can be drawn between the eating habits of the workers' regions of origin, the value systems connected with work and food, and the common meals organized for agricultural workers when working away from home. Through a historical and ethnographic approach, the transitional, evolving features of urban foodways emerge in the context of soup kitchens in parallel with the change in lifestyle.

Acta Ethn., 2023

Meals outside the home take place in a different setting than usual. Often, there is no choice, a... more Meals outside the home take place in a different setting than usual. Often, there is no choice, and the menu might not consist of our favorite dishes, or the flavoring, serving, time and way of eating, or even the group of co-diners are unusual for us. Together and separately, these factors can affect how people experience their meals: whether they leave feeling satiated and content, or hungry and frustrated. The memories of these impressions, tastes, and smells can leave a mark in the deepest layers of memory. These memories work even when we do not think about them. Basically, in the long term, they can determine the consumer's opinion of food. In fact: their taste, their stance, even their attitude to the form of the meal. This is how, for example, old experiences of school meals can influence people in adulthood when assessing the canteen as a parent. In Hungarian ethnography and historiography, meals outside the home are most often approached and described in relation to travel, hospitality, and work. However, there is not much Hungarian literature with a social science focus on certain forms of public catering (alimentation of soldiers, prisoners, hospital in-patients; the eating habits of seasonal agricultural workers, factory workers; children's catering). Kindergarten and school catering is primarily one of the disciplines of life and nutrition sciences. These almost exclusively address the issue from the perspective of healthy eating and quality assurance. Research on the needs of consumers has been mainly carried out by sociologists, with relatively few analyses focusing on the relationship between diners and food. This kind of approach has received little attention to date, apart from research on the physical properties or physiological effects of food. Meals are at the heart of ethnographic research on food culture. Meals are the organizational element around which individual food items are arranged on a daily, weekly, or yearly basis. This is wherewith or without seating arrangements, using a specific material culture, and accompanied by habitual actsthey emerge in everyday and festive settings to transform eating as a biological need into alimentation as a cultural feature through customary systems. This

Acta Ethnographica Hungarica

The growth in Budapest's population at the end of the 19th century was based on the influx of... more The growth in Budapest's population at the end of the 19th century was based on the influx of migrants from the countryside, mostly industrial workers. The examination of the social tensions generated by their arrival provides a good illustration of the changes in social policy, one element of which was the operation of soup kitchens. In the mid-19th century, the main driving force behind the founding of soup kitchens was individual religious charity, although by the end of the century, social solidarity and state involvement also contributed to the relief efforts. The present study examines the development of soup kitchens in Budapest based on the historical sources: official documents, and the contemporary press. Using the ethnographic findings of food culture research, it seeks to explain why official soup kitchens were not popular. From an ethnographic point of view, the process of lifestyle change among workers newly breaking away from peasant life and moving to Budapest an...

