In the midst of a war that is reshaping the global geopolitical landscape, food has been co-opted as a symbol-–some may say a tool— to show solidarity, buttress identities, and express hostility or even enmity.
Just a couple of days had passed since Putin’s attack on Ukraine when I realized it was already happening: food has been co-opted as a symbol —some may say a tool— in the midst of a war that is reshaping the global geopolitical landscape. A Facebook friend posted a picture of a price tag written in Polish next to the dumplings stuffed with fresh cheese and potatoes, locally known as pierogi ruskie. The word “ruskie” had been struck through and replaced by “ukraińskie.” Somewhere in Poland pierogi had become fully Ukrainian in solidarity with the neighboring country attacked by Russian troops and more broadly as a form of protest against anything to do with Russia. Except that ruskie does not actually mean Russian in Polish (that would be rosyjskie). The adjective refers rather to Ruś, or Ruthenia in English, an area of today’s Ukraine that in the past had been part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Habsburg empire, and interwar Poland. In the following days, the Polish newspapers and media sources picked up on this, discussing pierogi, their cultural meaning, and what ruskie actually means.
The name change is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. The conflagration is happening not only on the physical terrain but also on the less tangible but not for that less treacherous fields of finance, trade, and cyber activities. The regional food systems and the local supply chains are being impacted in ways that will become clear in the next weeks. Hundreds of thousands of refugees that need to be fed are pouring into Poland, Slovakia, Romania, and Moldova. Sociologist Diana Mincyte at CUNY City tech and I are organizing a panel in the Feast and Famine series supported by the NYU Food Studies program, during which experts from Eastern European countries will explore these urgent issues. Check our social media for the date and the link to attend the panel discussion…
But back to the pierogi in an unidentified Polish deli, the symbolic meaning of the name change contributes to changes the narrative around the events, possibly impacts perspectives and interpretations. The apparently insignificant disappearance of ruskie from the price tag points to two important elements. First of all, the complexity of Eastern European history: attempts on TV, social media and in newspapers at analyzing an often under-depicted region may inadvertently cause misunderstanding and spread historical distortions. This is extremely dangerous when information warfare has emerged as one of the main battle fronts. If you are interested in learning more, one of the best books I have read on the topic is Timothy Snyder’s 2003 The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999. JSTOR has recently put together a reading list to clarify underlying issues that will not disappear after the conclusion of the hostilities.
Secondly, food, eating, and drinking constitute a very accessible arena to express civic engagement and political points of views. I describe this phenomenon as gastronativism: the ideological use of food to advance ideas and strategies about who belongs to a community and who does not. At times gastronativism assumes forms aiming at barring part of the population marked as “other” from rights and privileges, regardless of whether distinctions are based on race, gender, class, religion, nationality, or any other category. In other cases, although an “enemy” is clearly identified, ranging from transnational corporations and international speculators to an invader, like in this case, the goal is not to exclude anybody, but rather to expand the number of people who can enjoy a good or a right, from clean air to food access and food security to refugees. Both expressions of gastronativism are visible in what’s happening around the war in Ukraine. In both cases, food draws on strong emotions. It is tightly connected with our identities as individuals and members of communities at various scales, from cities to nations and even transnational movements. This partly explains the growing interest in local traditions, artisanal ingredients, and culinary heritage as anchor to the sense of loss maybe experience when confronted with the effects of globalization in their daily lives. In fact, all forms of gastronativism are closely connected with dynamics of globalization and its consequences.
Symbolic acts often impact or at least interact with reality. Food can convey solidarity and concern for others’ wellbeing: supplies are being gathered all over Europe for the Ukraine and the refugees that are pouring in extraordinary numbers into the neighboring countries. In the Polish city of Wrocław, Ukrainian women sold pierogi and pelmeni (meat-stuff dumplings) they made by hand and used the money earned to buy a car to be sent back to Ukraine to support the resistance. In Warsaw, restaurateurs and caterers are bringing food to the station of arrival for the refuges. Ukrainian restaurants in Manhattan’s East Village, home of a thriving Ukrainian immigrant community, have become centers of coordination for the efforts to support the home front.
