“Beef. It's What's for Dinner”

AbstractWhile many scholars have explored the celebratory role of food traditions—how food is used to create communitas—few consider how food may also be used to punish, cajole, or reinforce hegemonic or patriarchal structures. Drawing on qualitative interviews with vegetarians, I explore the transformation to vegetarianism and the ensuing conflicts between the "homeostasis" of family meat-eating traditions and the "deviance" of refusing meat that are enacted via the family meal. By examining how the inversely related food ideologies of vegetarianism and meat-eating are expressed in this context, a theory arises as to how food behavior and ideology may function to negotiate power, belonging, and exclusion in familial relationships.