Episode 4: Maria-Aparecida Lopes

Maria-Aparecida Lopes is Professor of History and Chicano Latin American Studies at Fresno State.  We speak about her new book, Foodways in the Twentieth-Century City (Cambridge Elements Series Cambridge University Press, 2025), which she wrote with María Cecilia Zuleta from El Colegio de Mexico.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Welcome to Scholarly Grounds. This is your host, Lori Clun. I am delighted today to welcome Maria Apadecida Lopez, who is a professor here at Fresno State in both the history department and Chicano Latin American studies. She focuses predominantly on 19th and 20th century Latin American history, history of Mexico, and history of Brazil. Her first book was 2021, correct? I think that's right. Yeah. Who knows, years, right? Rio de Janeiro in the Global Meat Market, about 1850 to 1930. Really interesting. We're very excited that she's here to talk about her new book. She's got numerous articles and book chapters. You can definitely look her up. Before we say the new book, I just want to say that this is a reminder that this entire podcast is produced by flawed humans with no help from any kind of artificial intelligence. So the book we are talking about today is part of the Cambridge Elements series. They have a global urban history portion of that, which I'd like to talk about a bit. The series is really interesting. The title of Maria's book, which she co-authored with another Maria, that's not confusing at all.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Well, hers has an accent and I doesn't have an accent.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

There you go. That's okay. Did not notice that was very small, but you're right. And it's entitled Food Ways in the Twentieth Century City. So thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you, Lori. Thank you. Thank you. This is this is super, super a pleasure. Thank you. Well, and I am so lucky because I get to work and teach with so many amazing scholars. And I, you know, I I thought, oh, well, I like that. I loved this book. Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

I thought that's so nice for you too.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

So much. It is, it's first of all, ambitious.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

It is.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Right. So let's put it, let's ground it in this Cambridge Elements series. So what Cambridge explains about the series is that these are concise, slender volumes, I would argue, right? And they quote, consist of original, succinct, authoritative, and peer-reviewed scholarly and scientific research organized into focused series, edited by leading scholars, and they provide uh comprehensive coverage of the key topics in disciplines spanning the arts and sciences. So I guess first, how did this come about? Did they reach out to you? Um, this is such an impressive series.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

So I was invited. So I went to a conference um in Leicester when I was still working on the book that you made reference to before. Um and I met some people, and I presented about Hio de Janeiro when I went about my my previous book, and after that, they reach out to certain individuals uh at that conference, and they reach out to me, and I reach out to my co-author to work with me on the book.

unknown 3:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

And you you did you because Maria teaches at um El Colegio de Mexico. Is that where you met her?

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Or we yeah, we studied together. Uh she started a little bit earlier than me, maybe two years, but we started together. So I've known her half of my life. Yeah, yeah. And we have similar interests. Um we both went to a school in Mexico in the 1990s. She's from Argentina. I'm from Brazil, I should say that. Um, and that was the time that NAFTA was signed. So we had like this boom of transnational history. We didn't call global history, we called transnational history, and we all somewhat dedicated ourselves to study either Mexico in relation to our respective countries, or in my case, Mexico and US relations as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

So, but then you expanded beyond because what's one of the really impressive things about this work is how broad it is. Yeah. And I don't know how you do it, I'm so impressed that the both of you were able to be so broad and yet concise and narrow. It sounds weird, I feel like I'm not explaining it right, and you really have to get the book and get it wherever books are sold because it's amazing. Um, and like I said, slender volume, pretty quick read. If you're not um aware of this field, uh, this is a great entry because the the references are so comprehensive that you're like, oh wait, I'm really interested in more about supermarkets, I'm gonna read this thing, right? It's a great entry way to do that. Um so it's not a single city case study, right? It's all these interconnected, um, truly global perspective. Yeah. Um, was that intimidating?

SPEAKER_00 5:18

It was super intimidating. Okay. Okay, because I was like, I don't know, it was really, really difficult. Um, and by the way, what the reader has in their hands is something that was written over, I would say, three or four years, and we had several, several drafts. Uh, I remember one of the drafts that we submitted was the double number of words that we were required to write. Um and it was intimidating for several reasons. One reason was that both we were both grounded in Latin American history, but we wanted to expand it to other um areas as much as possible. Uh intentionally, we wanted to talk about Asia, we want to have some reference about Africa as well. Um, and that was absolutely intimidating because we don't we know very little about Asian history or nothing, and much less about African history. Um and that made more difficult, but at the same time it made more interesting. Because you see all those parallels between these global cities, um, similar movements happening more or less at the same time, regardless of the continent. Uh, and that was really, really fascinating to see these similarities.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

