Deciphering a Meal

Author(s): Mary Douglas

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Daedalus, Vol. 101, No. 1, Myth, Symbol, and Culture (Winter, 1972), pp. 61-81
Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20024058 .
Accessed: 18/12/2012 07:01

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

The MIT Press and American Academy of Arts & Sciences are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve
and extend access to Daedalus.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
MARY DOUGLAS

a Meal
Deciphering

If language is a code, where is the precoded The question is

message?
to answer: a
phrased expect the nowhere. In these words linguist is ques
a if food is a code, where
tioning popular analogy.1 But try it this way: is
the precoded Here, on the home we are
message? anthropologist's ground,
able to improve the A code affords a
posing of the question. general set
of for If food is treated as a code,
possibilities sending particular messages.
the messages it encodes will be found in the
pattern of social relations be
ing expressed. The message is about different
degrees of hierarchy, inclus
ion and exclusion, boundaries and transactions across the boundaries. Like
sex, the taking of food has a social component, as well as a
biological
one.2 Food categories therefore encode social events. To say this is to
echo Roland Barthes3 on the sartorial of social events. His book,
encoding
Syst?me de la mode, is about about code-breaking
primarily methodology,
and code-making taken as a subject in itself. The next
step for the de
velopment of this conceptual tool is to take up a series of social
particular
events and see how are coded. This will involve a close understand
they
a microscale
ing of social system. I shall therefore start the exercise
by
the main food used at a a
analyzing categories particular point in time in
particular social system, our home. The humble and trivial case will open
the discussion of more exalted
examples.
Sometimes at home, to the I ask, "Would
hoping simplify cooking,
like to have for I mean a
you just soup supper tonight? good thick soup?
instead of supper. It's late and you must be a minute
hungry. It won't take
to serve." Then an starts: "Let's have and
argument soup now, supper
when are
you ready." "No no, to serve two meals would be more work.
But if you like,
why not start with the soup and fill up with
pudding?"
"Good heavens! What sort of a meal is that? A and an end and no
beginning
middle." "Oh, all right then, have the soup as it's there, and I'll do a
Welsh rarebit as well." When
they have eaten soup, Welsh rarebit, pud
ding, and cheese: "What a lot of do you make such elaborate
plates. Why
to argue that by
suppers?" They proceed taking thought I could satisfy the
full requirements of a meal with a
single, copious dish. Several rounds of
this conversation have given me a interest in the and
practical categories
61

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
62 MARY DOUGLAS

meanings of food. I needed to know what defines the category of a meal

in our home.

The first source for will be Claude L?vi

enlightenment obviously
Strauss's The Raw and
the Cooked and the other volumes of his Myth

ologiques4 which discuss food categories and table manners. But this is
a He fails us in two he takes leave
only beginning. major respects. First,
of the small-scale social relations which generate the codification and are
sustained by it. Here and there his feet touch solid ground, but mostly he
is in rarefied space where he expects to find universal food mean
orbiting
common to all mankind. He is a
ings looking for precoded, panhuman
message in the of food, and thus exposing himself to the criti
language
cism implicit in the quoted Second, he relies entirely
linguist's question.
on the resources of Therefore he affords no technique for
binary analysis.
the relative value of the that emerge in a local set
assessing binary pairs
of Worse than clumsy, his technical apparatus produces
expressions.
which cannot be validated. Yea, or nay, he and Roman Jakobson
meanings
may be right on the meanings in a sonnet of Baudelaire's.5 But even if the

poet himself had been able to judge between theirs and Riffaterre's al
ternative of the same work6 and to say that one was closer
interpretation
to his than the other, he would be more likely to agree that all
thought
these meanings are there. This is fair for literary criticism, but when we
are and the "science of the concrete,"7 it is
talking of grammar, coding,
not enough.
For the food categories used in a particular family the
analyzing
must start with those and not others are
analysis why particular categories
employed. We will discover the social boundaries which the food mean
encode an which values the to
ings by approach binary pairs according
their position in a series. Between breakfast and the last nightcap, the
food of the day comes in an ordered pattern. Between Monday and Sunday,
the food of the week is patterned again. Then there is the sequence of
and fast days the year, to say nothing of life cycle
holidays through
feasts, birthdays, and weddings. In other words, the binary or other con
trasts must be seen in their syntagmatic relations. The chain which links
them together gives each element some of its meaning. L?vi-Strauss dis
cusses the syntagmatic relation in his earlier book, The Savage Mind, but
uses it static analysis of classification
only for the systems (particularly
of proper names). It is capable of a much more dynamic application
to
food categories, as Michael has shown. On the two axes of syn
Halliday
and chain and choice, sequence and set, call it what you
tagm paradigm,
can be are all
will, he has shown how food elements ranged until they
accounted for either in grammatical terms, or down to the last lexical item.

like is patterned activity, and the daily menu may be made to

Eating, talking,
an analogy with form. Being an analogy, it is limited in relevance; its
yield linguistic

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 DECIPHERING A MEAL 63

purpose is to throw light on, and suggest problems of, the categories of grammar by
relating these to an activity which is familiar and for much of which a terminology is
ready to hand.

