STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER? Foraging for the Changing Meaning of Wild Berries in Estonian Food Culture (original) (raw)
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Economic Botany, 2016
It is widely agreed that in industrialized Europe, knowledge on the use of wild food plants shows a decreasing trend with few instances of valorization. We employed a folk history approach in order to understand the changes that have occurred in the use of wild food plants within the lifetime of the older generation living on Saaremaa Island. Comparing current and remembered past uses and evaluating temporal encounters afforded the understanding that, while the general picture of the use of wild food plants seems diverse and promising (89 plant taxa used, median 20 taxa used per person, Informant Consensus Index of 0.9), only 36% of uses have been practiced throughout life. Another third (34%) of uses existed as a childhood memory, which also encompassed taxa useful during times of food shortage, and 20% of the uses recorded were recently abandoned. The uses of wild food plants acquired later in life, at some point during adulthood (4%) or recently (6%), were few in number, rather temporal in nature and affected by fashion trends. To understand the temporal changes in the use of wild food plants and to identify the reasons causing those changes, it may be important for future researchers to document the exact time of the actual use. To ensure the survival of food security–related knowledge, during times of relative food abundance, it is important to ensure the continuity of the use of wild food plants on the family level by educating children through their participation in making food from wild plants.
International Journal of Consumer Studies 37 (5), 564–568.
Many consumers consider local food a more sustainable choice than conventional food because of the shorter transport distances involved as well as the support provided to local economies. In addition, consumers value the perceived safety benefits, ethical associations and improved taste of local food. In this study, we focus on the cultural meanings of locally produced food among Finnish consumers. Based on interviews with 22 consumers, our analysis suggests that, besides consumers valuing sustainable, healthy and tasty locally produced food, they perceived self-produced, self-processed items, including those they have gathered, hunted and fished themselves, as the most authentic local food. Furthermore, local food is associated with craftsmanship and artisan production. We also found that interviewees tended to historicize their relationship to food through local production. Thus, consumers seem to be in search of ‘real’ or ‘true’ food that is embedded in their personal and shared social histories.
Human Ecology, 2016
Conclusions This paper contributes to a better understanding of the (food) cultural importance of wild fleshy fruits in Estonia during the last two centuries and evaluates the factors influencing their consumption. The results show that the majority of native edible fruits of trees and shrubs were eaten quite intensively, both fresh and processed, which demonstrates that in the past the people of Saaremaa were well adapted to the local environment and had a good knowledge of the edibility of the wild fruits found at chest-height. Yet, through reduced access to the fruits’ habitat distribution and limited physical activity outside fenced gardens, intensive cultivation of various fruits and perceived pollution, as well as altered practices in the collection of fruit, foods prepared, and taste preferences, wild fleshy fruits have changed from a diverse source of food into a marginal snack within the lifetime of one generation. So knowledge of the edibility of fruits is now preserved mainly through occasional snacking, while other food uses are remembered only from childhood.
Perceived reasons for changes in the use of wild food plants in Saaremaa, Estonia
Appetite, 2016
Recent studies on the use of wild food plants have identified various reasons for their use and underlined their importance as an emergency food supply. This work analysed the content of narratives obtained as comments regarding the reasons for using or not using wild food plants mentioned during 48 semi-structured recorded interviews. The results show that past demand for the diversification of food experiences and taste was essential for the consumption of wild plants, while the present concern for the disappearance of wild food taxa familiar from childhood is one of the main reasons for decrease in their consumption. This indicates that people do not really feel that they need to use wild food plants anymore (except for the health benefits), and that they are concerned that their favourite plants are no longer available. The erosion of the practical use of wild food plants is also supported by the very small frequency in which the influence of teachings coming from outside the community was mentioned in discussions of both the past and present, and thus the loss of traditional uses is not really substituted by new uses acquired from elsewhere. Further research is needed to understand lay perceptions of the changes that have occurred in nature, society and the economy, in the context of their influence on the everyday use of wild food plants to appreciate the ways in which knowledge erosion takes place and to find means of retaining this basic knowledge within the society.
