Social and symbolic roles of Sri Lankan traditional food culture

Abstract

Food culture of any society should not be analyzed for the sole purpose of describing diet and nutrition because it is inherently social. As Radcliffe-Brown (1922) states food is a means of regulating the social system. It not only involves what is consumed but includes the labor and technology applied for production, preparation and preservation of food etc. Moreover, "variation in what people eat reflects substantive variation in status and power and characterizes societies that are internally stratified into rich and poor, sick and healthy, developed and underdeveloped, overfed and undernourished "( Ross 1987). Thus, food culture can be analysed in many aspects like economic, political, social, religious, health etc. Among such aspects, social aspect is prominent in studying various social relations of food systems within and among societies. This study is to examine social and symbolic roles of Sri Lankan traditional food culture with social aspect. Sri Lanka has a unique food culture with a long history proved by many evidences in literary and archeological sources as well as folklore sources. Methods and techniques of production, processing, cooking, protection, preservation and consumption practiced in traditional Sri Lankan society are taken into consideration in this study. As the methodology secondary information are used collected from relevant literary, folklore and archeological sources. The findings show that social and symbolic roles of Sri Lankan traditional food culture reflects a real picture of ancient society and provide many lessons that can be adopted for many food related issues in modern society.