Szerepük és helyük az egykori és a mai falusi-városi táplálkozáskultúrában) Szerk: Báti Anikó-Cso... more Szerepük és helyük az egykori és a mai falusi-városi táplálkozáskultúrában) Szerk: Báti Anikó-Csoma Zsigmond-Mészáros Márta. Budapest. 2011. Báti Anikó Megújuló receptek. A sütemények változó kínálata napjaikban süteményeknek, desszerteknek a közelmúltban az egyik legdinamikusabban, legsokoldalúbban fejlődő ételosztály receptjeinek jelen, mai választékát érdemes az innovációk és a gyakorlati felhasználás felöl megközelíteni. A teljességre törekedni szinte lehetetlen, mert nagy mennyiségű recepttel van dolgunk, így csupán a most érzékelhető főbb változások kiemelésére, nagyobb csomópontok, csoportok hangsúlyozására vállalkozom. Az egyik legnépszerűbb szakácskönyv jelszava jól jellemzi az ételkészítés egészén belül a sütemények, desszertek a mai helyzetét, megítélését: "Finomat, gyorsan, egyszerűen". 1 A táplálkozáskultúra-kutatás történetében a sütemények viszonylag hamar az érdeklődés középpontjába kerültek, az ünnepi alkalmak-elsősorban a lakodalmak 2-ételsorának bemutatása során. Ez egyben jelezte az ételválaszték egészén belül a süteményeknek, főként a kelt tésztáknak, kalácsoknak, fánkoknak a jelentőségét. Kardos Lászlónak viszonylag könnyű volt sorra vennie, az alapanyag és a készítés módja szerint csoportosítania az Őrségben a 20. század első felében, közepén kedvelt hétköznapi és ünnepi sült tésztákat. 3 A további irodalmi adatokat itt most nem sorolnám, csupán Bognár Anikó tanulmányát emelem ki, 4 melyben a kecskeméti süteményeket vizsgálja az ezredfordulón. Bognár Anikó eredményei összehasonlítási alapot jelentettek a korábbi, saját északmagyarországi adataimhoz, 5 másrészt a folyó városi táplálkozási vizsgálataimhoz is. A későbbiekben az egyes receptfajták felhasználói, fogyasztói körét, a készítés gyakoriságát, a fogyasztási szokásokat csupán jelzésértékűen, röviden mutatom be ezen irodalmi tételekre utalva, az adataim mennyisége azonban csak hozzávetőleges becslésekre ad módot.

Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont Néprajztudományi Intézet, 2019

Az örökségesítés folyamata elsősorban nem a kultúratudományban, hanem inkább a kultúrpolitikában ... more Az örökségesítés folyamata elsősorban nem a kultúratudományban, hanem inkább a kultúrpolitikában kapott nagyobb szerepet Közép-európában. A 2000-es évektől a kultúra egyes, az identitásőrzésben fontos szerepet játszó elemei kiemelt figyelmet kaptak az országos és helyi hagyományok átadása, megélése, megjelenítése tekintetében, és ez a tendencia vált a kutatás tárgyává, azaz néprajzkutatók figyelemének középpontjába kerültek az örökségesítés szintjei, szereplői, színterei. élen járó friss tudományos munkákat, konferenciák anyagait a Kriza könyvek sorozat (39., 40. kötet) tett közzé a témában. Bővebben, további fogalmi magyarázatokkal lásd például: Jakab