Emic conceptualization of a ‘wild edible plant’ in Estonia in the second half of the 20th century
Trames. A Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2015
Understanding the emic concept of wild edible plants in specific cultural settings is important to map local perceptions on nature. As there is no specific word to describe the concept of a wild edible plant in Estonian, we asked to list plants belonging to a category described by two partly overlapping phrases: looduslik taim (natural plant) and metsikult kasvav taim (plant that grows wild). Answers of 85 lay respondents were analysed quantitatively based on the nomenclature of the plants listed and qualitatively based on the question requiring narrative responce. While in the Estonian realm of the second half of the 20th century there was no need for conceptualization of wild (edible) plants and the notion did not exist, people describe them through the ability to grow itself, opposing to cultivation, places of growing, and higher level of abstraction. Prototypes of wild edible plants were Oxalis acetosella, Rumex acetosa, Fragaria vesca and Vaccinium myrtillus.
Delicious or Disgusting? The Winding Journey of Colostrum in Estonian Food Culture
Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics
This article examines the changing meaning and status of colostrum in Estonian food culture, relying on data drawn from ethnographic archives and historical sources, cookbooks, and the media. From seasonal food consumed by both Estonian peasants and the Baltic German elite it has been transformed into a modern functional food. The study provides a lens through which to examine the economic, social, and cultural factors that have shaped the modernisation of food culture in Estonia as well as contemporary interpretations of food heritage.
Historical ethnobotanical review of wild edible plants of Estonia (1770s–1960s)
Acta Societatis Botanicorum Poloniae, 2012
This paper is a historical ethnobotanical review of wild plants used by the residents of present day Estonia during the 1770s–1960s. Twenty two sources addressing historical ethnographical accounts of the use of wild food plants were analysed. The use of 147 taxa of vascular plants (over 6% of Estonian vascular flora) and two lichens has been recorded. Although the data does not allow for reliable determination of the frequency of use of specific taxa among the population, general conclusions on the preferences for specific dishes made of wild food plants can be made. While the category of snacks covers the largest proportion of species used, a substantial addition to food rations was provided by bread ingredients (used predominantly in famine times), green vegetables used for making soup, and later jams and other dishes of wild berries. Also beverages (tea and coffee substitutes), beer and beer-like drinks were widely made, and the saps of several tree species were consumed in fresh and fermented form. The most important species, according to the criterion of diversity of use, were Carum carvi, Urtica dioica, and the wild berries Vaccinium vitis-idaea and Vaccinium myrtillus.
Wild plants eaten in childhood: A retrospective of Estonia in the 1970s–1990s
Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2013
In this ethnobotanical study, the authors provide the first quantitative analysis of the use of wild edible plants in Estonia, describing the domains and assessing the food importance of different species. The information was collected using free-listing written questionnaires and concerned plants used by the respondents in their childhood. As part of a major study, this article covers the responses of professionals with some botanical education at vocational or university level, to ensure the greatest possible reliability without using voucher specimens. Fifty-eight respondents provided information on the use of 137 plant taxa, corresponding to approximately 6% of the native and naturalized vascular plants of Estonia. According to use frequency, the most typical wild food plant of Estonia is a fruit, eaten raw as a snack. The results clearly signal that the majority of famine and food shortage plants had already been forgotten by the end of the 20th century, but new plants have been introduced as green vegetables for making salads. Despite changes in the nomenclature of the plants, the use of wild food plants in Estonia was still thriving at the turn of the 20th century, covering many domains already forgotten in urbanized modern Europe.
The Taste of “Estonianness”: Cookbooks as Part of Nation-Building in Estonia
Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore
This paper takes a diachronic look at the culinary trends in the presentday Estonia. It sheds light on the process of nation-building enacted through recipes that refer to the social ideals, convictions, and stereotypes widely held at the time of the first Republic of Estonia (1919-1939). The idealised notions of the past create a distinct atmosphere of nostalgia that can be observed in two sources discussed in this study: Maria Laidoner's Cuisine (2008; compiled on the basis of notes taken down from published cookbooks and handwritten recipes from the 1930s), and Gifts of Taste (Ilves 2011). Behind both of these books stand women who have had an important status in society: Maria Laidoner fulfilled the role of the first lady of the state in the 1930s, and Evelin Ilves was the first lady between 2006 and 2015. The two cookbooks point at a feeling of nostalgia that the nation harbours towards the authentic, Estonian cooking first advocated in the 1930s, which combines the rustic and noble into a modern and trendy whole.