Food memories and cravings

Living abroad for years has made me really miss home, especially the smell of pandan, the tingle of ….

You hold a spoon that has been worn down by the hands of your mother, of your grandmother. You hold a kitchen pot upon which is written the history of women who labored to feed loved ones. You hold a cheese grater, a measuring cup, a tin pitcher, a colander, a potato masher, a whisk, and you stand thousands upon thousands strong, banging your spoons in rhythm, dancing and singing as you face a repressive police force, riot police armed with tear gas, drones and helicopters following your movements from above. As days pass into weeks, you stand in defiance, spoon and pot in hand, demanding with every clang that the government elected by you the people listen to its people. This is a cacerolazo, a method of peaceful protest with deep roots in Latin America in which women — in the domestic space and in the streets — play a central role.

In the ‘60s and ‘70s, women represented roughly 20 percent of the labor force in most Latin American countries, and the societal expectation was that women belonged at home with their children. Under dictatorship and in times of economic cuts and food shortages, women were particularly affected given their assumed role as caretakers of the family. And to protest such conditions — first in Chile in the ‘70s and later in Argentina and Venezuela — women took to the streets in numbers, banging pots and pans, and often they were joined by other sectors of society, particularly students. The cacerolazo created a challenge for repressive governments because it was hard — even in countries with government-controlled media — to justify violence against women, often accompanied by their children, banging pots and pans..