Pampa, Puchero, Petrona: An Argentine Culinary Trilogy

Abstract

Argentina's emerging gastronomic cultures in the twentieth century have been the result of three fundamental ingredients: (first) abundance of meat and wheat (second) large and diverse immigrant populations, and (third) a highly influential cookbook writer. This thesis explores the development of Argentine cuisine over fifty years, from 1935 to present. This culinary series focuses on meat consuming habits, immigrants' contributions, and Dona Petrona de Gandulfo in integrating and restructuring the cuisine. Certain subjects such as the beginning of the television industry and changes in women's political rights are also considered. The thesis thus explains how Dofia Petrona' s example opened doors for the next generation of career women to challenge social and economic barriers. This thesis argues that the present cuisine can be characterized as the evolutionary process of a decentralized society. The gastronomic traditions are the cultural expression of a powerful middle class society fused with the elite's taste in food preferences. The amalgamation of those elements has produced the cuisine that is known today. This study is based upon an analysis of some of Dofia Petrona's cookbooks located in the Biblioteca Nacional de Buenos Aires, supplemented with popular periodicals such as El Hogar and printed materials obtained at the Escuela de cocina de Belgrano as well as interviews with chefs and culinary students, ~thnographic narrations from immigrant followers of Dona Petrona, and three culinary professionals who worked with her. The last part of this thesis deals briefly with the new gourmet attitude in that country. Others writers have deeply and amply addressed the matter of women's political rights; hence, I devote most of my attention to middle-class women and culinary patterns as the new hybrid expression of culture.