Perceived reasons for changes in the use of wild food plants in Saaremaa, Estonia

doi:10.1016/j.appet.2016.08.011

Appetite

Volume 107, 1 December 2016, Pages 231-241

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2016.08.011 Get rights and content

Abstract

Recent studies on the use of wild food plants have identified various reasons for their use and underlined their importance as an emergency food supply. This work analysed the content of narratives obtained as comments regarding the reasons for using or not using wild food plants mentioned during 48 semi-structured recorded interviews. The results show that past demand for the diversification of food experiences and taste was essential for the consumption of wild plants, while the present concern for the disappearance of wild food taxa familiar from childhood is one of the main reasons for decrease in their consumption. This indicates that people do not really feel that they need to use wild food plants anymore (except for the health benefits), and that they are concerned that their favourite plants are no longer available. The erosion of the practical use of wild food plants is also supported by the very small frequency in which the influence of teachings coming from outside the community was mentioned in discussions of both the past and present, and thus the loss of traditional uses is not really substituted by new uses acquired from elsewhere. Further research is needed to understand lay perceptions of the changes that have occurred in nature, society and the economy, in the context of their influence on the everyday use of wild food plants to appreciate the ways in which knowledge erosion takes place and to find means of retaining this basic knowledge within the society.

Graphical abstract

Section snippets

Research site

Saaremaa (Ösel) is the largest island in Estonia (2673 km²) and the fourth largest island in the Baltic Sea. About half of the roughly 30,000 inhabitants live outside of its urban centre, Kuressaare. The population of the island is very sparse, mean population density is 12 people per km². As people tend to inhabit small towns or village centres, some countryside locations have population density even below 3 people per km² (Eesti statistika, 2016). Soviet kolkhoz system and repressions

Results

In sum, 51 keywords were identified in the narratives through the textual analysis (Table 1). A large number of keywords in every individual interview were rather ambivalent, possible to attribute to several discussion categories. However, for the clarity of analysis the majority of keywords (48) were divided into six main discussion categories: availability of wild plants, their taste, demand for nutrients, wild plants as part of pastime activities, their perceived effect on health and their

Discussion and conclusions

The current study aimed to deepen the understanding of the mechanisms underlying the phenomenon of unlearning debt (Kalle & Sõukand, 2016), e. g. identify the reasons for rapid erosion of the knowledge of the use of wild food plants. The understanding of the phenomenon is important because the use of wild food plants is seen as homogenous, due to representing emergency foods of the past (Quave and Pieroni, 2015, Sõukand and Pieroni, 2016), hence being a mean for securing food in case of sudden

Acknowledgments

The fieldwork was supported by the grant from Estonian Ministry of Education and Science EKKM14-300 and the Estonian Research Council grant IUT22-5; writing of the paper was supported by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies, CEES). The author is grateful to all inspiring interviewees. Special thanks to Raivo Kalle, who equally participated in the fieldwork and transcription of the interviews and Urmas Sutrop for important

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Perceived reasons for changes in the use of wild food plants in Saaremaa, Estonia

Abstract

Graphical abstract

Section snippets

Research site

Results

Discussion and conclusions

Acknowledgments

Journal of Ethnopharmacology

Journal of Ethnopharmacology

Journal of Ethnopharmacology

Landscape and Urban Planning

Journal of Ethnopharmacology

The hidden mediterranean diet: Wild vegetables traditionally gathered and consumed in the Gargano area, Apulia, SE Italy

Acta Societatis Botanicorum Poloniae

Gathering of wild food plants in anthropogenic environments across the seasons: Implications for poor and vulnerable farm households

Ecology of Food and Nutrition

National statistical database of Estonia: Population

The importance of a taste. A comparative study on wild food plant consumption in twenty-one local communities in Italy

Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine

Wild food plants used in traditional vegetable mixtures in Italy

Journal of Ethnopharmacology

Content analysis for the social Sciences and hhumanities

Three approaches to qualitative content analysis

Qualitative Health Research

RQDA: R-Based qualitative data analysis

Folk history and ethnohistory

Ethnohistory