Categorization and Naming of Sweet Chestnut Fruit: Constructing a Link with Nature
Dupré, Lucie
Categorization and Naming of Sweet Chestnut Fruit: Constructing a Link with Nature - 2005.
35
In French the fruit of Castanea sativa, the chestnut tree, are called either châtaignes or marrons. These names correspond to two different socio-technical and socio-political “objects”. The first clearly refers to the tree it grows on and is associated with poverty, rough food, labour and living conditions in deprived areas, as abundantly stated in social and agronomic literature. The second appellation on the contrary evokes no link with the tree: the fruit’s origin is concealed so that it may become eatable. It is associated with sugared chestnuts ( marrons glacés), a highly refined food which only the affluent can buy. The first part of the paper analyses the construction of these two “objects” since the 18th century through an ethnobotanical and historical approach to the classification of the many chestnut varieties. It focuses on the industrialisation of the processing of sugared chestnuts which developed in the late 19th century in a nowadays renowned chestnut-producing French department. We show how those categories of fruit that, for technical reasons, cannot be processed into sugared chestnuts retain the appellation of châtaignes and have a less prestigious fate, with some of them even totally disqualified. The second part deals with the revival of chestnut production and lays emphasis on the present-day use of the word châtaigne, which gives visibility to what used to be considered disreputable in past centuries, a crop closely linked to wild nature. This is symptomatic of the growing consideration for nature, food quality and high-value landscapes that have been developed since the 1980s.
Categorization and Naming of Sweet Chestnut Fruit: Constructing a Link with Nature - 2005.
35
In French the fruit of Castanea sativa, the chestnut tree, are called either châtaignes or marrons. These names correspond to two different socio-technical and socio-political “objects”. The first clearly refers to the tree it grows on and is associated with poverty, rough food, labour and living conditions in deprived areas, as abundantly stated in social and agronomic literature. The second appellation on the contrary evokes no link with the tree: the fruit’s origin is concealed so that it may become eatable. It is associated with sugared chestnuts ( marrons glacés), a highly refined food which only the affluent can buy. The first part of the paper analyses the construction of these two “objects” since the 18th century through an ethnobotanical and historical approach to the classification of the many chestnut varieties. It focuses on the industrialisation of the processing of sugared chestnuts which developed in the late 19th century in a nowadays renowned chestnut-producing French department. We show how those categories of fruit that, for technical reasons, cannot be processed into sugared chestnuts retain the appellation of châtaignes and have a less prestigious fate, with some of them even totally disqualified. The second part deals with the revival of chestnut production and lays emphasis on the present-day use of the word châtaigne, which gives visibility to what used to be considered disreputable in past centuries, a crop closely linked to wild nature. This is symptomatic of the growing consideration for nature, food quality and high-value landscapes that have been developed since the 1980s.
Réseaux sociaux