And I think that that intellectual curiosity certainly comes through. I know I believe perhaps it was the in the acknowledgments or the introduction where you kind of you both say, like, you know, we are trained as Latin Americanists, yeah. So this may have that push. I kept looking for that kind of bias or angle or you know, reliance, if you will, and I really didn't see it. I felt like it was so you know, you'd be you'd be looking around the world, and they'd be okay. So this happened in Rio de Janeiro, and this, and then it's like, and now we're in Hanoi, and I'm like, good lord, it's like it's just I'm looking at my world map, just being like I popping all over the place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

So that was one difficulty that we had is what cities we are gonna select to talk about, right? So originally then we started with Latin America. Uh we both are Latin Americanists, but we both studied in Mexico. So we have Argentina covered, you have Brazil covered, we have Mexico covered, and the US, because when I lived in Brazil, um when I taught in Brazil, I taught US history as well. And because I had lived here, I had some knowledge about US history. And and this is really interesting, um, in Latin America we learned lots of European history as well. So we all knew more or less what was happening in Europe. We knew much less, as I said before, about the other continents. Um but it started, I would say, with the cities that we are familiar with, um and with a clear intention that Europe was important, the US is important, but we want to. And then uh in Latin America. We tried to avoid that as much as possible.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

I think you fo yeah, both did because it it really felt like there were times where we'd pop over to um Asia or Africa or you know, and and just be like, oh, that's happening in the Middle East. Oh, okay. That's that's good to know. That's not originating in, you know, and as an Americanist, I understand that. Kind of like, well, we created everything. Right. And then it's right here. And the I thought this did a really good job. Oh. And again, a very slender volume. I just don't know how you did it. I totally understand that it would have been twice the size when it started. And for anyone who writes out there, you understand the pain of trying to condense. Yeah. And often we tell our students this, right? Write big, don't write to the page count. You gotta write bigger, see where you're going, and then pull it in. Um, but that's not an easy process.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

No, it that it was really difficult. To cut was really difficult, but in the end, we had caught so much, and we still had more words than we were supposed to write, that I said, you know what, we need to cut here. We need we we have lots of left over. That would be a very nice book, I would say.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

But anyway, that that would be a different. Do you want to do something with with the other? Because I'm sure there are pieces of the story that you weren't able, you know. I can't give you five examples of this, I can give you one or two, right? Because you're moving so maybe, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

I don't know. Um, I think I'm I'm moving on to a different um kind of research.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Is your is your impulse to now, since you were literally global, is your impulse to be like, I'm gonna take one city and one problem or something?

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Not necessarily, I do like more and more. I like the idea of seeing similarities and differences. Um, it is very hard for me. I think because of my formation, because I I live outside my the country I was born, all these things, and I studied in a different country, I like to have things in the very broad perspective. I do I know that it's more difficult. Um, and we can talk about one of I think the most interesting difficulty, one of the most interesting difficulty. Going back to um, I don't know if I answer your question. That's okay.

unknown 11:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

No, I think you did.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Yeah, that that your instinct is not to now go to a very, very narrow because this project, as we do, right? We work on projects that then open parts of our brain and we get excited about something we didn't think about before, right? So now that you've seen global connections, really hard to not continue in that.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

And I like the perspective. I like the perspective. I know that when you do these very broad things, geographically speaking, you may miss in detail, right? In local detail, but yet I like it. I like to see the similarities and the differences as well.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Um yeah. I thought it was amazing because, and again, I'm struggling with the words of it's broad yet specific, which seems so contradictory, but it is inherently broad as it needs to be, and yet we get pieces that are so lovely. First of all, the visuals are so fun. Oh, I'm glad that you like that. Oh, love them. Like every couple of pages, you're like, oh my god, that's fabulous. Thanks for translating for those of us who only speak English. But the the the visuals were so compelling, and that you get a moment, like you, you folks, you both talk about the the late 1880s girl in Vienna and what she ate for lunch. Yeah, that is pretty specific, and yet it totally works, and that ability to go micro-macro so easily. How on earth did you do that? Good question. Was it all the other Maria? Is that what you call it?

SPEAKER_00 12:52

It was amazing. That's I mean, I don't know how to answer that. We we had several examples that we had to cut. So I would say we had certain parameters. One we just discussed, right? We wanted to decenter the historical discourse. That was one. The other one is what this is also a book on food studies as well, and we wanted to go a little bit beyond talking about um how food is produced, how food gets to our tables. We were really intentional in talking about the work that is behind producing food, and that I have to credit my co-author. Uh, although we both study Latin America, but we have different focus um of our research. So, for instance, she was the one that caught or um suggested that we talk about cooking food.

