Medicines in the Kitchen: Gender Roles Shape Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Marrakshi Households

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Manuscript ID-1360202, is well written but the major issue is about the novelty of this study. Scientific validation towards the role of gender in shaping the food/preparation is considerable but the content is lacking the ethnobotany aspect w.r.t. medicine (i.e. mode of preparation, drying, powder, quantity, storage etc. The title is not justified towards the hypothesis "men that cook for 118 themselves or their families do know more medicinal plants than men that don’t, and 119 women who do not cook for themselves or their families know less medicinal plants". Other major question is about taxonomic validation of the plants. As no voucher specimen was deposited how the authentication is done? When we are using spices there are so many adulterants as well as several vernacular names may exist for different plant species and vice versa. Other minor comments are- 1. Introduction is highlighting major portion with Arabo-Muslim world in general, and Morocco cultural context while nothing towards the hypothesis and objective. The introduction needs to rewrite with the specify the novelty.   2. Table-2, authors citations are not as per KIWI or theplantlist.org. Several cases of citation erors are found. Also, in a few cases, plant names are not in italics.   3. Statistics is not as per the standard of the Foods journal. At least Z-factor/ PCA can be used further. The supplementary files are arranged in good order but were not utilised with statistics. 4. No correlation between hypothesis and conclusions. 5. Past 5 years citations are almost negligible.        

Author Response

Thank you very much for you insightful comments and for the opportunity to improve our study.

Please, do see our comments detailed in the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

I read your manuscript entitled "Medicines in the kitchen: Gender roles shape ethnobotanical knowledge in Marrakshi households" with great interest. Congratulations for the choice of the topic and for the originality of the approach to the knowledge of the uses of food and medicinal plants, through the analysis of cooking habits.

While I did not find any particular errors in the manuscript, I nevertheless firmly believe that it needs to be significantly improved in two parts: Introduction and Conclusions, and in part Dicussion one. In fact, the Introduction section deals directly with the Moroccan situation of the subject matter of your study: it only mentions other cultural realities in the Discussion section, without any mention in the Introduction. A broader background is important to better understand the local issue. Certainly important for a better understanding of the research was the historical excursus from Morocco to Spain, but I think this represents only a local background. What happens in other cultures? In Asia? In Europe? etc.

I suggest you to considerably broaden your vision by previously verifying the ethnobotanical knowledge in the food, medicine and food / medicine fields of other cultures, even if not directly connected with the aspects of cooking and the difference between men and women: these are aspects in which you must go later gradually. You could compare your work with other previously published for other countries, such as southern Italy (Calabria and Sicily), southern Spain and Portugal.

Another important aspect to consider in the Introduction is, for example, the analytical knowledge that one has about the usefulness of some food plants also in the nutraceutical field for preventive purposes, being a natural source of antioxidants. Some references to this aspect could reinforce your results.

Finally, you should improve Conclusions section for a better highlight of your results for the present and the future.

Best wishes.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you very much for you insightful comments and for the opportunity to improve our study.

Please, do see our comments detailed in the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

I found the new version of your manuscript very improved. However, in the first round of review I advised you to verify and compare the ethnobotanical knowledge of countries with similar cultures and, in particular, Spain, Portugal and southern Italy (Calabria and Sicily). I see that you have added something, but perhaps you could also consider the following that I suggest and that will surely be useful to you in reinforcing the basis of your research:

1) Musarella, C.M.; Paglianiti, I.; Cano-Ortiz, A.; Spampinato, G. Indagine etnobotanica nel territorio del Poro e delle Preserre Calabresi (Vibo Valentia, S-Italia). Atti Soc. Toscana Sci. Nat.

2) Cucinotta, F.; Pieroni, A. “If you want to get married, you have to collect virdura”: The.vanishing custom of gathering and cooking wild food plants on Vulcano, Aeolian Islands, Sicily. Food Cult. Soc. 2018, 31, 539–567. 

3) Gargano M.L., Venturella G., Lazzara S., Lo Nardo R., Saporita P., 2018. Ethnobotanical knowledge in some rural communities of northern Sicily (Palermo, Italy). Atti della Società Toscana di Scienze Naturali, Memorie, Serie B. https://doi.org/10.2424/ASTSN.M.2017.28

4) Novais, M.H., Santos, I.; Mendes, S.; Pinto-Gomes, C. Studies on pharmaceutical ethnobotany in Arrabida Natural Park (Portugal). Ethnopharmacol. 2004, 93, 183–195. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2004.02.015.

5) Acosta-Naranjo, R.; Rodríguez-Franco, R.; Guzmán-Troncoso, A.J.; Pardo-de-Santayana, M.; Aceituno-Mata, L.; Gómez-Melara, J.; Domínguez, P.; Díaz-Reviriego, I.; González-Nateras, J.; Reyes-García, V. Gender Differences in Knowledge, Use, and Collection of Wild Edible Plants in Three Spanish Areas. Sustainability 2021, 13, 2639. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052639

6) Gutiérrez-García, L.; Labrador-Moreno, J.; Blanco-Salas, J.; Monago-Lozano, F.J.; Ruiz-Téllez, T. Food Identities, Biocultural Knowledge and Gender Differences in the Protected Area “Sierra Grande de Hornachos” (Extremadura, Spain). Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 2283. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072283

Best wishes.

Author Response

 

We are very thankful to the reviewer for this reference list. We have reviewed the literature and added references number (5) and (6), as they referred to gendered differences specifically. It is out of the scope of this article to provide a full review on the ethnobotanical similarities and dissimilarities across the Mediterranean. Just to provide a concrete example, a recent systematic review focusing only on literature about medicinal plants in Morocco from 1991 to 2015 lists 63 publications: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32750461/