Liforme Instravagante: food seen power representation in the brazilian northeastern hinterlands

Abstract

The aim of the current study is to analyze the song called “Liforme Instravagante”, which was collected from the oral tradition, adapted from the rhythm called coco to baião and re-recorded by Luiz Gonzaga do Nascimento, in 1963. The song discloses the representations and construction of the social imagery attributed to food. The adopted methodology was based on theoretical-methodological devices such as Discourse Analysis, based on Bakthin. The popular song remained linked to the oral modality of Brazilian Portuguese and did not underwent the “sanitation” process, which lies on erasing orality traces and replacing them with constructions associated with the written modality. “Liforme Instravagante” depicts dietary habits adopted by the Brazilian Northeastern society and the way it is organized. This song reveals the power of the colonel, who offers a banquet comprising typical food from that region during Saint John the Baptist Feasts. As the song describes food abundance, it also shines light on the poverty and scarcity faced by the people. Thus, the act of eating not only highlights the biological aspect of it, but also the intertwining of socio-political, symbolic, identity and cultural perspectives.