unknown 13:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Which is a set, I mean it's such an interesting thing. It's fundamental, right? And we all can relate. I mean, that that's the beauty of this. As you read this, you just think, oh yeah, everyone eats. This should be the central theme of all history. Right. Right. And so each I I yeah, I've got so many thoughts. But um just to give listeners an idea. So this is generally late 1800s. Yeah, we call that the long 20th century. Right. Through, I mean, you try to get pretty recent, yeah, right. So it it's largely a chronological approach, and yet there's so many themes that are going in here. But just to give you an idea, like I started, first of all, you should have food while you're reading this, because I got so hungry at one point. Especially the meat section. I don't know why it started getting very hungry. So obviously dealing with meat and and milk and grains and all of those things. But think about all of these issues that came up. It was hygiene and public order and sanitation and garbage and agriculture and farms and refrigeration and disease and safety. And then let's put in war and famine because the 20th century is a chock full of that. You've got issues of gender and issues of class very clearly, and labor and racism and assimilation. There's a great section on Chinese restaurants around the world, it's just fascinating, and then the use of resources, the environmental impact of it. Oh my goodness, in less than a hundred pages. Yes. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Amazing. We were going back to the issue, uh, so it is food studies, but it's food studies that also pays attention to this other stuff that you just mentioned, right? We clearly wanted to put gender forthward. We need to talk about that. Uh, talk about workers um in the meat-packing companies or on the streets. Um, and we also wanted to talk about hunger. And um, I think that chapter, that chapter was three times the size.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Oh, I can imagine. So that's um feeding cities in times of scarcity. Yeah, yeah, because it's grappling with uh wars and civil wars and famine, and it's devastating. It is, and you realize, I mean, if you if you approach war and don't think about food, you're missing a huge component. Even just talking about caloric intake with some of these folks, and in certain areas they're not even getting half of what they need, and you're like, this is decimating not only soldiers who are fighting, but folks who are trying to farm or folks who are you know just trying to survive. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

And um that was really intentional. We wanted to talk about what how people come up with uh means to feed themselves when they absolutely have the minimum or less than the minimum, and the case that stands out always is the case of we read um a diary of a Russian boy talking about if I'm not wrong, Leningrad, I think. The Siege The Siege and how they survived on nothing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Um was that the glue one? That's the glue one. That's the glue. We won't ruin it, you just have to read the book. It's but the idea that these cities had no dogs or cats or rats. Yes, I was thinking of that as well. Yes. Because they would have been yeah. Um wow. It just it just makes you think like if you if you don't grapple with that, you're not understanding the full impact of war. Yes. And that chapter that chapter is is remarkable. Um thank you. And appropriately done. I mean it's you know, the history of the 20th century is there's a lot of war.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

And unfortunately how hunger is is still being used as a weapon of war. Right. Uh we see that every day, everywhere. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Um that's very sorry, I don't mean to bring it down, but it is a little disturbing. Um but it's you know, it's part of the story. But when you're done with that, read the part on Chinese food restaurants post that's which is really fascinating. And the and the supermarket chapter. I know what you have. Oh my god, it's so interesting. Um, I love is this the yeah, well, because yeah, first of all, a new food order tackles old urban dilemmas. Great chapter title. Love that. Um, but chapter five is the taste of capitalism, supermarkets, convenience foods, and pervasive inequities. And would you say that this pervasive and continuous inequity is a central part of this?

SPEAKER_00 18:48

I would say, yes. We started with that in the late 19th century, and in the late 20th century we see similar issues. Um food is distributed so first let so late 19th century with the hygiene movement that you mentioned, there's all this interest in expanding uh animal proteins, especially to the working class. Um, so then we have meat parking housings, all these things happening in the US, but in reality it's happening everywhere, including Japan. Um, in the book there is a very interesting reference about how uh Japan was getting cattle from Korea, uh, but it's slaughtering in Japan, so then they could sell as Japanese cattle. I'm using Kodesha Kodish marks here.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Um anyway, that to say that it is a movement, a worldwide movement, right? Right.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

It's not just in where we would think of cattle producing places. Uh in in Japan, but there's kobe beef and which is probably originated from this whole movement of so at the same time that we have, this is in early 20th late 19th century, early 20th century, same time that we have this movement for expanding packing houses and making beef more affordable, um, concurrently, maybe a little bit later, the expansion of milk as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Uh but when you again thinking about this uh everyday thing, that we don't think as much as being necessary. So you might have the meek, milk, but if you don't have where to put that milk or refrigerate that milk, you cannot give that. Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

The story of the guys is I just bring the cow around and I milk it and hand it to the people. It's like, okay, that might not be a model that works, you know, but but refrigeration is a huge issue. Yes. And as you discussed, pasteurization as well and raw milk, I mean, that's a fascinating story as well. So highly recommend looking at that chapter, right? Um, yeah, super.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

