Abstract
This article analyzes the way of the artisanal cheese from Canastra, Minas Gerais state, Brazil, emphasizing its passage by to a center of maturation. This process is taken as a ritual process and as a food performance. That passage will be examined as a particular mechanism for the organic and symbolic transition of the food from one state to another. This process encompasses a wide network of different actors and moments that make up the ‘social life’ of the cheese. In this text, I try to recover moments of its path describing how the artisanal food occupies a privileged place in the creation of social and cosmological ties. I also seek to demonstrate how the cheese artisanal characteristics line off differences not only in its own identity, but also in the social agents involved in its making.
Key words:
artisanal cheeses; ritual; conversion; cure
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