Yes, we have Coca-Cola: practices and sociabilities of the United States in the food habits in Recife (1930-1950)

Abstract

Up until the first three decades of the twentieth century, Brazil was still a young republic that sought to show itself as a modern country, especially through urban interventions in capitals such as Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Belem and Recife. During this period and also before it, the country had a strong influence of French culture that pervaded many aspects of society, including therein the food habits. However, since 1930, there is an emerging shift in this paradigm, when movies, music, dances and other elements of another culture, this time the US, start to become more and more present among the Brazilians. The Americans would become, in the interwar period and particularly after 1945, the largest economic power in the west, removing the French cultural primacy and example to be pursued by other countries. In Brazil, this would happen visibly in the Northeast, particularly in the capitals that received and maintained military US bases, as a result of bilateral agreements on mutual assistance between Vargas and Roosevelt. Recife concentrated the control of the national forces, given its strategic geographical location and urban structure, preparing for an enemy invasion that never materialized and receiving hundreds of foreign soldiers. During this period, Recife lived intensely with these military, resulting in a cultural exchange that would accelerate the change of the French cultural paradigm for the North American one. This shift occurred in several respects, with the food habits being the object of this work, addressing the social and culinary customs that have arisen or have been transformed into the host society, which would continue to metamorphose during the following year, influenced by the radio and also by a new type of media; the television, beginning in the 1950s. The gastronomic sociability originated from these changes is of particular interest, especially regarding the differences between the model propagated by France and the United States, the social groups involved and their participation, the issue of gender, the strategies and tactics of consumption, in addition to products, preparations, techniques, tools, equipment, advertising and other aspects referring to eating and drinking in the studied period, helping build a narrative that investigates a part that is still poorly studied in the formation of the national cuisine and Brazilian society. (AU)