And these inequalities, I think they remain to this day, right? If you don't have electricity, you don't have a fridge. If you uh if you don't have fuel, uh all these inequalities, I think they remain in the in the late 20th century uh as well.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

Or wasn't there some it was almost like a shaming, like, well, everyone can have a box with a block of ice in it. Block of ice, yes. You know, just get it together. And it's like I'm sure for some folks that was like, you know, the iceman cometh as it does as a like how are they getting ice and how are they and is it consistent? Can they rely on that? I mean, spoilage is an issue. I mean, it's it's just yeah, it's fascinating. I've had no idea. So fascinating and fascinating wide ranging references. Really impressive. I think that's what a work like this does in in uh introducing the reader to a topic, perhaps. I would say if someone studied this. They would also get a great deal out of it. But if this is your first time thinking about food in a historical context, wide-ranging references, secondary references, also primary references. I love that Cambridge does footnotes. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

We do too.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

It's kind of lovely. Yeah. Can't all presses do that? You know, but I guess not. But then the inqu you know, in parentheses, the parenthetical, this is a bigger work that this comes from. Should you want to read more? I almost wanted the reference section to be like, you know, further reading or recommended further reading. Because there's so many. I mean, I glanced through that just to see if there was anything I had ever read, which I'd read like one book in there, but there were so many. I was like, oh, I want to read that, and I want to read that. And lots of um more recent scholarships. Yes. Right. Obviously, the primary sources are going back to the late 1800s, early 1900s through, but the the secondaries are you're you're trying to get like a state of the field, yes, in a sense.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

So that's an interesting methodological aspect that I want to talk about a little bit. One is that the press was fundamental, right? And nowadays, thank God we have all these Brazil has a wonderful website, as does the US, uh, with historical newspapers that you can search by word. I mean, I remember when I started doing my research, I had to photocop 19th century newspapers, they are really big, so I had to photocopy them in chunks, yeah, in pieces. Um, so we used lots of press, which was really, really wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

No, it's great because it grounds it in the stories. I saw a lot of New York Times, a lot of um presses from around the world. Yeah, it's cool.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

But um so because we needed to be broad and we needed to include references about um Asia as much as possible and Africa, so we more or less can read Portuguese, Spanish, English, French. That's it. Yeah. So how did and I have to say here that I always have been very critical of people outside Latin America doing Latin American history without reading Latin Americans, right? So I saw myself in the same situation, is that in Asia, because we don't read uh Japanese or Chinese, but we needed to include references to these areas. So obviously, what we had to do is that we read sources that were available in English. We had no other choice, right? And that was an interesting um discussion that we had. So very intentionally we said we are aware that we cannot know exactly the state of the historiography from these places because we cannot read their language, but we will try our best by give by reading more recent work um in English, and I think that uh the work with journals is fundamental. Sure. Uh starting, and I was taught that by my professor, Latin American professor back in the day in Brazil when I was an undergraduate study student. She said, start with everything that have been published in that has been published lately in journals, academic journals, because then you're gonna have the most recent debate. Right, it's the freshest stuff, it's not been through that long monograph process. We try to do that. Um it was very effective.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

And I I mean I think there's something I don't think the reader can assume that everyone has a global like global historians, that's a it's a whole wow, that's a lot. Um, obviously, that's an understatement. But I think being that you were very open about being, you know, both of you Latin Americanists, and yet using what was available, which would be available to your reader, to be like, well, these are some of the voices, right? These are the scholars, these are the people who are grappling with these issues, this is what we're pulling from it. It's not the last word. I mean, no book is the last word, right? You're continuing to add. Um but I thought it was it was wonderful and I'm sure a bit scary to go outside of the the comfort zone. I totally get that. But um I thought if anything, it just sparks curiosity in the reader, which I is you know fabulous, love that. Um, and then you were able to take building on those scholars' works, you were able to then make those global connections, which was so cool.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

And that's one aspect, right? There are several ways that you can do global history. One is to seek the connections, yeah. Um, and that I think that was the method that prevailed uh to see this um like the hygiene movement. You see similarities everywhere in the world happening more or less at the same time, and we try to highlight those um those connections. That's what we try to do, uh most of the time. Yeah, and that it very effective.