The presentation of a framework of categories for the description of eating might

proceed as follows:

Units: Daily menu

Meal
Course

Helping
Mouthful

Unit: Daily Menu

Elements of primary structure E, M, L, S ("early," "main," "light,"
"snack")
Primary structures EML EMLS (conflated as EML(S))
Exponents of these elements (primary E: 1 (breakfast)
classes of unit "meal") M :2 (dinner)
L: names available; see
3)(no secondary
^ 4 ? classes i

Secondary structures ELaSaM ELaM EMLbSb EMSaLc

Exponents of secondary elements (sys La:3.1 (lunch)
tems of secondary classes of unit Lb: 3.2 (high tea)
"meal") L0 :3.3 (supper)
Sa :4.1 (afternoon tea)
Sb :4.2 (nightcap)
System of sub-classes of unit "meal" E : 1.1 (English breakfast)
1.2 (continental breakfast)

Passing to the rank of the "meal," we will follow the class "dinner:"
through

Unit: Meal, Class: dinner

Elements of primary structure F, S, M, W, Z ("first," "second," "main,"
"sweet," "savoury")
Primary structures MW MWZ MZW FMW FMWZ
FMZW FSMW FSMWZFSMZW
(conflated as (F(S)MW(Z))
Exponents of these elements (primary F : 1 (antipasta)
classes of unit "course") S: 2 (fish)
M :3 (entr?e)
W: 4 (dessert)
Z: 5 (cheese*)
Secondary structures (various, elements
involving secondary
Fa..d, Ma>b, Wa.o)
Exponents of secondary elements (sys Fa : 1.1 (soup)
tems of secondary classes of unit Fb: 1.2 (hors d'oeuvres)
"course") Fc: 1.3 (fruit)
Fd: 1.4 (fruit juice)
Ma: 3.1 (meat dish)
Mb:3.2 (poultry dish)
Wa:4.1 (fruit*)
Wb:4.2 (pudding)
Wc :4.3 (ice cream*)

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
64 MARY DOUGLAS

Systems of sub-classes of unit "course" Fa: 1.11 (clear soup*)

1.12 (thick soup*)
S: 2.01 (grilled fish*)
2.02 (fried fish*)
2.03 (poached fish*)
Wb: 4.21 (streamed pudding*)
4.22 (milk pudding*)
Exponential systems in meal Fc : grapefruit/melon
operating
structure Fd: grapefruit juice/pineapple juice/
tomato juice
Ma: beef/mutton/pork
Mb: chicken/turkey/duck/goose

At the rank of the "course," the primary class"entr?e" has secondary classes "meat
dish" and "poultry dish." Each of these two secondary classes carries a grammatical

system whose terms are formal items. But this system accounts only for simple
structures of the class "entr?e," those made up of only one member of the unit "help
ing." The class "entr?e" also displays compound structures, whose additional elements
have as exponents the (various secondary classes of the) classes "cereal" and "vege
table." We will glance briefly at these:

Unit: Course, Class: entr?e

Elements of primary structure J, T, A ("joint," "staple," "adjunct")
Primary structures J JT JA JTA (conflated as J((T)(A)) )
Exponents of these elements (primary J : 1 (flesh)
classes of unit "helping") T: 2 (cereal)
A: 3 (vegetable)
Secondary structures (various, involving?among others?

secondary elements Ja>b, Ta,b, Aa>b)

Exponents of secondary elements (sys- Ja : 1.1 (meat \systems as at M in
terns of secondary classes of unit Jb: 1.2 (poultry) meal structure
j
"helping") Ta : 2.1 (potato)
Tb: 2.2 (rice)
Aa : 3.1 (green vegetable*)
Ab: 3.2 (root vegetable*)

And so on,
until everything is accounted for either in grammatical systems or in classes
made up of lexical items (marked *). The has proceeded down the rank
presentation
scale, but shunting is presupposed throughout: there is mutual determination among
all units, down to the gastronomic morpheme, the "mouthful."8

This
advances considerably the analysis of our family eating patterns.
First, it shows how
long and
tedious the exhaustive analysis would be,
even to read. It would be more to observe and record. Our model of
taxing
for a should not be less
ethnographic thoroughness microscopic example
exact than that in exotic lands. In
practiced by anthropologists working
are in com
India social distinctions invariably accompanied by distinctions
and categories of edible and inedible foods. Louis Dumont's im
mensality
portant work on Indian culture, Homo Hierarchicus, discusses the purity
of food as an index of hierarchy. He gives praise to Adrian Mayer's de
tailed study of the relation between food categories and social categories in

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 DECIPHERING A MEAL 65

a in Central India.9 Here castes group themselves

village twenty-three
according to the use of the same
pipe, the provision of ordinary food for
common meals, and the provision of food for feasts. Higher castes share
the pipe with almost all castes except four. Between twelve and sixteen
castes smoke together, though in some cases a different cloth must be
between the pipe and the lips of the smoker. When it comes to
placed
their food, a subtler is Castes which enjoy power in the
analysis required.
are not eat or from whom receive it.
village fussy about what they they
are as to whom
Middle range castes extraordinarily restrictive, both they
will accept food from and what they will eat. Invited to family ceremonies

by the
more and more ritually relaxed castes they puritanically
powerful
insist on being given their share of the food raw and retire to cook it
themselves in their own homes.10 If I were to follow this example and to
include all transmission of food from our home my task would be greater.
For certainly we too know situations in which drink is given to be con
sumed in the homes of the recipient. There are some kinds of service for
which it seems that the only possible recognition is half or even a whole
bottle of whiskey. With the high standards of the Indian research in mind,
I try now to identify the relevant categories of food in our home.
The two major contrasted food categories are meals versus drinks.
Both are social events. Outside these categories, of course, food can be
taken for private nourishment. Then we speak only
of the lexical item
itself: "Have an apple. Get a glass of milk. Are there any sweets?" If likely
to interfere with the next meal, such eating is disapproved. But no negative
attitude condemns before drinks. This and other indices suggest
eating
that meals rank higher.
Meals contrast with drinks in the relation between solids and liquids.
Meals are a mixture of solid foods accompanied by liquids. With drinks
the reverse holds. A series of associations
complex syntagmatic governs
in a meal, and connects can
the elements the meals through the day. One
I haven't had breakfast at breakfast
say: "It can't be lunchtime. yet," and
itself cereals come before bacon and eggs. Meals in their sequence tend to
be named. Drinks sometimes have named categories: "come for cocktails,
come for coffee, come for tea," but many are not named events: "What
about a drink? What shall we have?" There is no structuring of drinks into
are not invested with any in their order
early, main, light. They necessity
Nor is the event called drinks structured into first, second,
ing. internally
main, sweet. On the contrary, it is to stick with the same kind of
approved
to count at is
drink, and drinks all impolite. The judgment "It is too early
for alcohol" would be both rare and likely to be contested. The same lack
of structure is found in the solid foods drinks. are
accompanying They
served in discrete units which can be eaten with
usually cold, tidily fingers.
No order governs the choice of solids. When the children were small and
tea was a meal, bread and butter scones, scones preceded cake
preceded

