Very interesting article. I've just watched Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much" [1] a few days ago, a film made ~40 years after Wharton's visit and with another World War in between, and the orientalism was still there, front and center. The scene where James Stewart (an actor that I love, otherwise) tries to eat traditional Moroccan food is a prime example of it. [2]
What was so bad about the scene? The food, way of eating, the tiles, couches and way of dressing is all pretty authentic. I just don't see the fez hats much outside of such tourist-oriented restaurants, or certain occasions or functions.
I dunno, I remember sitting at regular tables and using regular cutlery in all restaurants in Morocco. Regardless of whether the place was touristy or not. Fwiw I didn't mind the scene, either.
I have travelled the whole length and breadth of Morocco several times hitchhiking, which has led to innumerable invitations to stay with local people and eat with them. Cutlery isn't always used; among rural society one is expected to scoop up food from a common plate with the aid of a chunk of bread.
I find that a ton of things (such as cutlery use) that we consider western is really just wealth. You're more likely to use a cutlery if you can afford it, and for most why buy it when I have hands and bread.
Cutlery is clearly the superior way to eat many types of food. But cutlery, reusable or not, costs money.
When I travelled in eastern Europe it was common to have only spoons (for soups) and rice dishes. Meat was always eaten by hand.
Soups served with entire boiled chicken legs were common (although usually the meat was often a luxury and only bought/killed that day to respect my visit to their home).
The legs were expected to be eaten by hand and cleaned to the bone (cartilage and all). Chicken stomachs were my most hated and most commonly eaten...
In the poorest places home made bread was used in lieu of cutlery so much so that I began to make gifts of cutlery to the poorest homes I was invited to all of which they use to this day (of course the new children miss out and must eat in the old we way).
Sorry for the disjointed nature of this post I find it hard to write on a phone.
About the way of eating : The explanation of the first guy is correct (using three fingers).
But most of the time you don't use your bare fingers directly, you use bread to grab the food. You do something similar to this video [1].
For other dishes (Pastilla, couscous) you use your bare fingers. For couscous, the technique is a little bit difficult, you have to form a ball in your hand [2].
Stewart’s reaction about it all, how he was “amazed” about the sitting and the bread, it was all “how can one be Persian?”. How can one eat this bread? How can one sit on these pillows? How can one eat with his hands? To top it all, the scene needed the white character’s approval that that was indeed very good food.
There was also literally a black-face scene further in the movie, which even for the late 1950s it was a strange thing to film.
Well for one, that's not quite the case. You'll for example regularly see the king wear a fes hat when receiving foreign dignitaries, it's not quite like a Mexican sombrero.
Second, even if that was the case, I can assure you it's not unlikely for foreigners in Mexico to visit tourist-oriented places where you'll find locals wearing a sombrero. The fact that they're pandering to customers and this is part of a movie scene, doesn't mean the movie is the latin american equivalent of orientalist. The same goes for fes hats in Morocco. If anything, the scene exposes the orientalist nature of some of its characters who're ignorant and exaggerate the cultural differences, while others see the differences as quite ordinary and aren't fazed by them.
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[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 37.6 ms ] thread[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049470/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FkWnwK08IQ
Cutlery is clearly the superior way to eat many types of food. But cutlery, reusable or not, costs money.
When I travelled in eastern Europe it was common to have only spoons (for soups) and rice dishes. Meat was always eaten by hand.
Soups served with entire boiled chicken legs were common (although usually the meat was often a luxury and only bought/killed that day to respect my visit to their home).
The legs were expected to be eaten by hand and cleaned to the bone (cartilage and all). Chicken stomachs were my most hated and most commonly eaten...
In the poorest places home made bread was used in lieu of cutlery so much so that I began to make gifts of cutlery to the poorest homes I was invited to all of which they use to this day (of course the new children miss out and must eat in the old we way).
Sorry for the disjointed nature of this post I find it hard to write on a phone.
But most of the time you don't use your bare fingers directly, you use bread to grab the food. You do something similar to this video [1].
For other dishes (Pastilla, couscous) you use your bare fingers. For couscous, the technique is a little bit difficult, you have to form a ball in your hand [2].
1: starts at 6:55 https://youtu.be/mH4wki8z5oI?t=410
2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snLsmEn1NUA
There was also literally a black-face scene further in the movie, which even for the late 1950s it was a strange thing to film.
Second, even if that was the case, I can assure you it's not unlikely for foreigners in Mexico to visit tourist-oriented places where you'll find locals wearing a sombrero. The fact that they're pandering to customers and this is part of a movie scene, doesn't mean the movie is the latin american equivalent of orientalist. The same goes for fes hats in Morocco. If anything, the scene exposes the orientalist nature of some of its characters who're ignorant and exaggerate the cultural differences, while others see the differences as quite ordinary and aren't fazed by them.