Russian and Ukrainian immigrants, many of whom are Jews have peacefully cohabited in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach neighborhood since they settled there in the last decades of the Soviet Union. Quite a few have expressed their condemnation of the attack. In the same neighborhood, in solidarity with Ukraine the restaurant Taste of Russia has taken down its iconic awning, which featured the onion domes of St. Basil’s church on Moscow’s Red Square. At the same time, Russian businesses in the US have become the target for threats and boycott, regardless of the political positions of the owners. The prestigious restaurant Russian Tea Room in New York City has seen its patronage shrink, despite their clear anti-Putin declarations. Online attacks to restaurants offering Russian cuisine have also taken place in Poland, regardless of the actual nationality of owners and employees, often Polish and Ukrainians,
Food can easily turn into a weapon of exclusion to stoke resentment and contempt for other peoples and cultures, playing into the hands of nationalist –at times even xenophobic– political projects. It is not a rare occurrence to see politicians relying on food to perform for their constituency or to participate in controversies on hot button issues. However, it is often grassroot initiatives that turn to food to take sides in current events. Since the beginning of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian products have become the target of protests. The UK Sainsbury supermarkets, which changed the name of chicken Kiev to chicken Kyiv to use the Ukrainian spelling, have stopped selling goods from Russia. Even in ever-neutral Switzerland, supermarket chains Coop and Globus have temporarily stopped imports of Russian food products, although they have been keen in underlining that the existing ones would not be destroyed to avoid food waste. A Swiss website felt it was necessary to remind consumers that it does not make sense to boycott Russian salad, which has nothing to do with Russia and is locally produced. Also companies in Finland have stopped importing food items from their overbearing neighbor.
Liquor stores and bars have been throwing out Russian vodka or pulling it from their shelves: it has happened in the US, Canada, Australia, and even Spain. As a matter of fact, Ohio, Utah, Texas, New Hampshire, Maine, and Oregon have more formally joined the boycott. The popular cocktail Moscow Mule has been renamed Kiev Mule, or even Snake Island Mule, as an homage to the Ukrainian soldiers who famously responded to an invitation to surrender with “Russian warship, go fuck yourself!” Good intentions can be misguided: many consumers do not have clear ideas about which vodkas are actually produced in Russia and which are made elsewhere in Eastern Europe. For example, Stolichnaya vodka is manufactured in Latvia by Stoli Group, which belongs to Russian billionaire Yuri Shefler who left Russia when Putin took power, has been quite vocal against the Russian regime, and has been in a long legal battle with the Russian state-owned company FKP Soyuzplodoimport for the ownership of the mark. A Russian version of Stolichnaya is still produced in the enclave of Kaliningrad, located between Poland and Lithuania, which is part of the Russian Federation.
These dynamics point to the realities of a food culture that is widely shared among Eastern European countries now on the opposite side of the conflict, from Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania to Belarus and Russia. It is hard to tell to which countries stuffed dumplings, borscht, or vodka belong, as they originated in a past where frontiers (if they existed at all) were not those we are currently familiar with. Practices like foraging (especially for mushrooms and all sorts of berries), smoking, pickling, and fermenting are common among the populations in the whole area. Defining a national cuisine is not always an easy endeavor.
It is not the first time that food appears in clashes between Russia, Ukraine, and other Eastern European countries. When in 2014 Putin occupied Crimea and started supporting the separatist areas of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbass region, a campaign with the slogans Не купуй російське! (don’t buy Russian products) and Бойкотуй російське! (boycott Russian products) was launched in Ukraine to limit imports from the invaders. The European Union imposed economic sanctions on Russia, against which Russia retaliated with its own boycott of European products. Apples from Poland, a valuable agricultural crop in many areas of that country, fell under the restricted categories. As Russia imports substantial amounts of Polish apples, the policy had direct repercussions for local farmers. In reaction to the Russian decision, a Facebook campaign invited followers to “eat apples to spite Putin” (Jedz Jabłka Na Złość Putinowi), finding wide support in the country. The hashtag #jedzjabłka (#eatapples) on Instagram and Twitter feeds accompanied pictures of people picking apples, biting into them, or using them to cook. Farmers had to come up with new uses for the fruit to make up for the lost sales to Russia. Marek Sawicki, the minister of agriculture at the time, pointed to the Polish farmers who were victims of Putin’s trade maneuvers. Under the circumstance of the trade war with Russia, eating apples —both in reality and in media representations— was framed as a form of patriotism that was embodied in the everyday practices and the lived experiences of citizens, bringing ideological themes to a more tangible level.
Historical facts, cultural customs, and economic realities do not seem to have much relevance when food becomes entangled in national and international politics. A product or a dish can become symbols with great emotional impact regardless of their origin, their evolution, and their everyday uses. They offer people a simple and direct outlet to feel they are participating, they can convey support or condemnation, and are able to express agency in a situation in which we all feel powerless. The emotional investment, although often with very limited practical impact, is intense enough that can be hijacked by politicians whose real goals may remain unclear or purposely hidden. Wars are waged not only with tanks and bombs, but also with propaganda and narratives. While it is fundamental that we observe closely the realities of food systems during conflicts, it is also important that we keep an eye on cultural and social phenomena that can play a role in shifting public opinions in one direction or another.
PS: Click here to download and print this poster by Polish designer Edgar Bąk.
