Notario F., Food and Counter-cultural Identity in Ancient Cynicism.pdf

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Food and Counter-cultural Identity
in Ancient Cynicism
Fernando Notario
1.
Food, culture, and counter-culture
Food is a central feature in the philosophical, ethical, and
religious framework of any human society. Its materiality helps
to embody the abstract, otherwise intangible, cultural dis-
courses that are enacted, recreated, and embodied by the com-
munity through ritual means.
1
As David Morgan argues,
embodiment plays a central role in the articulation of belief
systems, and in this process, food and eating practices are
fundamental elements in the construction of the shared back-
ground that leads to the individual’s participation in the social
body of belief.
2
Nevertheless, the relationships between food, a
coherent or incoherent body of beliefs, and wider socio-cultural
identities are extremely complex, and they are subject to many
nuances and subtleties. Food may facilitate the construction of
shared identities in many ways, but every shared identity also
has a potential for confronting itself with foreign groups that
are culturally described as belonging to ‘the Other’.
3
Food is a
traditional point of departure for cultural narratives that justify
and legitimate Otherness, challenging thus the construction of
P. Schmid-Leukel (ed.),
Las religiones y la comida
(Barcelona 2002).
2
D. Morgan, “Materiality, Social Analysis, and the Study of Religions,”
in
Religion and Material Culture. The Matter of Belief
(New York 2010) 59–61.
3
Identity studies have addressed the parallel problems of the assumption
of a cultural identity and the construction of cultural Others: F. Hartog,
Le
miroir d’Hérodote: essai sur la représentation de l’autre
(Paris 1980); J. M. Hall,
Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity
(Cambridge 1997) 17–33, and
Hellenicity, be-
tween Ethnicity and Culture
(Chicago 2005) 90–124.
1
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Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies
55 (2015) 583–607
2015 Fernando Notario
584
FOOD AND COUNTER-CULTURAL IDENTITY
shared identities that could rely on other cultural features.
4
In the Greek world, culinary differences are among the pre-
ferred forms of dealing with cultural representations of the
Other. Already in the
Odyssey
the monstrous creatures that live
at the margins or beyond the civilized (Greek) world have a
distinct aberrant diet. They do not eat bread; instead, they
consume strange foods such as lotus flowers, cheese and milk,
or even human flesh.
5
This tendency is also present in the de-
piction of the barbarian peoples and cultures with which the
Greeks had intense relationships from at least the eight century
B
.
C
. This is especially prominent in the discourses regarding
foreign socio-political realities, such as the Persian Empire.
6
Nevertheless, food’s capacity in the development of socio-
As A. F. Smith argues, “False Memories: The Invention of Culinary
Fakelore and Food Fallacies,” in H. Walker (ed.),
Food and the Memory
(Totnes 2001) 254–260, a great many of the discourses concerning the food
of the cultural Other show a significant degree of deformation from the
actual culinary culture. On the relationship between cuisine and identity: C.
Grottanelli and L. Milano (eds.),
Food and Identity in the Ancient World
(Padua
2004); K. C. Twiss (ed.),
The Archaeology of Food and Identity
(Carbondale
2007); M. Sánchez Romero, “El consumo de alimento como estrategia
social: recetas para la construcción de la memoria y la creación de identida-
des,”
Cuadernos de Prehistoria y Arqueología de la Universidad de Granada
18 (2008)
17–39; M. Beer,
Taste or Taboo. Dietary Choices in Antiquity
(Totnes 2010).
5
Od.
9.82 ff.; P. Vidal-Naquet, “Valeurs religieuses et mythiques de la
terre et du sacrifice dans l’Odyssée,” in M. Finley (ed.),
Problèmes de la terre en
Grèce ancienne
(Paris 1973) 269–292.
6
P. Schmitt Pantel,
La cité au banquet. Histoire des repas publics dans les cités
grecques
(Rome 1992) 429–435; H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, “Persian Food.
Stereotypes and Political Identity,” in J. Wilkins et al. (eds),
Food in Antiquity
(Exeter 1995) 286–302; P. Briant, “History and Ideology. The Greeks and
the ‘Persian Decadence’,” in T. Harrison (ed.),
Greeks and Barbarians
(Edin-
burgh 2002) 193–210; M. García Sánchez,
El gran rey de Persia: formas de
representación de la alteridad persa en el imaginario griego
(Barcelona 2009) 327–
364; F. Notario, “Comer como un rey: percepción e ideología del lujo
gastronómico entre Grecia y Persia,” in J. M. Cortés et al. (eds.),
Grecia ante
los imperios
(Sevilla 2011) 93–106; J. Wilkins, “Le banquet royal perse vu par
les Grecs,” in C. Grandjean et al. (eds.),
Le banquet du monarque dans le monde
antique
(Tours 2013) 163–171.
