A novidade somos nós mesmos: a espacialização identitária do produto turístico gastronômico nordestino brasileiro

Abstract

In an attempt to bring the gastronomic culture of Northeastern Brazil into identity essences, up to its transformation into a product for tourism use, viewed through the lens of the symbiotic tourist/gastronomic binomial, this thesis adopted a phenomenological stance as an epistemological approach in the effort to unravel what is referred to as the Produto Turístico Gastronômico Nordestino Brasileiro [PTGNB], observing, signifying, unveiling, and reflexively describing these products based on the relationships that conceive or may conceive them. Thus, the general objective was to spatialize the identity of the PTGNB in the offering of the 21st century. To achieve this, specific objectives were defined: to identify the gastronomic products that most symbolize each state of Northeastern Brazil; to distill the gastronomic tourism products through their structuring in a triangulated three-dimensional perspective; and to unveil how the Brazilian Northeastern Gastronomic Tourism Product has been outlined in the region’s tourismcultural offering. Therefore, this is a qualitative research with descriptive and exploratory characteristics. For this purpose, data collection techniques were chosen for each specific objective outlined, which included: documentary research, systematic bibliographic research, reflective direct observation and netnographic research. As analysis techniques, content analysis was employed, supported by triangulated and phenomenological reflection, with the research limited to the nine states of Northeastern Brazil: Alagoas, Bahia, Ceará, Maranhão, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte, and Sergipe, making it a multiple case study. The main results in the nine case studies that made up the research universe revealed 45 (forty-five) gastronomic tourism products (the PGTNB), which most prominently represented the Brazilian Northeast in relation to its tourism offerings. These included: sun-dried beef from Caicó, Potiguar shrimp, Potiguar paçoca, Potiguar rice with milk, ginga with tapioca, rubacão, Paraíba tapioca, Picuí sundried beef, goat offal stew (buchada de bode), Paraíba couscous, bolo de rolo (rolled cake), cartola, Sousa Leão cake, Pernambuco tapioca, jerked beef culture, sururu, crab, “cocada da Massagueira”, pituzada, “chiclete de camarão”, crab, Sergipe sun-dried beef, peanuts, mangaba, coconut sweet (queijadinha), acarajé, shrimp bobó, caruru, abará, vatapá, baião de dois, crab feast (caranguejada), Ceará couscous, Ceará fish stew (moqueca), Ceará rapadura (sugarcane candy), Maria Isabel rice, cajuína, capote, Campo Maior sun-dried beef, Piauí paçoca, cuxá rice, Maranhão fish stew (peixada maranhense), tiquira, Guaraná Jesus, and juçara. From the results, it was found that the PTGNB, although in some elements it reflects the image and likeness of the collective imagination of the Northeast, with its products of resistance and subsistence such as sun-dried beef (the most recurrent item in the memorial of the gastronomic tourism products of the Northeast), jerked beef, couscous and rapadura, on the other hand, many gastronomic products stood out in this northeastern memorial, establishing themselves with differentiated and unique characteristics, such as typical northeastern rice dishes (rubacão, Potiguar rice with milk, cuxá, baião de dois, and Maria Isabel rice), vatapá, acarajé, tiquira, juçara, ginga with tapioca, queijadinha, pituzada, capote, cajuína, and Guaraná Jesus. Thus, it became evident that the Northeast is a place where simple, multiracial hands, with female protagonism, transformed typical ingredients of the land into products of abundance and opulence, from a creative and hopeful Northeast.