SPEAKER_02 27:09

Very effective. Thank you. You know, I know when you write something, you don't you don't really see it anymore, and you're not sure if it's I thought it was incredibly it made me it humbled me as most scholarship does.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Like, oh yeah, that happened other places too. So that's one aspect that is really interesting, right? We think that things that happen in our country, in our area of research, is so unique, and then you open a little bit more uh to other areas, is oh, this happened there as well. So yeah, we have more similarities than I think that we know.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

That's a great way to put it because that's one of the other bonuses of this kind of scholarship is humans are connected. Yeah, right. Yeah, and we're we're so country conscious, right? I am an Americanist, you are allowed to write. Right, we are very and we're putting up these boundaries all the time. And what this does is kind of breaks those down and says, you know, the the human need to eat is fundamental. Yeah. So that pervaded this entire subject.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

I I yeah, I thought it was Yeah, and I think also because ideas like the hygiene movement, these individuals that were discussing those ideas, they were meeting in conferences, and then they are bringing these conferences to their respective countries, the results of this conference, I should say, to their respective countries, and they are implementing more or less the same thing. The results might be different here and there, but in the great scheme of things, they are similar and they are coming from more or less the same set of ideas and knowledge at that level and what they know in certain um I'm not explaining myself correctly. Let me let me think about that in just a second. So uh again, going back to the issue of milk in 1920 studies, uh, milk is this, well, to be fair, up to recently, uh until when we got the propaganda in the US got milk, very recently.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

Right, that's more like what 80s or 90s. 90s, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:19

So this is being discussed in the 1920s, 1930s. Um, and these ideas, the the the state of knowledge about what an ideal food is in that context, the scientific knowledge, is similar everywhere. And they are all trying to implement the same measures because all those countries need to be modern, again, uh with quotation marks. Right. Um, yeah, and we try to highlight those um connections uh throughout the book. And the milk thing is really interesting because then um in China what they decided to do is soy milk. Soy milk.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

And I was like, look at soy milks coming up. You know, yeah, it was fascinating. I had no idea how how long that history was. But they're like, yeah, we we we got milk too.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

We got milk too. We got milk. That'll be a good chapter. I we got milk, too, milk too.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

So um I I am again humbled to say that I did not realize that obviously if you're living in an urban area, which is the focus of this book, you you're not living off the land. Right, right. And that the problem of feeding urban folks goes back to the creation of cities. Yeah, right, like grappling with that issue and how each area of the world tries to solve, tries to tackle that, and how similar a lot of these things are was really interesting, like way pre-supermarket kind of thing. Um were there any surprises in that earlier part?

SPEAKER_00 30:58

So one thing that's another chapter that we caught, caught, caught was the urban gardens.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

Uh yeah, transforming urban diets. Yes. Is that that one?

SPEAKER_00 31:08

And and um the the one specifically where we talk about those gardens that are um put into put together close to cities so that they can feed cities. Yes, yeah, right. Uh that I I thought was fascinating. So I grew up in a big city, um, I lived all my life except now in a big cities. So I never thought about Sao Paulo having a garden nearby that would feed people uh in Sao Paulo.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Or in Mexico City that is I don't know, in Mexico City I would say I would find it less uh difficult for me to think about adding those terms. Um because you have nearby um the floating gardens that is called Chinampas in Mexico City, and lots of herbs that uh are eaten in Mexico City, they come from this area. Uh but in Sao Paulo I've never thought about it. Turns out that Sao Paulo also has those urban gardens or used to have those urban gardens. So that to me was fascinating because I always thought about the city disconnected from uh from the rural, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:21

Right, because when we're you know being raised and we you know the way we see it, but then you pull it back and go, well, of course. Yeah. Yeah. The the supermarket thing was so interesting to me. Um and just a little anecdote from my so my my mother grew up in in Brooklyn in the 1930s, 1940s, into the 50s, she got married in the 50s, and so for her, they shopped every day. They go to the butcher, they went to the baker, they went to the right it all of it. The the guy delivered the milk, it was the whole, but everything was separated, and she hated it because as the oldest daughter, she was responsible for doing a lot of this shopping, and she was like, Well, this is just ridiculous. So, fast forward, she's married, living on Long Island, and they opened these huge supermarkets, and it is my mom's dream come true. And we would I remember vividly when I was old enough to push a cart myself, we would fill two carts, so she needed us. Maybe she had children just so we would push the cart, I don't know. She needed us to push so he she had a cart and I and we had a cart so that she could stock up, yeah. So she didn't have to go shopping again for like two or three weeks, right? That was the idea. Um, and then we had to have a second freezer, and we weren't like lower middle class, it was like, but still, this whole huge shift in how folks dealt with this very essential item in their life of food. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

So supermarket is supposed to do precisely what did to your family, if you right? That was the idea of the supermarket that we would get rid of the butcher, the grocer, we would concentrate everything in this place that it is cleaned, that it is organized, and um and it looks like plenty, right?

