Identité alimentaire et frontière raciale en Nouvelle-France

Abstract

This article explores the role of food as an interpretive tool in order to understand how the absence of spices, salt and wine in the Wendat , Mi’kmaq and Innu food culture has led several French observers to reflect on the Indigenous body. It questions the binary nature/culture opposition proposed by many historians to justify the birth of racist thought in the 18th century. On the contrary, it is argued that the first beginnings of racial thought in New France originated in the 17th century and outside this reductive dichotomy.