WORKING FOR THE SAINTS. FOOD, MEMORY AND THE SENSES IN THE IN NORTH QUEENSLAND.

The paper presents some of the main dynamics of the social reproduction of an Italian community through an ethnographic study of the Feast of the Three Saints which, imported from the Sicilian village of St Alfio to Silkwood in 1950, has been celebrated annually in Silkwood, North Queensland. As the celebration of Italian sociality and a way of life, the Feast offers a particular opportunity to study the relationship between popular religion, food production and consumption, the senses, memory and materiality. From this perspective, the author argues that the Feast as ‘lived religion’ (Morgan 2010; Meyer and Houtman 2012) should not be understood only as an expression of Catholic devotion, but also in terms of the construction of a ‘domus’ defined as a social unit and a community based on shared values and practices enacted and continually renewed by the preparation of food and the sensorial aspects of commensality. In the “sacred street theatre” (Orsi 2002, p. lxvii) of the Feast, it is by means of these food practices that a community comes into being by sharing knowledge, memories and feelings through cooking and eating together.