The paulista food culture: a maize civilization? (1650 - 1750)

• Grant number: 13/50164-0
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants - Publications - Books published in Brazil
• Start date: June 01, 2013
• End date: May 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: Leila Mezan Algranti
• Grantee: Leila Mezan Algranti
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research's purpose is to study the food practices of the plateau of Piratininga inhabitants, in the period between the second half of the XVII century and the first half of the XVIII. However, despite the fact that we deal with food culture as a whole, we will analyze, in a specific way, the habits and techniques involved on the maize's uses and processing, considering that the main authors of colonial historiography see the disseminated consume of this food as a specificity of São Paulo food culture of those times. The study of maize's incorporation on São Paulo food will be essential to deepen the way that European knowledge and habits imbricated, on the food plane, with those ones used and transmitted by the indigenous people. By trying to understand the paulistas food system, we intend to visualize how that food was incorporated on their diet, not only within their domains, but also on their sertanistas incursions and on the occupation of new territories, considering that the mobility originating from bandeiristas activities imprinted the daily lives of São Paulo inhabitants between the XVII and XVIII centuries. (AU)