3 - A Historical Observation Altered Consumption Pattern

This paper studied about an altered consumption pattern from historical view. The problems that were studied are (1) how people in Nusantara consider rice as food that has sacred meaning, (2) how New Order era use rice for food security as political tool, (3) and how society, especially upper middle class, consider rice as staple food today. This paper used historical method with four stages, which are heuristic, critic, interpretation, and historiography. Cultural approachment was used to comprehend the altered pattern of society’s view. At the beginning, people in Nusantara consider rice as essential daily staple food due to Dewi Sri myth. In New Order era, when rice as source of Indonesian staple food was used for political commodity, a cultural concept about people who could not afford rice are group of poor people were grown. Today, especially in upper middle class people who are aware of health, fashion, or appearance, considered that appearance must be taken care with reducing the carbohydrates source, including the carbohydrates that contained in rice. Therefore, the upper middle class already have another meaning of the Indonesian staple food, which is rice.

Keywords: rice, myth, Dewi Stri, New Order, Carbohydrate, Fashion

 

Co-Author 1
-

Co-Author 2
-