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
66 MARY DOUGLAS

and sweetbiscuits. But now that the adult-child contrast no longer dom
inates in this tea has been demoted a
family, from necessary place in the
daily sequence of meals to an weekend drinks
irregular appearance among
and no rules govern the solids.
accompanying
Meals properly require the use of at least one mouth-entering utensil
per head, whereas drinks are limited to ones. A spoon on
mouth-touching
a saucer is for a
stirring, not sucking. Meals require a table, seating order,
restriction on movement and on alternative There is no ques
occupations.
tion of a meal. Even at breakfast, for the
knitting during Sunday reaching
newspapers is a that the meal is over. The meal its frame on
signal puts
the The rules which off and order one kind of social
gathering. hedge
interaction are reflected in the rules which control the internal
ordering of
the meal itself. Drinks and their solids may all be sweet. But a meal is not
a meal if it is all in the bland-sweet-sour dimensions. A meal incorporates
a number of contrasts, hot and cold, bland and and semi
spiced, liquid
liquid, and various textures. It also incorporates cereals, vegetables, and an
imal proteins. Criticism fastens on the of these elements in
easily ordering
a case.
given
the meanings in our food system should be elucidated by
Obviously
much closer observation. I cut it short by drawing conclusions intuitively
from the social categories which emerge. Drinks are for ac
strangers,
workmen, and Meals are for close friends, hon
quaintances, family. family,
ored guests. The grand operator of the system is the line between in
and distance. Those we know at meals we also know at drinks.
timacy
The meal expresses close friendship. Those we only know at drinks we know
less intimately. So long as this boundary matters to us (and there is no
reason to suppose it will the between drinks
always matter) boundary
and meals has There are smaller thresholds and half-way
meaning. points.
The entirely cold meal (since it omits a major contrast within a meal)
would seem to be such a modifier. So those friends who have never had a
hot meal in our home have presumably another threshold of intimacy to
cross. The recent of the barbecue and of more
popularity elaborately
structured cocktail events which act as between and
bridges intimacy
distance that our model of is a common one.
suggests feeding categories
It can be drawn as in 1. Thus far we can go on the basis of binary
figure
oppositions and the number of classes and subclasses. But we are left with
the general which must be raised whenever a
question correspondence
is found between a social structure and the structure of symbols by
given
which it is expressed, that is, the question of consciousness. Those who
the of a meal's constituted
vehemently reject possibility being by soup
or cake and fruit, are that they are
and pudding, certainly not conscious
a between share-drinks and share-meals-too.
thereby sustaining boundary
would be shocked at the very idea. It would be simplistic to trace
They
the food categories direct to the social categories they embrace and leave

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 DECIPHERING A MEAL 67

Figure 1. Social universe (a) share drinks; (b) share meals too.

it at 1. Evidently the external boundaries are a small

figure only part of
the meaning of the meal. Somewhere else in the some other
family system
cognitive activity is generating the internal structuring.
We can go much further toward discovering the intensity of meanings
and their anchorage in social life to the sequence of meals.
by attending
For the week's menu has its climax at lunch. the
Sunday By contrasting
structure of lunch with lunches a new
Sunday weekday principle emerges.
Weekday lunches tend to have a tripartite structure, one element stressed
two or more unstressed elements, for a main
accompanied by example
course and cold dishes. But lunch has two main courses,
supporting Sunday
each of which is patterned like the weekday first course, fish
lunch?say,
or meat (stressed) and two second course, pud
vegetables (unstressed),
(stressed), cream and biscuits (unstressed). Christmas lunch has
ding
three courses, each on the same tripartite model. Here we re
stop and
alize that the be read in the reverse sense. Meals are ordered
analogy may
in scale of and grandeur the week and the year.
importance through
The smallest, meanest meal the structure of the
metonymically figures
grandest, and each unit of the meal the whole meal?
grand figures again
or the meanest meal. The created by these repetitive
perspective analogies
invests the individual meal with additional Here we have the
meaning.
we were the intensifier of the selection prin
principle seeking, meaning,
ciple. A meal in the of meal only insofar as it carries this
stays category
structure which allows the part to recall the whole. Hence the outcry
against allowing the sequence of soup and pudding to be called a meal.
As to the social dimension, admission to even the in
simplest meal
corporates our into the of solid
guest unwittingly pattern Sunday dinners,

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
68 MARY DOUGLAS

Christmases, and the gamut of life cycle celebrations. Whereas the sharing
of drinks (note the fluidity of the central item, the lack of structuring,
the small, solids) expresses contrast only too
unsticky accompanying by
clearly the detachment and impermanence of simpler and less intimate so
cial bonds.

Summing up, syntagmatic relations between meals reveal a restrictive

which the meal is identified as such, as a minor or
patterning by graded
major event of its class, and then as a or bad of
judged good specimen
its kind. A system of upholds the process of recognition
repeated analogies
and grading. Thus we can broach the questions of interpretation which
binary analysis by itself leaves untouched. The features which a
single
need to as a meal in our
copious dish would display before qualifying
home would be something like those of the famous chicken Marengo
served to Napoleon after his victory over the Austrians.

who, on the of a battle, ate until after it was over, had

Bonaparte, day nothing
gone forward with his general staff and was a long way from his supply wagon.
Seeing his enemies put to flight, he asked Dunand to prepare dinner for him.
The master-chef at once sent men of the staff and ordnance in
quartermaster's
search of All could find were three four tomatoes, six cray
provisions. they eggs,
a small a little some oil and a . . . the dish was served
fish, hen, garlic, saucepan
on a tin plate, the
the chicken surrounded by the fried eggs and crayfish, with
sauce over it.11
poured

