Plantain Bananas and Food Changes in the Cameroons
This article takes an anthropological approach to studying changes in food practices and ideologies in the Cameroons. It explores the consumption of plantain bananas in the village of Koumou and in the capital city of Youndé, bearing in mind that the plantain is a richly symbolic food in the south and central Cameroons. Using ethnographic data gathered in 2003 and 2004, the article focuses on changes in the consumption of plantain bananas resulting from urbanization. Using a class analysis, it presents the development of food differentiations that develop alongside the differentiation of urban social classes, and it proposes some theoretical points about food changes in particular and consumption in general.