Daniel W. Gade

Tradition, Territory, and Terroir in French Viniculture: Cassis, France, and Appellation Contrôlée

Abstract Many French wines, and now other kinds of agricultural products, manifest the process of “patrimonialization” as a counterforce to the homogenizing trends in the globalization of world food systems. The appellation contrôlée (AOC) concept, which dates from 1935, is the oldest expression of that patrimonial process. In it, the characteristics of a place—the terroir—are used to gloss its legally protected, territorial definition on which hinge claims to a place-based product authenticity and, by extension, quality. AOC implementation, now with almost seven decades of experience in France, serves as the model to understand how the application of terroir to place has focused on land-use practice, wine definition, vinicultural tradition, and landscape preservation. A complementary process at work is product salience that establishes its individuality in an interactive expectation between producer and consumer. Fieldwork in the commune of Cassis (Department of Bouches-du-Rhône) in the South of France sorted the set of historical, environmental, and economic conditions to reveal the actual functioning of these two processes at a local level. Appellation Cassis contrôlée, the third oldest and one of the smallest AOC in French viniculture, comprises 180 ha of vineyards and fourteen wine growers. In this case, establishment of product authenticity has been a continuous process. Wine types have evolved in spite of the absence of real innovation; political territory has been used to define terroir; the discourse of quality depends heavily on the historic past; vineyards have acquired a community value beyond any productivity; and producers have defined and defended their territory to boost its prestige to themselves and their consumers. The key entity in the appellation is the lower winegrowers syndicate. Presumptive statements, promotional rhetoric, consumer desire, and the politics of local decision making have shaped this wine region far beyond its environmental associations.

Ethnobotany of cañihua (Chenopodium pallidicaule), rustic seed crop of the Altiplano

SummaryCañihua, Chenopodium pallidicaule, is a weedy plant cultivated by Indian fanners on the Altiplano of Peru and Bolivia. Because cañihua is resistent to low temperatures, drought, salty soil, disease, and pests, it has achieved importance in the agricultural system, but only because it prospers where other crops are often marginal food producers. Its dual usage of seed and ash, high protein content, and function as an insurance crop explain its persistence, but its future role in Altiplano agriculture may depend on its genetic improvement.

Village Settlement and the Colonial Legacy in Southern Peru

THE current rural settlement in the highlands of Peru and Boliva reflects an administrative fiat imposed on the Andean landscape by an alien culture four centuries ago. The dwellings of the indigenes were dispersed, but between 1570 and 1575 the Spanish viceroy, Francisco de Toledo, ordered their concentration in more than a thousand compact villages known as reducciones. A million or more Indians were torn from their homes and resettled in tight clusters so that it would be easier for the Spanish authorities to control and acculturate them.2 Subsequent rural settlements in the central Andes developed mainly as offshoots of the original reducciones; most post-Toledan villages resembled the ones built in the early 1570s. The reducci6n system is one example of landscape design imposed by bureaucratic decree. Three prime geographical components can be identified in this type of landscape design: the characteristics of the physical environment, the cultural configuration of the habitants, and the goals of the imposing authority or group. The native peoples of the Andes had adapted to the mountainous terrain, the highly compressed climatic zones, and the availability of local resources. That finely tuned man-land adjustment culminated in the Incan empire which ended when the Spaniards conquered Peru between 1532 and 1533. The Spaniards were self-consciously the bearers of the Mediterranean variety of Western civilization. One aspect of Andean society and culture that they altered was the settlement system. Mindful of the role of the past in molding the present, we examine the results of the implementation of that Spanish edict on a portion of the high Andes. To examine the fate of the European-imposed nuclei, we focus on the southwestern portion of the department of Cuzco. This rugged, remote zone of the southern Peruvian highlands encompasses nearly 14,000 square kilometers. A plateau between 3,500 and 4,200 meters above sea level dominates the area; in some places mountains rise as high as 5,271 meters (Fig. 1). The

Horsemeat as human food in France

The acceptance of horsemeat as an appealing food for humans is one of the few documented cases of a change in attitude from aversion to qualified approval of a meat. From a taboo with religious and sentimental connotations, there evolved the notion that horsemeat was intrinsically unclean and then unhealthy. Resistance to hippophagy was abandoned during food shortage crises in France, and this eroded the prejudice against it in normal times. Beginning in the nineteenth century, the hygienic, therapeutic, culinary, economic and social arguments for hippophagy crystallized thanks to previous acceptance in other European countries, a promotional crusade and commercial segregation. By 1910 France had become the horseflesh center of the Western world. Hippophagy in France has remained urban‐centered and working class oriented. Even though no more than a third of Frenchmen eat it, changing sources and reliability of supply, rising prices and shifting consumer habits suggest that use of this meat has reached its...