There must been many more excellent meals

have following similar scav

enging after the many victories of those campaigns. But only this one has
become famous. In my opinion the reason is that it combines the tradi
tional soup, fish, egg, and meat courses of a French feast all
celebratory
in a
plat unique.
If I wish to serve anything worthy of the name of supper in one dish
it must preserve the minimum structure of a meal. Vegetable soup so long
as it had noodles and grated cheese would do, or poached eggs on toast
with parsley. Now I know the formula. A proper meal is A (when A is the
stressed main course) plus 2B (when B is an unstressed course). Both A and
B contain each the same structure, in small, a + 2b, when a is the stressed
item and b the unstressed item in a course. A weekday lunch is A; Sunday
lunch is 2A; Christmas, Easter, and birthdays are A + 2B. Drinks by
contrast are unstructured.

To
understand the categories we have placed ourselves at the hub of
a small world, a home and its The precoded message of the
neighborhood.
food categories is the boundary of a series of social events. Our
system
reference to costs in time and work to indi
example made only oblique
cate the concerns involved. But unless the symbolic structure fits squarely
to some demonstrable social consideration, the analysis has only begun.
For the fit between the medium's symbolic boundaries and the boundaries
between categories of people is its only possible validation. The fit may

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 DECIPHERING A MEAL 69

at different to show some such match

be levels, but without being able
ing, the analysis of symbols remains arbitrary and subjective.
The question that now arises is the degree to which a uses sym
family
bolic structures which are available from the wider social system. Ob

viously this example reeks of the culture of a certain segment of the mid
dle classes of London. The family's idea of what a meal should be is in
fluenced the Steak House and by the French cuisine bourgeoise. Yet
by
herein is a of different traditions. The French version
implied synthesis
of the grand meal is dominated by the sequence of wines. The cheese plat
ter is the divide between a crescendo of individual savory dishes
mounting
and a descending scale of sweet ones ending with coffee. Individual
dishes in the French sequence can stand alone. the melon course
Compare
in a London restaurant and a Bordeaux restaurant. In the first, the half
slice is expected to be dusted with powdered castor sugar (a
ginger and
+ 2b) or decorated with a of orange and a
wedge crystallized cherry
(a + 2b). In the second, half a melon is served with no embellishment
but its own perfume and juices. A + 2B is obviously not a formula that
our but one that is current in our social environment. It
family invented,
governs even the structure of the cocktail canap?. The latter, with its
cereal base, its meat or cheese middle section, its sauce or pickle topping,
and its mixture of colors, suggests a mock meal, a minute metonym of
middle-class meals in Whereas the French pattern is more
English general.
like: C1 + B1 + Ax/A2 + B2 + C2, when the cheese course divides A1
(the main savory dish) from A2 (the main sweet). It would be completely
the of this essay to hazard a for either structure in
against spirit meaning
its quasi-environmental form. French families reaching out to the meal
structure of their cultural environment it and interact with it
develop
to their intentions. families reach out and find another
according English
own social purposes. Americans,
which they adapt to their Chinese, and
others do likewise. Since these cultural environments afford an ambient
stream of
symbols, capable of differentiating and intensifying, but not
anchored to a stable social base, we cannot further to interpret
proceed
them. At this point the analysis stops. But the problems which cannot be an
swered here, where the cultural universe is unbounded, can be
usefully
referred to a more closed environment.

To sum up, the meaning of a meal is found in a system of repeated

Each meal carries of the meaning of the other meals;
analogies. something
each meal is a structured social event which structures others in its own
is set by the range incorporated in
image. The upper limit of its meaning
the most member of its series. The recognition which allows
important
each member to be classed and
graded
with the others depends upon the
structure common to them all. The cognitive energy which demands that a
meal look like a meal and not like a drink is performing in the
culinary
medium the same exercise that it performs in
language. First, it distin

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
70 MARY DOUGLAS

guishes order, bounds it, and separates it from disorder. Second, it uses
economy in the means of a limited number of
expression by allowing only
structures. Third, it imposes a rank scale upon the of structures.
repetition
Fourth, the repeated formal analogies multiply the meanings that are
carried down any one of them by the power of the most By these
weighty.
four methods the meanings are enriched. There is no single point in the
rank scale, high or low, which provides the basic meaning or real mean

ing. Each exemplar has the meaning of its structure realized in the ex
at other levels.
amples
From we are led to a more for the
coding appropriate comparison
of a meal, that is, versification. To treat the meal as a poem
interpretation
a more serious example than I have used hitherto. I turn to the
requires
Jewish meal, governed by the Mosaic dietary rules. For Lu Chi, a third
century Chinese traffics in some way between the world
poet, poetry
and mankind. The poet is one who "traps Heaven and Earth in a cage of
form."12 On these terms the common meal of the Israelites was a kind of
classical poem. Of the Israelite table, too, it could be said that it enclosed
boundless space. To quote Lu Chi again:
We enclose boundless in a of paper;
space square-foot
pour out deluge from the inch-space of the heart.13
We
But the analogy slows down at Lu Chi's last line. For at first glance it is
not certain that the meal can be a medium. The meal is a kind of
tragic
poem, but by a very limited analogy. The cook may not be able to express
the powerful a can say.
things poet
In Purity and Danger14 I suggested a rational for the Mosaic
pattern
rejection of certain animal kinds. Ralph Bulmer has very justly reproached
me for an animal taxonomy for the explanation of the Hebrew
offering
dietary laws. The I claimed to discern must remain, he argued,
principles
at a subjective and arbitrary level, unless could take account of the
they
multiple dimensions of thought and activity of the Hebrews concerned.15
S. J. Tambiah has made effective criticisms of the same short
similarly
in my approach.16 Both have from their own field work
coming provided
distinguished examples of how the task should be conducted. In another
I to pay tribute to the importance of their research. But
publication hope
for the present purpose, I am to admit the force of their
happy reproach.
It was even against the whole spirit of my book to offer
an account of an
ordered system of thought which did not show the context of social rela
tions in which the categories had meaning. Ralph Bulmer let me down

gently by supposing that the ethnographic evidence concerning the an

cient Hebrews was too meager. However, reflection on this new research
and methodology has led me to reject that suggestion out of hand. We
know plenty about the ancient Hebrews. The problem is how to recognize
and relate what we know.