4
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Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies
55 (2015) 583–607
FERNANDO NOTARIO
585
cultural identities does not affect only foreign communities, as
it may also convey the construction of exclusive identities
within
a complex socio-political and cultural group. In the case of sub-
cultural or counter-cultural groups, their attitudes towards food
frequently help them to confirm and maintain their particular
identity as well as to reflect on wider ethical and philosophical
topics for which food provides a common ground.
7
Although there have been some studies concerning the re-
lationship between closed socio-cultural groups and their par-
ticular cuisines in the ancient Greek world, it remains a largely
untouched topic, mainly concerned with the attitudes of certain
philosophical and religious sects.
8
In this paper I address the
question of the role that attitudes towards food, cookery, and
eating had in the definition of the Cynic philosophical school as
a distinct cultural group.
9
Concerning modern counter-cultural movements and their relationship
to food: C. Dylan, “The Raw and the Rotten: Punk Cuisine”
Ethnology
43
(2004) 19–31; W. J. Belasco,
Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture Took in
the Food Industry
(Ithaca 2007). On the concept of counter-culture in the post-
industrialized world: A. Bennett, “Reappraising ‘Counterculture’,” in S.
Whiteley and J. Sklower (eds.),
Countercultures and Popular Music
(Surrey 2014)
17–26.
8
Concerning Pythagoreans: M. Detienne, “La cuisine de Pythagore,”
Archives de sociologie des religions
29 (1970) 141–162, and
Les jardins d’Adonis. La
mythologie des aromates en Grèce
(Paris 1972) 76–105; Beer,
Taste or Taboo
44–53.
Orphics: A. Bernabé, “Orphics and Pythagoreans: The Greek Perspec-
tives,” in G. Cornelli et al. (eds.),
On Pythagoranism
(Berlin 2013) 117–151.
Dionysiac worship groups have frequently been connected with the practice
of raw eating or omophagy: M. Detienne,
Dionysos mis à mort
(Paris 1977)
197–200; R. Seaford, “Dionysiac Drama and the Dionysiac Mysteries,”
CQ
31 (1981) 252–275; C. Van Lifferinge, “Les Grecs et le cru. Pratiques
alimentaires, pratiques rituelles et represéntations dionysiaques,”
Kernos
27
(2014) 75–97.
9
The role of food in the Cynic philosophical system as a materialization
of the life
kata physin,
according to nature, has been addressed in some of the
recent studies that have revitalized the topic of ancient Cynicism. A detailed
bibliography is given by L. E. Navia,
The Philosophy of Cynicism. An Annotated
Bibliography
(Westport 1995). Recent studies on the general problems of
Cynicism: M.-O. Goulet-Cazé,
L’ascèse cynique. Un commentaire de Diogène
7
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Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies
55 (2015) 583–607
586
FOOD AND COUNTER-CULTURAL IDENTITY
Ancient Cynicism lacked some of the most evident elements
in the definition of philosophical schools, such as a coherent
corpus of doctrinal texts or an immediate association with a
teaching centre, and thus its very same existence as a philo-
sophical school was often questioned.
10
Cynics adhered to a
loose ensemble of counter-cultural practices that, in accordance
with some classical sources, was regarded as a form of renun-
ciation of customs or “defiling the currency” (
παραχαράξαι τ�½�
�½όµισµα
) as a way of strengthening their cultural identity.
11
Some of the most perceptible features of the Cynic identity are
the walking staff, the travel bag, the single thin cloak, and the
long and messy hair they usually wore. These elements reflect a
distinct counter-culture as they play with the traditional image
of the beggar instead of with the increasingly accepted perfor-
mance codes of philosophical and intellectual groups.
12
I argue
___
Laërce VI 70–71
(Paris 1986); F. G. Downing,
Cynics and Christian Origins
(Edinburgh 1992); M.-O. Goulet-Cazé and R. Goulet (eds.),
Le Cynisme
ancien et ses prolongements
(Paris 1993); R. Bracht Branham and M.-O. Goulet-
Cazé (eds.),
The Cynics. The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and its Legacy
(Berkeley
1996); L. E. Navia,
Classical Cynicism. A Critical Study
(Westport 1996); W.