SPEAKER_02 34:14

There's a lot of things, lots of things, books, like, and you get to touch it yourself, right? That's the other important thing. Right. This is you could touch the packages and touch the things.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

And you um you you basically eliminate this individual, you it is your individual choice. So this is a really uh US way of thinking about buying stuff, right? It's really capitalism at its best. And big and more and yes, yes. But at the same time, at least ideally, when the supermarkets were implemented in Latin America, and by the way, Latin America is the first place where uh supermarkets um are implemented, um not Europe. So with the US, Los Angeles, uh, it has everything to do with roads, space, space, the transport of goods and the You need to have a structure that Latin America didn't have when it was first implemented. Um I think we have uh a picture in the book uh showing uh the supermarket uh in Sao Paulo, and this is in the city center, far away from where the vast majority of individuals lived in Sao Paulo. If I'm not wrong, uh the image is from 1955, uh, and we didn't have those roads, no very few people had cars. So the supermarkets, when they are implemented in Latin America, they cater to a very specific um kind of individuals.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

Right, because you I mean, when I'm saying that we filled two carts, we're assuming that a car is involved. Absolutely. Because she would walk in Brooklyn to the butcher with her little bag, right? So it it's relying on not just the vehicles to get the products to the store, but the people who are shopping need to be able to carry it and to store it. Right, and they have to have some sort of refrigeration, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:12

This is this is assuming a lot of yeah, and the fact that it's happening all around the world in different ways and these places react differently to this new invention. As um I mentioned before in Latin America we didn't have this structure. So that was the case of uh Venezuela, that was the case of uh Brazil, we didn't have all these infrastructure, so the supermarket then it it shifted um shifted, and then the the main target is middle class individuals, middle, higher-up class individuals that have all these other things in order for you to go and have a car and uh store the things um at home. Um also another aspect of the supermarket that's really interesting, the supermarket was supposed to get rid of all these little stores um and open air markets. And I think that is something that I really didn't know and we learned um researching the book, was that in Latin America that was more difficult to do because the idea to go to the open air market at least once a week, and that's the same situation in Brazil now, it wasn't growing up, um, is that it is your weekly trip to the open air market is like not only you go and buy the bananas from that individual, but you have a social relationship with that individual. Right, right. Uh, and that the supermarket, I I would say most Latin American countries that we study, the supermarket was not able to get rid of.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

Right, because that that's still a thing. I think it's so funny that uh funny, ironic, I guess, that that now we've got you know farmers markets and little shops and so you know, little meat market. So it's in perhaps in the United States, it's a bit of a reaction to the anonymous aspects of the supermarket. I think so. And being like, no, I want to go to a bakery. Yeah. I want to see the baker, you know, as opposed to the anonymous thing. So that's such an interesting around the world. So you both um dedicate the book to quote the academics who introduced the concepts of standard of living, class structure, and urban multitudes to us, um, especially as it as is um seen in Latin American historiography. So I know you love talking theory, so I feel like this is very and in a book like this, I would imagine that that that theoretical approach was on on a post-it that you always looked at, because otherwise you're like, there's too many interesting stories to tell. Um so how how did that impact how you folks, and I know we've covered a little bit of this, but I want to kind of tie it up a little, how you folks approached this vast study, um, and and what how it helped you make the choices that you made. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 39:21

Yeah, so it was not clear when we started that that was gonna be our focus.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

Uh we hadn't decided anything a priori, not even the cities.

SPEAKER_02 39:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

I mean, we knew that Latin America was gonna be permanent, we knew because I had just worked on Rio de Janeiro, so I knew that I was gonna talk about Rio Janeiro, Sao Paulo. Uh so in a way, I would say the selection of the cities had to do with capital cities, because usually these are the ones where all these uh movements like the hygiene movement, they start in capital cities for obvious reasons, right? Um uh politicians they have all the interests in the world and resources to dedicate certain new the implementation of certain policies in capital cities because capital cities they are like the postcard of any country. So you have to show off that um in House Janeiro we are doing these things, the money is there, so then we can budget to implement, I don't know, a huge um open market in the capital of the country, right? So capital cities were there uh fundamentally, but we realize later on that port cities, so in a way, if capital cities are one way to connect cities cities worldwide given those political interests that I just mentioned, uh port cities they connect with other port cities, physically speaking. Does that make sense? Yeah, I don't think that we talked as much about port cities, maybe we should have. Um that would be an interesting um study to do how uh port cities connect to each other and how that influenced diet and things like that. Um, but going back to your question about um the theoretical framework, so it was not there from the get-go, but it implicitly was there because we both went to a school in Latin America more or less at the same time. So we are talking about uh the 60s and 70s and 80s, and this time is um we have the word of the day is the dependency theory, uh, and the word of the day is workers' movement, and we both went to a school during our respective military dictatorships. So it was really important for us, and I think we just realized that when the book was almost done, to highlight not only um the production side of things or the distribution side of food, but also how people struggle to put food at their tables. And I think that has everything to do with inequalities in Latin America that we um try to highlight um as much as possible.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

