Table Of ContentRewilding Food and the Self
“This is an original and thought-provoking book about practices and meanings of
‘rewilding’ food across Europe. Cases of hunting game, foraging in the countryside,
dumpster-diving in the city and producing ‘natural’ wine uncover how fascination with
the wild highlights key moral, environmental, social and health issues in contemporary
eating practices.”
Carole Counihan, Editor-in-Chief, Food and Foodways
“There is, in the attraction for the ‘wild,’ a will to break with the established order. This
theme regularly reappears in current social life and has evolved according to historical
contexts. ‘Rewilding Food and the Self: Critical Conversations From Europe’ focuses on the
contemporary version and analyzes its current and timeless social issues.”
Jean-Pierre Poulain, Université de Toulouse, France
This volume contributes to the return to nature movement that is very much in vogue in
contemporary European societies, by examining the place of food and eating in the “rewilding”
process.
It is divided into three parts, each of which consists of conversations between social scientists,
with fieldwork collected from across Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Norway and Switzerland. The
first part focuses on the ways in which the hunter-gatherer livelihood has been transformed into
a resilient, simpler and ecological way of life. It is dedicated to hunting and identifies the contexts
in which large wild game meat is consumed and the reasons why such a product is still valued
today. The second part shows how some practices that aim to reconnect with natural processes are
developing within a market economy. Case studies on natural wine and fasting retreats help us to
identify the promises that producers and promoters are relying on in order to disseminate them.
Finally, the third part considers how this process of rewilding food is expressed in post-modernity.
By focusing on two normative frameworks in which the rhetoric of the wild is mobilized although
it is not expected to be in these terms – urbanity and the gender order – the goal is to understand
the extent to which referring to the wild in food discourses and practices contributes to challenging
our identities, and to creating possible forms of emancipation.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars interested in food cultures, human–
nature relationships and sustainable diets.
Tristan Fournier is a sociologist and research fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific
Research (CNRS – Iris, Paris).
Sébastien Dalgalarrondo is a sociologist and research fellow at the French National Centre for
Scientific Research (CNRS – Iris, Paris).
Routledge Studies in Food, Society and the Environment
True Cost Accounting for Food
Balancing the Scale
Edited by Barbara Gemmill-Herren, Lauren E. Baker and Paula A. Daniels
Holiday Hunger in the UK
Local Responses to Childhood Food Insecurity
Michael A. Long, Margaret Anne Defeyter and Paul B. Stretesky
School Farms
Feeding and Educating Children
Edited by Alshimaa Aboelmakarem Farag, Samaa Badawi, Gurpinder Lalli and
Maya Kamareddine
The Vegan Evolution
Transforming Diets and Agriculture
Gregory F. Tague
Food Loss and Waste Policy
From Theory to Practice
Edited by Simone Busetti and Noemi Pace
Rewilding Food and the Self
Critical Conversations From Europe
Edited by Tristan Fournier and Sébastien Dalgalarrondo
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/books/
series/RSFSE
Rewilding Food and the Self
Critical Conversations From Europe
Edited by Tristan Fournier and
Sébastien Dalgalarrondo
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Tristan Fournier and Sébastien
Dalgalarrondo; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Tristan Fournier and Sébastien Dalgalarrondo to be identified
as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Fournier, Tristan, editor. | Dalgalarrondo, Sébastien, editor.
Title: Rewilding food and the self : critical conversations from Europe /
edited by Tristan Fournier and Sébastien Dalgalarrondo.
Description: New York : Routledge, [2023] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022020424 (print) | LCCN 2022020425 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032152912 (Hardback) | ISBN 9781032152936 (Paperback) |
ISBN 9781003243496 (eBook)
Subjects: LCSH: Food—Europe. | Wild foods—Europe. | Restoration
ecology—Europe.
Classification: LCC GT2853.E8 R496 2023 (print) | LCC GT2853.E8
(ebook) | DDC 394.1/2094—dc23/eng/20220816
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022020424
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022020425
ISBN: 978-1-032-15291-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-15293-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-24349-6 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003243496
Typeset in Goudy
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of contributors vii
Acknowledgments x
Introduction: food, self and search for the wild 1
TRISTAN FOURNIER AND SÉBASTIEN DALGALARRONDO
PART 1
The taste for tradition and the hunter-gatherer model 17
Conversation 1. Hunting and game consumption today 19
1 Eating wild game: a new carnivorous morality? 21
OLIVIER LEPILLER, OPHÉLIE ROUDELLE AND SANDRINE DURY
2 From remorse to “hunter pride”: on a study of those
who eat game 39
SERGIO DALLA BERNARDINA
PART 2
Promises and market 47
Conversation 2. Producing natural wines 49
3 “Natural” wines: the call of the wild grape 51
CHRISTELLE PINEAU
4 The wild nature of vins nature: an oeno-centered counterpoint 68
LÉO MARIANI
vi Contents
Conversation 3. The revival of fasting 75
5 The promises of fasting: between animal and primitive models 77
SÉBASTIEN DALGALARRONDO AND TRISTAN FOURNIER
6 The self, the other and the world: the issues of today’s
fasting practice 96
OPHÉLIE BIDET
PART 3
The wild at the interstices: a route to empowerment? 105
Conversation 4. Rummaging within the city:
wild plants and edible rubbish 107
7 Foraging plants within the urban margins: on the possibilities
of living with nature in the greater Paris 109
FLAMINIA PADDEU AND FABIEN ROUSSEL
8 Urban scavenging: another way to rewild the self in the city 129
SABINE MÉGARBANÉ
Conversation 5. Between resistance and cracks: what the process
of rewilding does to the gender order 139
9 The wild side of man: how animal metaphors shape
masculine food practices and midlife transitions 141
NICOLETTA DIASIO AND VULCA FIDOLINI
10 “Heavy food” and “being in nature”: revisiting male manual
workers’ narratives on work, food and health 161
GUN ROOS
Conclusion: the wild in gastronomy and beyond 167
SÉBASTIEN DALGALARRONDO AND TRISTAN FOURNIER
Index 179
Contributors
Ophélie Bidet is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Neuchâtel
(Switzerland). Her dissertation focuses on the evolution of the practice of fast-
ing outside the religious context and its inclusion in lifestyles.
