Peruvian restaurants in Buenos Aires (1999-2009)

GLORIA SAMMARTINO

Antrhopology of food

AoFood Editorial Board

Año: 2010

1609-9168

In Buenos Aires the “otherness” of Peruvian immigrants is structured around manifestations of discrimination that come from the host society. Our purpose is to analyze immigrant foods and the representations they evoke, as well as to investigate the way in which their cooking acquires new meanings in new contexts, showing a tendency to become a mark of specificity and a way to resist the hostility of the host society. In order to do this, we focus on Peruvian restaurants and specifically ‘exocuisine’ or eating out, as opposed to ‘endocuisine’ or eating in. By starting with an analysis of meals and commensality practices in the ‘eating-out’ context, we aim to account for the processes of construction-reconstruction of relationships among Peruvians as well as between Peruvians and Argentines when eating in restaurants. Our objective we is to highlight the role that restaurants have been performing among immigrants, exploring the expansion of the Peruvian culinary vocabulary and identifying the changes in the social and cultural functions of food. In addition, following the rise of Peruvian cuisine at international level in recent years, we return to the field after nearly nine years in order to register the new meanings it acquires in the local context and how this influences the dialogue between immigrants and the host society.