And you were able to highlight inequalities around the world, which is f disturbing and fascinating, right? And and quite appropriately, I think, end with an idea of we're still there. We are still there, unfortunately. Right, that the we we love a progressive narrative, and I suppose there are parts of the story that are progressive. Uh there are better things happening in meat packing, and there are better things happening, you know, these kinds of things.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Um so so we're better at at some things for sure, but the fact that well into the 21st century we're still as humans grappling with inequities in in food and feeding humanity is so we have more technology, absolutely, than we had in the early 20th century. We had all the conditions to feed more people, we have but at the same time we have lots of waste, which is a problem that we mentioned very briefly, but it is a very interesting topic as well. The amount of uh food waste is something that's really um serious given again the inequalities, and the and the environmental impact.

SPEAKER_02 43:45

And environmental impact, right? So if you're if you're using the water and the land to produce the food and only you know 50% of it is being eaten, then we've wasted those resources. And then there are the people who aren't getting that and all, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

So despite the fact That yes, um we still have those inequalities, food is still used as a weapon during wars, absolutely. Hunger is not a natural thing, it is man-made absolutely. Um I think there is one positive thing. Okay, and the positive thing is, and I think it is a through line in the um late 19th century or um to today. I think still food is also mediated by uh social relations, as we mentioned, going to the farmers market. Um, as I said, every time that I go to Brazil, I go to the farmer's market because to me it's like part of my childhood. My mom is happy in the farmers market, it's really incredible. She likes to greet all the individuals there, they have this personal relationship.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

Um, so there is this um aspect, but also one thing that is really important is that um food, in order for us to have clean food and safe food, we need the hand of the government, uh, the inspectors, right? And the hand of the state, I think in that relationship is really important. So I like that aspect. And I think that's a positive thing, that we as human beings created this um relationship uh with food, but one that is mediated by the state, and we trust that food because we know that it was inspected. Maybe it is not in our heads when we go and buy a kilo of beef, but I know that I can trust that beef, and I know that I can cook that because an individual, that it is a state uh worker, is the one that made possible for that thing to be clean so that my family can eat.

SPEAKER_02 45:50

And that it's beef and it's not someone selling you something that's pretending to be beef. Right. And you know, to make a profit, right? I mean, there is that side of capitalism, and so to have the government say, no, this is beef, yeah, and it's good until this date. I remember, I'm so old, I remember pre-dates. You know, they said like enjoy buy or whatever. And my mom would just go by her nose, and her nose is not as good as our. And I was like, Oh, we're going to die. She's like, Oh, I think it's fine. I think so. Oh, yeah. I think I'm a vegetarian now.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

I was like, this is not good.

SPEAKER_02 46:27

Um, no, it's a really interesting lens to look at human history, and I'm appalled that I hadn't really grappled with this before. You do a lot of work on food though. Like that's I do. Yeah, I've been.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

Does it make you as hungry as not really? No, I'm not thinking about um when I write about these things, I'm not thinking about the food itself. Okay. I'm really interested. I mean, my whole career, I've been thinking about that when I was driving here. I'm interested in talking about the individual that usually is not in the history books. I think we need to talk more about these individuals, about the difficulties of those individuals to survive and what people can do even in very, very difficult circumstances, what they do to survive. Yeah. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:14

It's kind of amazing. Yeah. So um, process question, I guess two process questions. Um, one, what language did you write this in? So that's really I wrote in English. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:25

I wrote in English. But um, well do you usually write in English, by the way? I mean, yeah, if I'm writing um for English. For English, so I write in English. Okay. Uh but there are situations where because sometimes you deal with so technical terms that I really don't know the term uh in English, so I would write in Portuguese and I would, I don't know, ask someone or uh research how to do that, uh uh how to say that uh in English. Uh yes, so most of it. And and your co-author? So she wrote some in Spanish, I translated. Oh my god. And it was edit. I mean, everything was edited, everything that we publish is edit by think of.

SPEAKER_02 48:05

The peer review process that we love so much. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And God bless editors, and yeah. Um but that's that's really daunting. I am daunted by that. I can barely write in English, so I'm just amazed that it is.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

But at the same time, I do like the challenge because um when you translate, of course, it's not a translation because I'm not uh official translator, I'm doing a version of what I'm reading in Spanish in English, and that process is really interesting because I have to think how do I say this in English and still capture what the main idea that she's trying to say, right? And because we were cutting, so it was easier in that sense. Okay, I would say get five pages, and I would transform that into two pages or something like that. And that process of summarizing is really interesting uh in um thinking. So I am translating, but I'm also putting that into how do I keep the spirit of what she's trying to say, but in less words. That's amazing. That's a fascinating process. Your brain, we should do an MRI while you're doing that. Your brain must be like shooting and then I would send to her, right? And then she would say, You missed this very important part here. So yeah, it is a back and forth.

