Food Rules and Rituals - Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2023 - Mark McWilliams

Food Rules and Rituals - Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2023 - Mark McWilliams

Reforming Body and Soul: Malta’s Prison Food Experience, 1920–1939

Food Rules and Rituals - Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2023 - Mark McWilliams

Noel Buttigieg [+-]
University of Malta
Noel Buttigieg is an academic researcher at the University of Malta, specializing in cultural heritage with a particular interest in food culture.

Description

Based primarily on the official Malta prison documents from 1920 to 1939, this research explores the confluence between institutionalized food, rituals, and the prison experience. The evidence presents us with three broad categories: issues related to food quality and quantity, expressions of a culinary identity, and forces of resistance. Institutionalized food formed part of a more comprehensive set of prison ritualized practices intended to reform the inmate’s body and soul. With hardly any opportunity to express one’s identity, food catered simply as a means to keep the prisoner alive. Therefore, to what extent does institutionalized commensality reform the Foucauldian ‘social body’? How far could institutionalized food rituals influence the bond between use value and identity value?

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Citation

Buttigieg, Noel. Reforming Body and Soul: Malta’s Prison Food Experience, 1920–1939. Food Rules and Rituals - Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2023. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 70-80 Jul 2024. ISBN 9781800505766. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=46052. Date accessed: 11 Dec 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.46052. Jul 2024

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