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 DECIPHERING A MEAL 71

New Guinea and Thailand are far apart, in in history, and

geography,
in civilization. Their local fauna are entirely different. these
Surprisingly,
two of animal classification have one in common. Each so
analyses thing
ciety projects on to the animal and values which cor
kingdom categories
respond to their categories of marriageable persons. The social categories
of descent and affinity dominate their natural categories. The good Thailand
son-in-law knows his place and to it: disordered, sex is
keeps displaced
reprobated and the odium transferred to the domestic of dirt
dog, symbol
and promiscuity. From the dog to the otter, the transfer of odium is dou
bled in strength. This amphibian as wild, But
they class counterpart-dog.
instead of keeping to the wild domain it is apt to leave its sphere at flood
time and to about in their watery fields. The ideas they attach to
paddle
incest are carried forward from the dog to the otter, the image of the ut
terly wrong son-in-law. For the Karam the social focus is upon the strained
relations between affines and cousins. A wide range of manmade rules
sustain the categories of a natural world which mirrors these anxieties. In
the Thailand and Karam studies, a strong analogy between bed and board
lies unmistakably beneath the system of classifying animals. The pattern
of rules which categorize animals correspond in form to the patterns of
rules governing human relations. Sexual and gastronomic consummation
are made of one another by reasons of analogous restrictions
equivalents
to each. to
applied Looking back from these examples the classifications of
Leviticus we seek in vain a statement, however of a similar as
oblique,
sociation between sex. a very
eating and Only strong analogy between
table and altar stares us in the face. On reflection, should the Israe
why
lites have had a similar concern to associate sex with food? Unlike the
other two no rule
examples, they had requiring them to
exchange their
womenfolk. On the contrary, were allowed to marry their
they parallel
first cousins. E. R. Leach has reminded us how
paternal strongly exogamy
was at the top political level,17 and within each tribe of
disapproved
Israel was even 36). We must seek
endogamy enjoined (Deuteronomy
elsewhere for their dominant preoccupations. At this point I turn to the
rules governing the common meal as prescribed in the Jewish It
religion.
is particularly that these rules have remained the same over
interesting
centuries. Therefore, if these categories express a relevance to social con
cerns we must those concerns to have remained in some form alive.
expect
The three rules about meat are: (1) the of certain animal
rejection
kinds as unfit for the table (Leviticus 11), (2) of those admitted as edible,
the separation of the meat from blood before (Leviticus 17:10),
cooking
(3) the total separation of milk from meat, which involves the minute
specialization of utensils (Exodus 23:19; 34:26; Deuteronomy 14:21).
I start with the classification of animals whose I claim to
rationality
have discerned. will to summarize the First,
Diagrams help argument.
animals are classified to of holiness (see figure 2). At
according degrees

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
72 MARY DOUGLAS

WATER

AIR

LAND

ALTAR TABLE ABOMINABLE

Figure 2. Degrees of holiness.

the bottom end of the scale some animals are abominable, not to be
touched or eaten. Others are fit for the table, but not for the altar. None
that are fit for the altar are not edible and vice versa, none that are not
edible are sacrificeable. The criteria for this grading are coordinated for
the three spheres of land, air, and water. with the we
Starting simplest,
find the sets as in figure 3.
Water creatures, to be fit for the table, must have fins and scales
(Leviticus 13:9-12; Deuteronomy 14:19). Creeping worms and
swarming
snakes, if in the water or on the land, are not fit for the table
they go
(Deuteronomy 14:19; Leviticus 11:41-43). "The term swarming creatures

Figure 3. Denizens of the water (a) insufficient criteria for (b); (b) fit for table;
(x) abominable: swarming.

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 DECIPHERING A MEAL 73

( sh?re? ) denotes living things which appear in swarms and is applied both
to those which teem in the waters (Genesis 1:20; Leviticus 11:10) and
to those which swarm on the the smaller land ani
ground, including
mals, reptiles and creeping insects."18 Nothing from this sphere is fit for the
altar. The Hebrews only sanctified domesticated animals and these did
not include fish. "When any one of you an to it
brings offering Jehovah,
shall be a domestic animal, taken either from the herd or from the flock"
(Leviticus 1:2). But, Assyrians and others sacrificed wild beasts, as S. R.
Driver and H. A. White point out.
Air creatures (see figure 4) are divided into more complex
sets: set
(a), those which and on the earth (Leviticus 11: 12), having
fly hop
wings and two legs, contains two subsets, one of which contains the named
birds, abominable and not fit for the table, and the rest of the birds (b),
fit for the table. From this latter subset a sub-subset (c) is drawn, which
is suitable for the altar?turtledove and pigeon (Leviticus 14; 5:7-8)
and the sparrow (Leviticus 14:49-53). Two separate sets of denizens of
the air are abominable, untouchable creatures (f), which have the wrong
number of limbs for their habitat, four legs instead of two (Leviticus
9:20), and (x), the swarming insects we have already noted in the water
(Deuteronomy 14:19 ).
The largest class of land creatures (a) (see figure 5) walk or hop on
the land with four legs. From this set of those with parted
quadrupeds,
hoofs and which chew the cud (b) are distinguished as fit for the table
(Leviticus 11:3; Deuteronomy 14:4-6) and of this set a subset consists of
the domesticated herds and flocks (c). Of these the first born (d) are to

Figure 4. Denizens of the air (a) fly and hop: wings and two legs; (b) fit for table;
(c) fit for altar; (f) abominable: insufficient criteria for (a); (x) abominable: swarming.