Sébastien Dalgalarrondo is a research fellow in sociology at the CNRS (the
French National Centre for Scientific Research) and a member of the Institut de
Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur les enjeux Sociaux (Iris) in Paris (France). His
first work focused on the role of patient associations in the pharmaceutical
innovation process. The second part of his research is based on the analysis of
professional sports, anti-ageing medicine and “rewilding” practices in order to
elaborate a critique of the “optimal man” contemporary promise.
Sergio Dalla Bernardina is a professor of ethnology at the Université de Bretagne
Occidentale (France). He is a member of the IIAC and responsible for two
seminars at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris.
His research focuses on the relationship between Man and the environment,
the animal question and the conditions of production of anthropological dis-
course. He is the author of several books. He runs the blog: http://lanimal
commepretexte.blogspot.fr.
Nicoletta Diasio is an anthropologist and sociologist, a full professor at the Uni-
versity of Strasbourg (France) and a member of the Laboratoire interdiscipli-
naire en études culturelles (LinCS 7069) and of the Institut universitaire de
France. Her research focuses on body, age transitions, gender, food and chronic
illness.
Sandrine Dury is an agricultural economist specialized in food consumption at
the Cirad (Montpellier, France). She is studying food systems in interdiscipli-
nary designs. She is working on the linkages between food security of rural
households, farm production and access to markets and to natural resources in
different places of the world, mainly in African countries.
Vulca Fidolini is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Lorraine
(France). He is also a member of the Laboratoire Lorrain de Sciences Sociales
(2L2S). His main current research topics are gender (masculinities), age transi-
tions, health and food.
viii Contributors
Tristan Fournier is a research fellow in sociology at the CNRS (the French
National Centre for Scientific Research) and a member of the Institut de
Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur les enjeux Sociaux (Iris) in Paris (France). His
work focuses mainly on the social, moral and political issues of food changes,
and questions the status of biomedical knowledge and the relationships between
food, health and the body.
Olivier Lepiller is a sociologist working at the Cirad, MoISA (Montpellier, France).
His research focuses on the social change of food norms and practices, the food
transitions toward more sustainable food systems, and the roles of social inno-
vations, critics of industrial food and local policies in these transitions.
Léo Mariani is an anthropologist, a teacher-researcher with the Muséum National
d’Histoire Naturelle and a member of the Unité Mixte de Recherche Eco-
anthropologie with the Musée de l’Homme in Paris (France). He is interested
in researching how certain plants become food, in France and Asia, using an
ontogenetic approach to examine the production of worlds in space and time.
In his work, he brings together the anthropology of knowledge and the anthro-
pology of nature.
Sabine Mégarbané is a graduate of the École des Hautes Études en Sciences
Sociales (EHESS, Paris, France) where she completed a master’s degree in soci-
ology. She is interested in environmental movements, wastes and practices of
resistance to the capitalist system. In 2021, she completed a dissertation on
informal waste recovery practices by freegans in France.
Flaminia Paddeu is an assistant professor in geography at the Sorbonne University
Paris Nord and at Pléïade laboratory (France). She analyzes the socio- ecological
issues of urban agriculture, gleaning and foraging in northern metropoles
(France and United States).
Christelle Pineau holds a PhD degree in social anthropology and ethnology from
the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, Paris, France). She
is a research associate at IIAC and IRM (University of Bordeaux). Her work
focuses on the field of wine, agroecologies, the articulation of sensitive and
academic knowledge, and power relations.
Gun Roos is a senior researcher at Consumption Research Norway (SIFO) at the
Oslo Metropolitan University (Norway). She holds a PhD degree in nutritional
anthropology from the University of Kentucky and an MS degree in nutrition
from the University of Helsinki. Her research interests include social and cul-
tural aspects of food, inequalities, gender and policy.
Ophélie Roudelle is a project manager at UNESCO Chair in World Food Systems
(Cirad, Montpellier, France). She is in charge of disseminating, communicat-
ing and promoting the science-society dialogue on the Urbal research project,
Contributors ix
which proposes a participatory method for evaluating the impacts of food
innovations.
Fabien Roussel is an assistant professor of geography at the University of Artois
(France) and at Discontinuités Laboratory. He studies the socio-ecological
issues raised by plants and flora in northern metropolises (France and the
Netherlands).
