Reimagining Bolivian Cuisine: Plurinationalism, Cosmopolitanism, and Novoandino Gastronomy

• In Event: The Transnational Politics of Food Heritage in Bolivia and Mexico

Abstract

Andean cuisine is undergoing a moment of international recognition. Novoandino restaurants such as Gustu (La Paz) and Astrid y Gastón (Lima) are receiving worldwide accolades. In 2014, the government of Peru announced its intention to apply for Peruvian cuisine to be recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage. Quinoa exports continue to climb, despite misgivings among North Atlantic vegans about the impacts on indigenous Andean farmers. Locally-produced coffees, chocolates, and salt are appearing in touristic markets in La Paz. Novoandino cuisines embody the tensions between national cuisines and local foodways, between holistic sets of culinary practices and isolated ingredients. Elite novoandino cuisines are thought of, and often celebrated, as regional or national cuisines that cross internal boundaries and incorporate processes of migration and globalization. However, this sometimes obscures how food is experienced within Andean nations as marking racial, ethnic and class boundaries. In fact, food is often the fraught location of struggles over inequalities in nutritional well being, political power, gender relations, and ethnic identities. The emergence of an elite Bolivian cuisine, one that draws on both foreign and indigenous products and knowledge, must thus be contextualized within two contexts. The first is Bolivia’s ongoing plurinational politics, which has radically altered understandings of the relationships between the nation-state, indigenous peoples, and plural ethnic/national identities. The second is the global context of reimagining gastronomy and culinary arts as something that goes beyond mere cooking, and instead represents a profession located at the intersection of elite knowledge and cosmopolitan consumption. This paper will explore how these complex intersections are manifesting in the realm of Bolivian novoandino cuisine by considering several distinct contexts where Bolivian cuisine is being reimagined and re-represented.

Author

• Clare A Sammells, Bucknell University