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 74 MARY DOUGLAS

Figure 5. Denizens of the land (a )Walk or hop with four legs; (b ) fit for table; ( c )
domestic herds and flocks; (d) fit for altar; (f) abominable: insufficient criteria for
(a); (g) abominable: insufficient criteria for (b); (x) abominable: swarming.

be offered to the priests 24:33). Outside the set (b) which

(Deuteronomy
part the hoof and chew the cud are three sets of abominable beasts: (g)
those which have either the one or the other but not both of the required
physical features; (f) those with the wrong number of limbs, two hands
instead of four legs (Leviticus 11:27 and 29:31); (x) those which crawl
upon their bellies (Leviticus 11:41-44).
The which thus appears between the different cate
isomorphism
of animal classed as abominable us to the of
gories helps interpret meaning
abomination. Those creatures which inhabit a water, air, or
given range,
land, but do not show all the criteria for (a) or (b) in that range are
abominable. The creeping, teeming creatures do not show cri
crawling,
teria for allocation to any class, but cut across them all.
Here we have a very rigid classification. It assigns living creatures to
one of three on a behavioral basis, and selects certain
spheres, morpho
are found most in the animals
logical criteria that commonly inhabiting
each It rejects creatures which are anomalous, whether in
sphere. living
between two spheres, or having features of members of another
defining
or features. Any falls out
sphere, lacking defining living being which
side this classification is not to be touched or eaten. To touch it is to be
defiled and defilement forbids entry to the temple. Thus it can be summed
up fairly by saying that anomalous creatures are unfit for altar and table.
This is a peculiarity of the Mosaic code. In other societies anomaly is not
so treated. Indeed, in some, the anomalous creature is treated as
always
the source of blessing and is specially fit for the altar (as the Lele pango
lin), or as a noble beast, to be treated as an honorable as the
adversary,

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 DECIPHERING A MEAL 75

Karam treat the cassowary. Since in the Mosaic code every degree of
holiness in animals has one way or the other for we
implications edibility,
must follow further the other rules humans and animals. Again
classifying
I summarize a
long argument with diagrams. First, note that a category
which divides some humans from others, also divides their animals from
others. Israelites descended from Abraham and bound to God
by the
Covenant between God and Abraham are from all other
distinguished
and similarly the rules which Israelites obey as part of the Cove
peoples
nant to their animals (see 6). The rule that the womb opener
apply figure
or first born is consecrated to divine service to
applies firstlings of the
flocks and herds (Exodus 22:29-30; Deuteronomy 24:23) and the rule of
Sabbath observance is extended to work animals (Exodus 20:10). The
are to other humans as their livestock are to
analogy by which Israelites
other quadrupeds develops by indefinite stages the analogy between altar
and table.
Since L?vites who are consecrated to the temple service represent the
first born of all Israel (Numbers 3:12 and 40) there is an analogy between
the animal and human firstlings. Among the Israelites, all of whom
prosper the Covenant and observance of the Law, some are nec
through
at time. No man or woman issue
essarily unclean any given with of seed
or blood, or with forbidden contact with an animal classed as unclean, or
who has shed blood or been involved in the unsacralized an ani
killing of
mal (Leviticus 18), or who has sinned morally (Leviticus 20) can enter
the temple. Nor can one with a blemish 23) enter the
(Deuteronomy
or eat the flesh of sacrifice or peace (Leviticus 8:20).
temple offerings
The L?vites are selected from all the Israelites. They rep
by pure descent
resent the first born of Israel. They
judge the cleanness and purify the un
cleanness of Israelites (Leviticus 13, 14). Only L?vites who are without
bodily blemish (Leviticus 21:17-23) and without contact with death can
enter the Holy of Holies. Thus we can present these rules as sets in
figures
7 and 8. The analogy between humans and animals is very clear. So
is the analogy created by these rules between the temple and the living
body. Further analogies appear between the classification of animals ac
to holiness (figure 2) and the rules which set up the
cording analogy of
the holy temple with its holier and holier inner sanctuaries, and on the
other hand between the temple's holiness and the body's purity and the

Under the Covenant

Human Israelites others

Nonhuman their livestock others

6. between humans and nonhumans.

Figure Analogy

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 76 MARY DOUGLAS

7. The Israelites (c) under the Covenant; (d) fit for sacrifice: no
Figure temple
blemish; (e) consecrated to service, first born.
temple
8. Their livestock (c) under the covenant; (d) fit for sacrifice: no
Figure temple
blemish; (e) consecrated to service, first born.
temple

capacity of each to be defiled by the self-same forms of impurity. This

is a of the Judeo-Christian tradition which has been
analogy living part
in its interpretation of New Testament allusions. The words of
unfaltering
the Last from looking backward over the
Supper have their meaning
centuries in which the analogy had held good and forward to the future
celebrations of that meal. "This is my body . . . this is
my blood" (Luke
22:19-20; Mark 14:22-24; Matthew 26:26-28). Here the meal and the
sacrificial victim, the table and the altar are made explicitly to stand for one
another.

Lay these rules and their patternings in a straight perspective, each one
forward and backward to all the others, and we the same
looking get
repetition of metonyms that we found to be the key to the full meaning
of the categories of food in the home. By itself the body and its rules can
carry the whole load of meanings that the temple can carry by itself with
its rules. The and are consistent. What then
overlap repetitions entirely
are these Between the and the we are in a maze
meanings? temple body
of religious thought. What is its social counterpart? Turning back to my
of the forbidden meats we are in a much better position
original analysis
to assess intensity and social relevance. For the metonymical patternings
are too obvious to ignore. At every moment are in chorus with a
they
message about the value of purity and the rejection of impurity. At the
level of a general taxonomy of living beings the purity in question is the

purity of the categories. Creeping, swarming, teeming creatures abomin

ably destroy the taxonomic boundaries. At the level of the individual
impurity is the broken, specimen. The
living being imperfect, bleeding
of boundaries is made known the
sanctity cognitive by valuing integrity of

