“Woman is a Bad Thing”: the “Kitchen” and the “System” of a People in the Sertão of Minas Gerais (Brazil)

Abstract

In this article, I show how, in a backwoods town of Minas Gerais, the women’s management practices in the kitchen and their worry about events of the body are central to the way in which social relations are conceived. I suggest that the local expression “mexida de cozinha” (kitchen’s business and kitchen’s movement) reveals a mode of action and movement that put on continuity physiological and social processes. The matter of food offers then a peculiar way of thinking about the social system.