A lakodalommal a család és a falu a hétköznapokból felemelkedve mulatsággal, jó ételekkel ünnepli... more A lakodalommal a család és a falu a hétköznapokból felemelkedve mulatsággal, jó ételekkel ünnepli meg egy új család létrejöttét, amely a közösség gyarapodását, fennmaradását biztosítva a legnagyobb esemény az egyén és a közösség életében is. 1 Cserépfaluban az általam vizsgált korszakban, 2 az 1940-es évektől napjainkig a gazdasági, politikai események döntően befolyásolták a paraszti élet rendjének alakulását, átformálódását, és mindez kihatott az ünnepekre, a lakodalomra is. A község zártsága, szegénysége azonban hozzájárult ahhoz, hogy a házasságkötés szokáskörén belül számos elem, amely a szakirodalom alapján megállapíthatóan máshol már korábban átalakult, megszűnt, itt máig fönnmaradhatott. A lakodalom, a szokáscselekmények végrehajtása (1. 1. táblázat) 3 a szervező család munkaerejét meghaladó feladat, ezért társasmunkában, a meghívottak, rokonok is aktívan részt vesznek az eseményekben, meghatározott feladatokra, tisztségekre kérik fel őket a hagyományok szerint kölcsönös visszasegítésre alapozva, ugyanakkor munkájukért ajándékot is kapnak a lakodalmas háztól. A továbbiakban a megjelölt korszakokban a cserépfalui lakodalomban az egyes tisztségviselők és feladatköreik változását tekintem át saját gyűjtésem alapján (1. 2. táblázat). 'Ez a tanulmány része az 1997-ben, Szegeden, a JATE BTK Néprajz Tanszékén írt szakdolgozatomnak, melynek címe: A lakodalmi étrend, étkezési szokások változása Cserépfalun a XX. század második felében. A témára vonatkozó szakirodalomra jelen esetben terjedelmi okok miatt nem térek ki, szakdolgozatomban külön fejezetként tárgyalom. Gyűjtéseimet Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén megyében, a Bükk lábánál elterülő Cserépfaluban végeztem. A községnek kb. 1200 fös lakossága többségében református vallású. Határának jelentős része erdő, művelhető földje kevés van és az is rossz minőségű. Emiatt a lakosság számára a második világháború előtt a fő megélhetést az erdőgazdálkodás, a fakitermelés, fafaragás, mészégetés jelentette, summásként az Alföldre jártak. 1945 után a korábbi paraszti életforma teljesen átalakult. A lakosság nagy része belépett a téeszbe, mások pedig a környező városokba, Miskolcra, Mezőkövesdre, Egerbe járnak dolgozni, ingáznak. 2 Kutatásaimat a XX. század második felére korlátoztam, ez volt az a korszak, amit interjúkkal, megfigyelésekkel, képi és egyéb forrásokkat felhasználva nyomon tudtam követni. A vizsgált lakodalmak három generációnak megfelelően három időzónába esnek: 1) 1940-50-es évek, ez az első korszak, 2) 1960-70-es évek, második, 3) 1980-1996, harmadik korszak. A továbbiakban ezen korszakhatárok alapján hasonlítom össze a lakodalmakat. Szakdolgozatomban a vizsgált lakodalmakról leírásokat készítettem, ezek alapján készültek a táblázatok összegezve az adatokat.

is a senior research fellow in Hungarian Academy of Sciences Research Centre for the Humanities I... more is a senior research fellow in Hungarian Academy of Sciences Research Centre for the Humanities Institute of Ethnology since 2009. Her current fieldwork of interest include questions concerning recent foodways, lifestyle, and the eating habits. She is leader of the interdisciplinary research group focused on school canteens is Hungary. The project supported by National Research, Development and Innovation Fund of Hungary.

In the present study, I examined the dining customs of weddings in Cserépfalu, a remote Lutheran ... more In the present study, I examined the dining customs of weddings in Cserépfalu, a remote Lutheran village with a small population in the north-east of Hungary. My study is based on fieldwork and participant observation. I assumed that change in lifestyle would be reflected in the actions of the custom during the celebration. I found that the wedding menu and the used raw materials have changed and got more various, or old raw materials are prepared with a new technology. The quantity of food has increased and the quality has also risen in all respects. Middle-class elements have been built into the dining customs, while magical activities have been omitted. Wedding still preserved its significance as it still represents one of the most outstanding events among the turning points of human life. It also remained the most important occasion for social display. It was able to revive, new roles in the celebration are still formulating. New technical facilities ere also utilized in the soc...

The blog 2 is one of the most versatile communication genres of the digital age. 3 Because writin... more The blog 2 is one of the most versatile communication genres of the digital age. 3 Because writing a blog requires only basic IT skills it is within the reach of many people who have access to a computer/smart phone and an Internet 4 connection. (It follows, therefore, that the absence of these facilities excludes many people from digital communication. 5 ) Many blogs are built around a clearly definable theme and one of the most popular topics is cooking and nutrition. There are now several hundred Hungarian-language gastro-blogs. 6 This vast, constantly-changing mass of data is almost impossible for a researcher to examine and analyse systematically. For this paper, I have chosen a single blog 7 and its author to present as an example. The case study shows the role that blogs play today in the changing food culture and in the life of a blogger. The blog I have chosen is very popular in Hungary. Its main topic being home bread baking (“Limara’s Bakery blog”) – as the symbol of trad...