Curiosity, inquiry, and the geographical imagination

This book examines intellectual curiosity as the driving force in scholarly endeavor on the borderlands of geography, history, anthropology, and other disciplines. The premise is that curiosity is a salient trait of certain people past and present and that each field has its exemplars in this regard. For Carl O. Sauer (1889-1975), Americas leading geographer of the twentieth century, and his intellectual descendants, the inquisitive spirit stood high on the list of indispensable scholarly attributes. Their curiosity-driven studies converging space, time, ecology, and culture involved a fluid and unpredictable process of intellectual discovery. This book, combining the empirical with the philosophical and reflexive, describes how the power of intrinsic motivation and the thread of a romantic consciousness blend with the joy of polymathic exploration.

HYENAS AND HUMANS IN THE HORN OF AFRICA

The spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), the most common large carnivore in the highlands and lowlands of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia, has occupied both a scavenging niche and a predatory position at the top of the food chain. My own field explorations on this animal and the observations of travelers document its long and ambivalent association with people in the Horn of Africa. Spotted hyenas in this region have mostly lived in anthropogenic contexts rather than, as in East Africa, on wildlife. Tolerated as efficient sanitation units, hyenas have removed garbage and carrion from towns. They have also destroyed livestock, killed people, and eaten corpses. Famine, epidemics, and armed conflict have provided opportunities for unbridled anthropophagy. The past and present coming together of human and hyena in this multiethnic region can be viewed as a vestige of a primeval African ecological relationship that dates far back in prehistory. Biological processes offer a deeper framework than culture with which to grasp the inherent contradiction of the hyena/human relationship past and present.

WINDBREAKS IN THE LOWER RHONE VALLEY

ENSELY spaced hedgerows form the dominant landscape motif wherever they are found. These rectilinear arrangements of trees or shrubs occur in areas of differing physical, cultural, or economic complexity, and the motives for their implantation and persistence are diverse.1 Unlike the hedges of northwestern Europe that have long served a variety of purposes, those in the south of France are used mostly for wind abatement. The exceptional density of windbreaks in the flat, irrigated zones of Provence (Fig. i) provokes reflection on their origin, composition, and perceived role in a specialized and dynamic agricultural system.

The Iberian Pig in the Central Andes

The Iberian pig is an ancient breed of domesticated swine with long legs and a narrow snout. Small and agile, it thrives despite minimal human support, feeding mainly on acorns. Its transfer to the New World after the great discoveries was highly successful even where acorns did not exist. In Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, this breed still dominates the pig inventory, providing meat and lard to the rural population. In the highlands of these three countries it is sometimes fed, but has a more important role as an ambulatory refuse collector. In some forested zones at lower elevations, it still forages on nature. Replacement or crossbreeding with modern breeds compromises the ecological niche that this pig has held in peasant livelihoods.

Grist Milling with the Horizontal Waterwheel in the Central Andes

Most traditional societies continue to depend primarily on technological systems retained from an earlier age. In the Central Andes of South America, the essential tasks of food production are still carried out using methods and devices passed down from the Inca period or introduced centuries ago from preindustrial Europe. The principal custodians of these traditional ways of growing and processing crops are Indian peasant farmers, who still predominate in the mountain valleys and basins of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. One element of Old World rural technology that persists among them is the water-driven gristmill. The mills found in this zone are the simplest of all water-moved devices, for they operate by a horizontal wheel requiring no gears. However primitive the mills appear today, their introduction to the Andes after the European conquest significantly improved the processing of grains for human food in that region.

Environment and disease in the land use and settlement of Apurimac Department, Peru

Zusammenfassung Die engen Taler des Apurimac-Flussystems im Suden Zentralperus weisen ein Klima auf, das in krassem Gegensatz zum Klima der angrenzenden Hochlander steht. Die Spanier mit ihrem feudal strukturierten Haziendasystem erkannten, das diese Taler fur den Anbau von Zuckerrohr besonders geeignet waren und das sich jenseits der Talrander ein guter Markt fur den Absatz von Zuckerprodukten bot. Unbeabsichtigt schleppten sie aber auch die Malaria ein. Durch die kunstliche Bewasserung der Talsohlen schafften sie Brutstatten fur Moskitos, die diese und damit die Malaria dort heimisch werden liesen. Die Malaria hatte verheerende Auswirkungen auf die indianische Bevolkerung. Es wurden verschiedene Masnahmen getroffen, um der schlechten Gesundheitsbedingungen in den Talern Herr zu werden: Errichtung neuer Dorfer oberhalb und auserhalb der Malariagebiete; saisonale Wanderung der indianischen Arbeitskrafte, um die Zeit ihres Aufenthalts in den betroffenen Gebieten einzuschranken; Aufgabe der am schlimmsten verseuchten Zuckerrohranbaugebiete; Ersatz der indianischen Arbeiter durch Neger. Inzwischen ist die Krankheit nahezu ausgerottet, und auch die okonomische und soziale Struktur der warmen Taler hat sich so grundlegend verandert, das die erwahnten Verbesserungsmasnahmen heute kaum noch eine Bedeutung haben.