As mãos que mexem as panelas: a culinária tradicional seridoense e as normas de vigilância sanitária, na cidade de Caicó/RN

Abstract

The inspiration of this dissertation has as its starting point the provocations brought by the arguments of the Manifesto Cozinhista Brasileiro (Paladar column of the newspaper Estadão) and the Manifesto da Colher de Pau (Brazilian Forum on Sovereignty and Food and Nutrition Security - FBSSAN), which discuss how the Technical Regulation of Good Practices for Food Services (RDC 216/2004 - ANVISA) limit / prohibit traditional culinary practices, generating a conflict between technical norms and traditional culinary practice. In this way, we seek to know the aspects that constitute this situation of conflict between the traditional cooking practices and the technical norm, reflecting how the traditional cooks judge these norms in their application in the traditional space. We have as a spatial clipping the city of Caicó, state of Rio Grande do Norte and we present the objectives of knowing the practices of the regional cooking serido, in the city of Caicó / RN; to understand the extent to which cultural forms of cooking conflict with technical standards and to what extent they re-signify themselves; understand what "good practice" means from the standpoint of tradition by comparing it to the point of view of the norm. We start from the concept of Reflective Modernization (GIDDENS et al., 1997) to understand how tradition and modernity coexist and how the sense of trust (GIDDENS, 1991) is constructed for modernity. As a method, we used the Interview in Depth (PERDIGÃO et al., 2011) complemented with an observation visit in the kitchens of our interviewees. For this, we selected 04 restaurants where we could observe the traditional Serido Cuisine and that were located in the center of the city, where the flow of people was more intense. As results, we identified in the city of Caicó / RN elements that corroborate the concept of Reflective Modernization (GIDDENS, 1997), including the presence of tradition as a reflexive element to globalized modernity, assuming a purpose of resistance to the globalizing forces. In interviews we saw all the kitchens headed by women, who learned the craft of cooking with members of their families. The technical norms are personified in the figure of the Sanitary Surveillance Agent, who acts in a seasonal way and does not have any work of continuity of its inspections. The understanding of Good Practices presented by the interviewees disagrees with the concept prescribed by the technical standards and is more concerned with the responsibility and honesty in cooking quality products.