Desmond,
The Greek Praise of Poverty: Origins of Ancient Cynicism
(Notre Dame
2006), and
Cynics
(Stocksfield 2008); M.-O. Goulet-Cazé,
Cynisme et christi-
anisme dans l’antiquité
(Paris 2014).
10
M.-O. Goulet-Cazé, “Le cynisme est-il une philosophie?” in M.
Dixsaut (ed.),
Contre Platon
I
Le platonisme dévoilé
(Paris 1993) 273–313; I.
Gugliermina,
Diogène Laërce et le Cynisme
(Villeneuve d’Ascq 2006) 117–164.
11
This idea blends with the anecdote concerning Diogenes’ exile from
Sinope for his father’s defiling the local coinage: Diog. Laert. 6.20–21, 38,
56, 71; Luc.
Bis.acc.
24,
Demon.
5. Erroneously, the
Suda
(
δ
1143, cf.
γ
334)
attributes the defiling to Diogenes. An interesting contrast is provided by the
(highly biased) view of the emperor Julian on this question:
Or.
9.8 (187b–
188c); 7.4, 7 (208c–d, 211b–d) [G. Giannantoni,
Socratis et Socraticorum
reliquiae
II (Naples 1990 =
SSR)
V B
8–10]. Concerning the symbolic ex-
pression ‘defiling the coin’ as a form of counter-cultural contestation in the
Cynic milieu: Diog. Laert. 6.20 (referring to Diogenes’
Pordalos);
Julian
Or.
9.11 (191a–192c). Cf. M.-O. Goulet Cazé,
Diogène Laërce
(Varese 1999) 703
n.5; Desmonds,
Ancient Cynicism
78–82.
12
So Antisthenes: Diog. Laert. 6.13–15, also citing Sosicrates (FHG IV
503, fr.19) [SSR
V A
22]. Diogenes: Diog. Laert. 6.22–23 [SSR
V A
174].
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Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies
55 (2015) 583–607
FERNANDO NOTARIO
587
that Cynic counter-cultural attitudes towards food had a cen-
tral role in the construction of both Cynic identity and the way
wider socio-cultural groups perceived these somewhat shocking
philosophers. This analysis will consider several aspects of food,
cuisine, and eating in the Cynic milieu. The first will be the
symbolic and socio-cultural implications of the ‘Cynic menu’,
that is, the preferred foods they are associated with. The
second concerns adoption of counter-cultural patterns of con-
sumption and the way they could convey some philosophical
messages about individual freedom from the social norms arbi-
trating eating. The analysis of these overlapping fields will help
us understand the role that food played in the socio-cultural
identity dynamics of ancient Cynics.
2.
Choosing foods: the Cynic menu
Generally speaking, the idea of a menu is consistent with the
definition provided by the
Oxford English Dictionary:
a list of food
available or to be served in a restaurant or at a meal. Never-
theless, contemporary food studies have argued that the very
idea of ‘a list of food’ is far from being a pure and innocent
matter. Food is a complex subject, and even when humans are
almost omnivorous, or precisely because of that, the consti-
tution of a culturally preferred menu is a topic open to many
interpretations. The assumption of a distinctive menu must be
studied as the constitution of a complex network of foods that
generate and receive many socio-cultural discourses and im-
___
Other anecdotes concerning the Cynic extravagant or inappropriate at-
titude towards dress: Damasus
Ep.
5 (PL 13.565–566); Crates: Diog. Laert.
6.90 [SSR
V H
35]; Dio Chrys. 13.10; Julian
Or.
9.16 (198a–d); Luc.
Demon.
16, 19, 41,
Peregr.
14–15; Menedemus: Diog. Laert. 6.102 [SSR
V N
1]. On
the image of the intellectual: P. Zanker,
The Mask of Socrates
(Berkeley 1995);
N. Loraux and C. Miralles (eds.),
Figures de l’intellectuel en Grèce ancienne
(Paris
1998). Concerning the consolidation of the intellectual image in the mech-
anisms of social recognition: V. Azoulay, “Champ intellectuel et stratégies
de distinction dans la première moitié du IV
e
siècle,” in J.-C. Couvenhes
and S. Milanezi (eds.),
Individus, groupes et politique à Athènes de Solon à Mithridate
(Tours 2007) 171–199.
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Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies
55 (2015) 583–607

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