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 DECIPHERING A MEAL 77

the physical forms. The perfect physical specimens point to the perfectly
bounded turn
temple, altar, and sanctuary. And these in their point to the
hard-won and hard-to-defend territorial boundaries of the Promised Land.
This is not reduetionism. We are not here the rules to
reducing dietary
any political concern. But we are how are
showing they consistently
a theme that has been celebrated in the in the
celebrating temple cult and
whole history of Israel since the first Covenant with Abraham and the first
sacrifice of Noah.
Edmund Leach, in his analysis of the of Solomon, has re
genealogy
us a
minded of the political problems besetting people who claim by pure
descent and pure religion to own a territory that others held and others

continually encroached upon.19 Israel is the boundary that all the other
boundaries celebrate and that gives them their historic load of meaning.
this, the orthodox meal is not difficult
to as a
Remembering interpret
poem. The first rule, the of certain animal kinds, we have
rejection mostly
dealt with. But the identity of the list of named abominable birds is still a
question. In the Mishnah it is written: "The characteristics of birds are not
stated, but the Sages have said, every bird that seizes its prey (to tread
or attack with claws) is unclean."20 The idea that the unclean birds were
because were an
predators, unclean they image of human pr?dation and
so that it has
homicide, easily fits the later Hellenicizing interpretations
been suspect. According to the late Professor S. Hooke (in a personal
communication), Professor R. S. Driver once tried out the idea that the
Hebrew names were of the screeches and calls of the birds.
onomatopoeic
He diverted an of divines with
assembly learned ingenious vocal exercises
combining ornithology and Hebrew scholarship. I have not traced the
record of this meeting. But following the method of analysis I have been
it seems very that the traditional idea is sufficient,
using, likely predatory
its with the second rule the common
considering compatibility governing
meal.

According to the second rule, meat for the table must be drained of its
blood. No man eats flesh with blood in it. Blood belongs to God alone, for
life is in the blood. This rule relates the meal systematically to all the
rules which exclude from the temple on grounds of contact with or respon
sibility for bloodshed. Since the animal kinds which defy the
perfect class
ification of nature are defiling both as food and for entry to the temple, it is
a structural
repetition of the general analogy between body and temple to
rule that the eating of blood defiles. Thus the birds and beasts which eat
carrion (undrained of blood) are the same to be defil
likely by reasoning
ing. In my analysis, the Mishnah's identifying the unclean birds as preda
tors is
convincing.
Here we come to a watershed between two kinds of defilement. When
the classifications of any metaphysical scheme are on nature,
imposed
there are several it does not fit. So as the classifications
points where long

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
78 MARY DOUGLAS

remain in pure
metaphysics and are not expected to bite into
daily life
in
the form of rules of behavior, no arises. But if the unity of God
problem
head is to be related to the unity of Israel and made into a rule of life,
the difficulties start. First there are the creatures whose behavior defies the

rigid classification. It is relatively easy to deal with them by rejection and

avoidance. Second there are the difficulties that arise from our biological
condition. It is all very well to the holiness of God in the perfec
worship
tion of his creation. But the Israelites must be nourished and must repro
duce. It is impossible for a pastoral people
to eat their flocks and herds
without damaging the bodily completeness they respect. It is impossible
to renew Israel without emission of blood and sexual fluids. These prob
lems are met sometimes by avoidance and sometimes by consecration to the
of blood from meat is a ritual act which
temple. The draining figures the
sacrifice at the altar. Meat is thus transformed from a creature
bloody living
into a food item.
As to the third rule, the separation of meat and milk, it honors the pro
creative functions. The analogy between human and animal parturition is
as the Mishnah shows in its comment on the of
always implied, edibility
the afterbirth found in the slaughtered dam: if the afterbirth had emerged
in part, it is forbidden as food; "it is a token of young in a woman and a
token of young in a beast."21 Likewise this third rule honors the Hebrew
mother and her initial unity with her offspring.
In conclusion I return to the researches of Tambiah and Bulmer. In
each case a concern with sexual relations, or is
approved disapproved,
reflected on to the Thailand and Karam animal classifications. In the case
of Israel the dominant concern would seem to be with the integrity of
territorial boundaries. But Edmund Leach has out how over and
pointed
over again were concerned with the threat to Israel's holy calling
they
from marriages with outsiders. Foreign husbands and foreign wives led to
false gods and political defections. So sex is not omitted from the meanings
in the common meal. But the question is different. In the other cases the

problems
arose from rules about
exchanging
women. In this case the con
cern is to insist on not women.
exchanging
Perhaps I can now suggest an answer to Ralph Bulmer's question about
the abhorrence of the pig. "Dr. Douglas tells us that the pig was an un
clean beast to the Hebrew it was a taxonomic an
quite simply because
as the Old Testament says, because like the normal domes
omaly, literally
tic animals it has a cloven hoof, whereas imlike other cloven-footed beasts,
it does not chew the cud. And she pours a certain amount of scorn on the
commentators of the last 2,000 years who have taken alternative views
and drawn attention to the creature's habits, etc." Dr. Bulmer
feeding
would be tempted to reverse the argument and to say that the other
are as an exercise
animals prohibited part of elaborate for rationalizing
"the prohibition of a beast for which there were probably multiple rea

