Entre la nutrición y el gusto: Prescripciones alimentarias en la escuela primaria argentina

the history of alimentary education in schools, understood as the institutionalization and dissemination of knowledge and precepts about food production, elaboration and selection, shows the confluence of concepts and guidelines of different orders, origins, and locations. in argentina, through scientific definitions, moral and health recommendations, and the assignment of key gender-based roles, part of the pedagogical discourse became oriented towards teaching children in primary schools what, how, and how much to eat. thus, since the last decades of the xix century and the first of the xx, an activity that was primary and basic for individual and social survival (douglas, 1973) would become part of the way schools educated the body and sensitivity, alongside school subjects, spacial arrangements, and the organization of school time tables and calendars. this work is a progress report of a study which seeks to investigate the conceptual frameworks and practices of alimentary policies as articulated in the state's pedagogical discourse, the actions through which some perspectives about food production and consumption were disseminated, between the years 1880 and 1910 through one of the voices of the state's pedagogical discourse: el monitor de la educación común.ii