Acta Ethn., 2023

Acta Ethnographica Hungarica

Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont Néprajztudományi Intézet, 2019

Anikó, Báti, 2019

Food, tastes, memories. Old and new elements in Cserépfalu’s kitchens Political, economic and soc... more Food, tastes, memories. Old and new elements in Cserépfalu’s kitchens
Political, economic and social changes in the second half of the 20th century in Hungary, and so in Cserépfalu, a village in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county affected every aspect of daily life, the dietary culture included: food production, food processing and several elements of the dietary habits have undergone dramatic changes. In terms of culture, there is a gulf between today’s old and young population, which would have been unimaginable in earlier times. A life model, which remained peasant but mixed with urban elements, is found simultaneously in each age group, however not at the same extent. I choose Cserépfalu as a subject of my research due to personal reasons: I have been visiting the village regularly since 1989, and I have married a man from the village in 1996. During this long time I had the opportunity to get to know the inhabitants and I gathered a lot of experience. I had to learn many habits and activities in order to meet local requirements. At the same time, my status as outsider safeguarded the distance: I was not born there and I am not a reformed. Being an observer from outside, I noticed several details, which are considered as natural facts by the local population.
I selected the period between 1945 and 2000. These dates are not attached to any ethnographic landmark. The period is however a sufficiently broad space of time, so that it allows us studying the period between 1960 and 1970 and the end of processes of modern times in the history of dietary culture as suggested by the literature. We carry out this study by grasping the changes in the dietary habits of a concrete village, Cserépfalu. This is the first time that the case-study of a concrete village has been carried out for researching the dietary habits in the recent past and present. The subject has never been studied so profoundly neither abroad, nor in Hungary so far.
In accordance with the given laps of period, I selected my informants among the members of three generations, mainly from the circle of my acquaintances. It was an important aspect in their selection to find members of the same family, if possible representing three generations. I drew up guiding instructions for data collection and made interviews based on these questions. But I asked such questions too, which were linked to the subject of eating in a broader sense, such as the affects of urbanisation and modernisation, for example oral hygiene, dish-washing, waste-treatment. For the survey of the individual households I set up a list of objects linked to eating and diet and I was looking for similarities and differences between the generations mainly based on recent data. Cooking skill, talent and routine of a person, of a housewife, the habits and taste of the family make the meals of a family individual within the framework set by the given macro- and microeconomic and social environment. Some procedure, the used ingredients, the order of the courses, the course of a meal may be modified within certain limits. I tried to interpret the phenomena by the descriptions. By highlighting the changes, by comparing the dietary habits of certain periods and generations, I tried to reveal those processes, which led to today’s eating habits. Based on my fieldwork it seems that the image made about diet is multicoloured even in such a small community. I documented different views and routines for the most subjects dealt with. Therefore, I frequently quote the informants’ words they told during the interviews. Through the quotations I want to present the person who lives with the habits, executes the acts, who cooks and eats the food. Research of dietary habits has not paid much attention to this important “factor” so far.
The kitchens’ state of supply with utensils has fast improved during the past fifty years. At the side of the traditional cooking range, or replacing it, the gas cooker made cooking faster and easier from the sixties onwards. Parallel to the spreading of gas cookers, ovens disappeared, which process illustrates the biggest change in the organisation of households in our examined period: due to the lack of ingredients and of women’s work, bread is no more baked at home: bread is bought in the shop. The decision was made under the pressure of economic circumstances and not without emotions. They failed to keep up the routine of bread-baking any longer and today neither the skill nor the utensils are in use. The bought bread does not carry the same symbolic as the home-baked bread did, being staple food in those days. The sliced loaves wrapped in nylon bags are treated differently and they don’t have a distinguished role during meals. Some ovens still function in the village, to supply bread for weddings. Unlike bread-baking, pig sticking has not lost any of its importance; the villagers strive for self-sufficiency in their meat supply. The example of the feasts on pig-killing day allows showing the self-imposed seclusion of the small family from the relatives and the village community, as it is the case during festivities and in activities based on mutual help.