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 DECIPHERING A MEAL 79

sons for avoiding. It would seem fair, on the limited evidence

equally
available, to argue that the was accorded anomalous taxonomic status
pig
because it was unclean as to argue that it was unclean because of its
anomalous taxonomic status."22 On more mature reflection, and with the
own research, I can now see that the to the Israelites
help of his pig
could have had a special taxonomic status equivalent to that of the otter
in Thailand. It carries the odium of multiple pollution. First it pollutes
because it defies the classification of ungulates. Second, it be
pollutes
cause it eats carrion. Third, it because it is reared as food (and
pollutes
as non-Israelites. An Israelite who betrothed
presumably prime pork) by
a have been liable to be offered a feast of pork. By these
foreigner might
comes
stages it plausibly
to represent the utterly
disapproved form of sexual
and to carry all the odium that this We now can trace a
mating implies.
general analogy between the food rules and the other rules against mix
tures: "Thou shalt not make thy cattle to gender with beasts of any other
kind" (Leviticus 19:19). "Thou shalt not with any beast" (Levit
copulate
icus 18:23). The common meal, decoded, as much as any poem, summarizes
a stern,
tragic religion.
We are left the of why, when so much else had been forgot
question
ten23 about the rules of purification and their meaning, the three rules
the Jewish meal have persisted. What meanings do they still
governing
encode, unmoored as are from their social context? It
they partly original
would seem that whenever a are aware of encroachment and dan
people
rules what into the would serve as a vivid
ger, dietary controlling goes body
at risk. But here I am,
analogy of the corpus of their cultural categories
to my own strictures, a universal free of
contrary suggesting meaning,
social context, one which is to make sense whenever the
particular likely
same situation is perceived. We have come full-circle to
figure 1, with
its two concentric circles. The outside boundary is weak, the inner one
strong. Right through the diagrams summarizing the Mosaic dietray rules
the focus was upon the integrity of the boundary at (b). Abominations
of the water are those finless and scaleless creatures which lie outside that
Abominations of the air appear less clearly in this light because
boundary.
the unidentified forbidden birds had to be shown as the widest circle from
which the edible selection is drawn. If it be granted that are
they predators,
then they can be shown as a small subset in the unlisted set, that is as
denizens of the air not fit for table because they
eat blood. They would
then be seen to threaten the boundary at (b) in the same
explicit way
as among the denizens of the land the circle (g) threatens it.We should
therefore not conclude this essay without more positive
saying something
about what this boundary encloses. In the one case it divides edible from
inedible. But it is more than a negative barrier of exclusion. In all the
cases we have seen, it bounds the area of structured relations. Within that
area rules Outside it, anything goes. the argument we
apply. Following

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
80 MARY DOUGLAS

have established by which each level of meaning realizes the others which
share a common structure, we can that the ordered which
fairly say system
is a meal represents all the ordered systems associated with it. Hence the
arousal power of a threat to weaken or confuse that To
strong category.
take our analysis of the culinary medium further we should study what the
poets say about the that they adopt. A passage from Roy Fuller's
disciplines
lectures helps to the flash of recognition and confidence which
explain
welcomes an ordered He is Allen T?te, who said: "Formal
pattern. quoting
versification is the primary structure of poetic order, the assurance to the
reader and to the poet himself that the poet is in control of the disorder
both outside him and within his own mind."24
The rules of the menu are not in themselves more or less trivial than the
rules of verse to which a submits.
poet

I am to Professor Basil Bernstein and to Professor M. A. K. for

grateful Halliday
valuable and for criticisms, some of which I have not been able to meet.
suggestions My
thanks are due to my son for working out the Venn used in this article.
James diagrams

References

1. Michael A. K. "Categories of the Theory of Grammar," Word, Journal of

Halliday,
the Linguistic Circle of New York, 17 (1961), 241-291.

2. The discussion between on the relation between

continuing anthropologists biological
and social facts in. the understanding of kinship is relevant to the
categories fully
understanding of food categories.

3. Roland Barthes, Syst?me de la mode (Paris: Editions Seuil, 1967).

4. Claude L?vi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction to a Science of My

I (London: 1970). The whole series in French is
thology, Jonathan Cape, Mytholo
I. Le Cru et le cuit, II. Du Miel aux cendres, III. des mani?res de
giques: L'Origine
table (Paris: Pion, 1964-1968).

5. Roman Jakobson and Claude L?vi-Strauss, "Les Chats de Charles Baudelaire,"

L'Homme, 2 (1962), 5-21.

6. Michael Riffaterre, Poetic Structures: Two to Baudelaire's

"Describing Approaches
Les Chats," Structuralism, Yale French Studies 36 and 37 (1987).

7. Claude L?vi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (London: Heidenfeld and Nicholson, 1966;

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962, 1966).

8. Halliday, of the Theory of Grammar," pp. 277-279.

"Categories

9. Adrian C. Caste and in Central India: A and Its Region

Mayer, Kinship Village
(London: Routledge, 1960).

10. Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste and Its trans.
System Implications,
M. (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1970; French ed., Gallimard,
Sainsbury
1966), pp. 86-89.

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 DECIPHERING A MEAL 81

11. See under "Marengo," Larousse Gastronomique (Hamlyn, 1961).

12. A. MacLeish, Poetry and Experience (London: Head, 1960), p. 4.

Bodley

13. Ibid.

14. Mary Douglas, and An of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo

Purity Danger: Analysis
(London: Routledge, 1966).

15. Ralph Bulmer, Is the Not a Bird? A Problem of

"Why Cassowary Zoological
the Karam of the New Guinea Man, new ser., 2
Taxonomy Among Highlands,"
(1967), 5-25.
16. S. J. Tambiah, "Animals Are Good to Think and Good to Prohibit," Ethnology, 7
(1969), 423-459.
17. E. R. Leach, "The of Solomon," Genesis as and Other
Legitimacy Myth Essays
(London: Jonathan Cape, 1969).
18. S. R. Driver and H. A. White, The Bible, Leviticus, v.l.fn. 13.
Polychrome

19. Leach, of Solomon."

"Legitimacy

20. H. Danby, trans, The Mishnah (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), p. 324.

21. Ibid., p. 520.

22. Bulmer, Is the Cassowary Not a Bird?" p. 21.

"Why

23. Moses Maimonides, Guide for the trans. M. Friedlander (London:

Perplexed,
Routledge, 1904; first ed., 1881).
24. Roy Fuller, Owls and Artificers: Oxford Lectures on Poetry (London: Andre
Deutsch, 1971), p. 64.

This content downloaded on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:01:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions