Aspecte culinare în basme populare din Bucovina. Reprezentări ale unui sistem socio-cultural
Culinary Aspects in Folk Tales from Bucovina. Representations of a Socio-cultural System

Summary/Abstract: Representing a cultural and social system, the foods from the Romanian folktales show the dimension of the identity of the traditional world. This paper highlights symbolic aspects and valences of the culinary dimension from fairy tales collected from the Bucovina region by Simion Florea Marian, I. G. Sbiera, Ludwig Adolf Staufe, Petru Rezuş.Sometimes influencing the hero’s trajectory, revealing his social status, his character profile or that of adjuvants/opponents and, sometimes, even that of the narrator – “witness” to the eventuality, the dishes/culinary elements become an identity in the narrative discourse landmark, a “vehicle of essential values” (Izard Bonte) of Romanians and/or ethnic communities in Bucovina. Equally important for the valorization of a cultural system is the presentation of the meal at the end of the fairy tale. Its pantagruelic dimension is eloquent in order to know and understand the real and imagined coordinates of the human universe to which the anonymous creator belonged. We consider that the mythical-symbolic and sacramental valences that food has in the sequences/stages of the hero’s initiation, in this world and/or in the orther world, also represent a significant aspect. Obtained in a natural or magical way (with the help of magical objects invested with beneficial valence), the dishes in the fairy tales from Bucovina highlight customs and behaviors specific to this mythofolkloric area.

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