Fridges and freezers made food conservation safe. Since food, even dairy products can be kept longer nowadays, diet became more diversified. Freezers have been spread in Cserépfalu during the last ten-fifteen
years. Their importance has to be emphasised because they affected the complete system of diet. The new form of conservation allows keeping seasonal food, which normally used to be eaten fresh. Availability of food-stuff does not depend on the seasons any more. Freezers influenced the trend in taste: today almost no smoked meat is eaten. Varieties of meat dishes are prepared with frozen, fresh meat. Electric appliances in the households of the second and third generation serve not only practical purposes; they are objects of representation and a kind of investment too. Dishes and dinner-sets had the same function in the households of the first generation.
Table manners follow urban middle-class at a less extent. Complete dinner-sets are used only on festive days and certain dishes are spooned out from the common bowl!
Compared to the daily eating practice, food preparation for weddings, the kitchen, the way of eating and dish-washing maintain older forms.
No new foodstuff turned up in the studied period but some ingredients are considered as old-fashioned and are no more used, like millet and corn. The food stock has considerably changed. Soups and noodles were earlier everyday courses on the table. Today they are less important and are not prepared in as many varieties as before. New recipes are used mainly for meat-dishes and cakes.
The food industry and commerce had the biggest impact upon the dietary culture of Cserépfalu. Today they have abandoned their aim for self-sufficiency; instead, they buy several ingredients, processed and ready-to-eat food in the shop. Earlier, they used to prepare themselves these types of food, like different kinds of noodles. Money and time are valued in a different way by each generation. Nowadays, the quantity of purchased food exceeds the amount of home made food. The generations have differing views on this fact: the youth is more open for novelties.
One of the biggest social transformations in Cserépfalu occurred when women went to work. Both the organisation of the households and the dietary habits were affected. Families consisting of several generations dissolved and the state replaced the employed women in the task of caring for the elderly and the young children. Many eat in canteens. This is a new option in the weekly order of meals: communal feeding is an innovation factor in the dietary habits in Cserépfalu. Employed middle-aged women are able to help their parents and children only in their leisure time, during week-ends, beside their own household chores. On weekends they cater cooked food for several days for the elderly who live in separate households; they often help their children with food-presents. Families of the second and third generation have their breakfast and mostly their lunch away from home during the week. They pack cold food or eat in the canteen of their working place or in the school. On weekdays the family meets only during dinner, which is either cold food or a cooked meal of one or two courses. They are equivalent; it depends on the family’s habit, which one is served. A significant transformation takes place in the weekly dietary order, in the composition of dishes, which represents one of the milestones in the closing down of modern processes in the history of diet. The soup’s status as starter is no more stable: it is not served every day in every household. Unlike everyday meals, however, the Sunday’s and festive menus of all three generations show a homogenous picture: the order of courses is set following the same standard.
Following urban patterns, the dietary culture in Cserépfalu becomes more homogeneous, however later in time. Social differences have faded but differences between the generations are well documented. Some archaic elements are maintained, which make the diet more diversified. Further research in similar deepness is required to be able to generalize the results and to describe today’s dietary habits of the small region Bükkalja.

European Journal of Public Health, 2019

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer mortality rates in Eastern European countries are among t... more Cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer mortality rates in Eastern European countries are among the highest in the world. Although unhealthy diet is an important risk factor for both of these chronic diseases, traditional eating habits and their health effects in this region have not yet been explored. This analysis assessed the relationship between traditional dietary pattern and mortality from all-causes, CVD and cancer in Eastern European population-based cohorts.

Ghent, Liège and Namur), albeit with different degrees of success (sustainability, reaching targe... more Ghent, Liège and Namur), albeit with different degrees of success (sustainability, reaching target groups, obtaining a genuine cooperative mode, etc.). All were deeply integrated into broader left-liberal networks of urban reform associations (workers' education leagues, mutual aid societies, other cooperatives , etc.) and added an oft-forgotten alimentary side to an encompassing "progressist" approach to the de-proletarisation of the working classes.