Chapter 29

“Deciphering a Meal”—
Mary Douglas
 Aims
• Douglas uses terminology derived from
linguistics in a way developed by Claude Levi-
Strauss (Ch. 20), who sees myth as a kind of
code by which messages and teachings are
passed among humans.
• For Levi-Strauss and Douglas, social events, like
other rituals, contain sets of values important to
those who observe them.
• Douglas is interested in studying meals as a way
to understand the values expressed in the life of
the people who take part in them.
 Connections
Questions to consider in reading this
chapter:
– What culture is Douglas focusing on?
– What mythological texts are related to the
rituals she discusses?
– What theological concept does her analysis
serve to explain?
 Linguistic Terminology
• Syntagmatic – The sentence is a chain of
related elements such as a subject, verb,
and object. The relationship between
these elements is called syntagmatic.
• Paradigmatic – For any single element in a
sentence, there exists a group of words
that can be placed into it. The relationship
between these elements is called
paradigmatic.
Syntagmatic Relationship
Paradigmatic Relationship
Meals versus Drinks
• Meals are a social activity
that show different levels
of intimacy.
– Meals require utensils that
enter the mouth; drinks do
not.
– Meals usually require
sitting at a table.
– Meals require a contrast of
tastes and textures.
• Drinks, by contrast, are
unstructured.
 Meals Are Patterned
Activity: A + 2B
• Sunday lunch has two main courses, each of
which is patterned like the weekday lunch:
– First course, fish or meat (stressed) and two
vegetables (unstressed).
– Second course, pudding (stressed), cream and
biscuits (unstressed).
• Christmas lunch has three courses, each on the
same tripartite model.
• Meals are ordered in scale of importance and
grandeur through the week and the year.
 Meals are Patterned
Activity: a +2b
• Both A and B contain the same structure,
in small, a + 2b, when a is the stressed
item and b the unstressed item in a
course.
– First course, fish or meat (stressed) and two
vegetables (unstressed).
– Second course, pudding (stressed), cream
and biscuits (unstressed).
 Jewish Dietary Laws
1. Rejection of certain animal kinds as unfit
for the table (Lev. 11).
2. Of those admitted as edible, the
separation of the meat from blood before
cooking (Lev. 17:10).
3. Total separation of milk from meat, which
involves the minute specialization of
utensils (Ex. 23:19, 34:26; Deut. 14:21).
Classification of Animals
The Patterns Represented by the
First Jewish Dietary Law
• The dietary laws apply to creatures that
live on the water, in the air, and on the
land. This covers all the earth.
• The Venn diagrams Douglas uses show
the same patterns of classification for all
three environments. A mathematician
would say they are isomorphic (of the
same shape).
Water Animals
Air Animals
Land Animals
Jews and the Covenant
 Analogy

The dietary laws create an analogy between

the temple and the living body.
 Review
• Meals are patterned activity: A + 2B, a +2b.
• Paradigmatic
• Syntagmatic
• Meals are a social activity that show different levels of
intimacy.
• For the Israelites, the classification of animals follows the
same pattern as the classification of humans.
• The classification in the dietary laws reflects the
understanding of the world revealed by the covenant, the
agreement that God made with the Israelites in the book
of Genesis.