SPEAKER_02 49:23

The back and forth. So what was um is this the first time you wrote with someone? No, no, I've done that before. How about but book length?

SPEAKER_00 49:31

Yeah, yeah. Well, we organized a book um with her, but writing our own yeah, that was the first time. Okay, so what was is it an experience you would do again or was I would. I like to work with other people. I do like it. Um so as I said before, we are both Latin Americanists, we focus on different things and we have different perspectives, and I learned a lot. So the whole issue of the fuel to cook, I wouldn't have thought of that if she hadn't told me about this aspect. Uh so I like that a lot. I like the idea of bouncing ideas because, as you well know, writing is really, really a lonely, lonely task. It's kind of fun to bounce off someone, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:15

See when you're being wackadoodle and you know.

SPEAKER_00 50:18

I like it. I like it. At the same time, it's challenging because we work at different rhythms. Um when I'm you're in different countries, yes, right. I mean, yes, yes, uh, but I remember at the beginning, especially at the beginning, we had like regular meetings um to discuss what we were reading, um what um our ideas were, and that was really helpful, I I would say.

SPEAKER_02 50:43

Did you divide up sections and uh or I mean did you all do all that secondary reading? Because that's a lot of secondary.

SPEAKER_00 50:51

So, no, no, we divided. Um yeah, we but we didn't divide intentionally, so I'm gonna we knew that I was gonna do everything that had to do with more or less the US and Brazil, and she was gonna do uh Mexico, more South America as well, Chile, Peru. Um and we both did Mexico for obvious reasons. We all knew this is really interesting because it talks about our um education. Uh we all knew the same things about Europe.

SPEAKER_01 51:24

Oh, interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:25

Because we all have to take European history, um, but other than that, we read most of the material um together and we bounced around ideas, what to focus, what not to focus on.

SPEAKER_02 51:40

It's a lot, and you know, as we've always talked about, like writing is making choices. Yeah, and I was overwhelmed by the amount of choices that you must have had to make.

SPEAKER_00 51:49

Oh yeah. Uh so I was talking, uh I remember uh the chapter about um Hungary, I don't remember the name of the shop, the title of the shop, but that chapter, I had written like two pages about a famine that happened in Brazil where my parents are from. Oh wow and I learned a lot um about the situation, about the they basically used a British model on how to deal with famine. So I was I was so happy working on that. And we caught that entirely from the chapter, from the book. Uh but I think it was it was correct, it was the correct choice.

SPEAKER_02 52:29

But that's yeah, it's such a hard yeah. Right. But it it sounds like I mean you both approached it as you know, with the intellectual curiosity that comes through in the book, and at no point did I think, oh, I know Maria wrote this part. Meaning you, not the other. I'm glad it all just feels in fact I forgot after a while that there were two people writing because it just That's great. I'm glad you know that. Um if it was just you, it might have taken a bit longer, I guess. Maybe or some parts, yeah. Yeah, some parts delay, some parts accelerate. Um really terrific work, just amazing. What um what are you working on? I know you've got something you're working on now. What is what are you looking at now?

SPEAKER_00 53:08

I'm working on a book chapter about uh food consumption. So this is um a chapter also for a general audience. Um I'm almost done with that. And I'm also working on another book chapter, and this is about uh the introduction of Zebu Caro in the Americas. Oh Zebu, how do you how do you say um in the Americas?

SPEAKER_02 53:37

So it's a particular cow. I have such vast knowledge of them.

SPEAKER_00 53:43

So this is a different species, right? Um we have Bos Indicus, which is what most car that we have in the Americas, and then um European cattle, and then we have uh Bos Tauros, that it is a different species that is originated in Asia. So in late 19th century, on uh when all countries in the Americas are improving the livestock industry, and that's the term that is used in the 19th century, they imported animals from Europe to do that improvement, caro improvement. Uh Brazil Brazil experimented with both European caro and caro from Asia, Zebu caro. And that was a very contentious uh process. Oh interesting. Yeah, so I'm I'm studying that, but I don't want to do just Brazil. So I'm I'm talking about the Americas as a whole, including the US. Yeah.

unknown 54:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 54:47

That's uh so interesting. I really appreciate it. I appreciate your time talking about this important work. Um get this wherever you can. It is an e-book as well, if you'd like to do the ebook, um, but it is in the Cambridge Elements uh Global Urban History series. Uh and this one is called Food Ways in the Twentieth Century City. And I guarantee you will want to read other stuff from the references because there's just a lot going on in here, and it's super, super interesting. So thank you so much, Margaret. Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Thank you, it was a pleasure.