Home-Grown Products in Quebec

By Laurier Turgeon
English

This article aims to shed light on the relationship between food consumption and the construction of place, more specifically, on how the consumption of home-grown agricultural products in Quebec transforms territories into places of heritage. This transformative process is accomplished, first, by the symbolic production and consumption of place. By clearly identifying the place of origin of the product on the label, in writing as well as in image, the act of eating home-grown products entails a displacement of territory from their place of production to their place of incorporation. The distant and the far-away is brought home and made familiar. To further reinforce the domestication of place, the consumer is invited to come and purchase the home-grown product at the lieu of production and to bring it back home with him. Second, these places are heritagitized through the social production and consumption of time. Home-grown products are expressions of the continuity of place through the material conservation of foods (dehydration, salting, freezing, etc.), the process of ageing itself and, more importantly, the transmission of their intangible qualities (traditional knowledge, transmission of receipts, preservation of taste). It is these intangible elements which most efficiently and forcefully express the heritage of place.

Keywords

  • territory
  • landscape
  • intangible cultural heritage
  • heritage production
  • Quebec
Go to the article on Cairn-int.info