Food Culture what is it?

“Food for us comes from our relatives, whether they have wings or fins or roots. That is how we
consider food. Food has a culture. It has a history. It has a story. It has relationships.”

– Winona LaDuke
How do you interpret the quote above?

Food Culture can be defined as the attitudes, beliefs and practices that surround the production
and consumption of food. Food Culture incorporates our ethnicity, cultural heritage and provides
a mechanism of communication with others both externally and within our families and
communities.

Food anthropology is a sub-discipline within the field of anthropology and it is a critical part of
understanding a culture. Culinary anthropologists have provided a greater understanding of broad
societal processes such as politics, economics and value creation and the social constructs of
collective memory. Simply put you cannot study a country and develop an ethnography of that
culture without understanding the role food and food production has on all levels of the
community.

Archaeologists search for the evidence of culture through digs and ancient sites for the physical
evidence left by previous cultures. They find clues about the past to learn how are ancestors lived
and worked. A food anthropologist working with archaeologists investigate the food culture of
the community through the remains of food left in firepits and found objects.
Food is the linchpin of society and it creates a connection between our beliefs, our ethnicity, our
individual cultures and our cultural heritage.  On a larger scale than most people realize, food is
not just a part of culture it can define culture.

Traditional foods and cuisine are passed down from one generation to the next within families
and communities. In areas where the family or person has lost contact with their heritage one of
the first places, they turn to are cooking schools or classes to learn what their cultural food
traditions are.
Immigrants brought the food they grew up with to their new countries and in many cases passed
these traditions down to their children. With war and conflict, however, many people became
detached from their culture and their food culture.

It was impossible in some areas to obtain familiar ingredients and items that allowed our family
recipes to be created. As a result, many communities created what has become known as micro-
cuisine. This is a method of using local ingredients in familiar recipes that called for different
traditional ingredients.
In many cases, regional cuisines are dependent on what can be grown within a specific area. We
all know that corn, beans, squash and tomatoes along with chocolate came from the Americas
and found the climates of warmer parts of Asia and Europe in which they could be grown.
In the Yucatan, for example, tamales are made with banana leaves wrapping them instead of corn
husks. In Malaysia, the Baba Nyonya traditions incorporate the Chinese immigrants’ traditional
dishes with local ingredients to create a micro cuisine. Parsi cuisine in India is a fusion of Iranian
traditions with Indian cuisine.

What you eat and how you eat and when you eat can provide a lot of information about a specific
culture. It also helps tells the stories of the people within those cultures. the study of micro-
cuisines that are built upon immigrants adaptions of local ingredients is becoming a foodie trend.
As children, we grow up eating the specific foods of our cultures. For example, as a person born
in the UK, I grew up eating canned baked beans as a vegetable which were served several times
a week. This is not something that a person born in Canada would have eaten. We also ate potato
pancakes or Boxty which are traditionally Irish along with Soda Bread. It was always a special
day in our house when we had a full Irish breakfast – we always had this on Christmas morning
and Easter.

We all know that a Jewish mother will prepare a great chicken soup also known as Jewish
Penicillin for those with a cold. In the Philippines, the soup will contain rice instead of noodles
and it contains a lot of ginger known as a remedy for nausea and a sore throat.
 In some Asian countries, a big bowl of rice porridge is served and occasionally thing like
pickled plums or fish are added. Similarly in Pakistan, the porridge is a combination of rice and
lentils called Khichdi. 

In Eastern European countries like Russia or Poland, a giant bowl of borscht is prescribed and in
Hungary, the remedy is garlic, honey. Like many places across Western, Europe honey is used to
soothe sore throats and is usually mixed with lemon.

In many countries, you can learn a lot about local culture simply by asking the vendors at street
markets, the chefs and servers in restaurants. Observe the way the local people eat and order food
in restaurants and follow their lead. In many hot Meditteranean countries, lunch is a large meal to
fuel your day and dinner is eaten very late and may only consist of small bits like tapas.

These food culture traditions are handed down and become part and parcel of the various
cultures to which they are attached. With various diasporas over the centuries, many cuisines
have become part and parcel of their adopted homelands. Think Italian food in New York,
Jewish Cusine in Montreal, Chinese food traditions in the Western USA. Eastern European foods
in the plains and prairies of Canada.
What always remains with that food culture though is the fact that it reflects its origins beliefs,
values, unique history and lifestyles. 

Local food culture gives people an identity

When you visit or live within another culture what you learn about food is also what you learn
about the culture. Most locals are more than happy to share the stories of their cuisine and
favourite dishes. For example in China harmony is critical to life and all the flavours must be
balanced. So salty, sweet, bitter, sour and spicy are delicately balanced within every complex
recipe.

For Chinese culture, it is critical for people to eat together from communal dishes and plates of
food.

In the USA it was the indigenous people’s who taught the immigrants to use the available foods
like corn, beans, squash and of course turkey. Over the centuries these have become entwined
with new cultures arriving and are a traditional Thanksgiving dinner meal.

Latin America, Central America and Mexico gave the world chocolate, chillies, corn, beans,
squash, potatoes and tomatoes along with lime. Mexican families often cook together a day of
tamale preparation and other labour intensive dishes.
In Muslim and Indian countries no utensils are necessary it is believed that you taste the food
more if you eat with your fingers. In the Western world we are accustomed to using a fork – but
did you know that forks were once considered sacrilegious and viewed as an affront to god?

The use of chopsticks came about thanks to Confucius who believed that knives with their sharp
pointy ends signified violence and reminded the eater of the slaughterhouse. Confucius was a
strict vegetarian.  

When you share food with locals or shop in local stores and actually converse with and engage
with the locals you also hear their food stories. For example, in Mexico, corn tortillas are the
staple in most of the lower regions of the country and in the Yucatan. Flour tortillas appear to
have come about along the borders of Mexico and the original territories of the country which
became the USA.

In Italy, there are many different ways to prepare and serve pasta, pizza and bread and each
region has specific ingredients that they use in traditional recipes. In Northern Italy, polenta and
risotto are more popular than pasta. Central Italy tends to use tomatoes, every kind of meat and
offal, fish and pecorino cheese. In Southern Italy peppers, olives and olive oils, artichokes,
oranges and anchovies are critical to the local recipes.

In Africa which is not a monolithic country, the cuisine varies widely from East to West, North
and South. Traditionally the food of Africa uses available fruits, local vegetables, and grains. In
some areas meat is not traditional as it is considered as good as cash and you don’t eat your
money.
The Maasai are an exception as their traditional food culture is based almost entirely on milk,
meat and blood of their cattle.
 Since much of Africa was colonized by western nations these cultural influences have developed
foods that include ingredients that were not indigenous to the country but developed as a cash
crop.

Of course, much great food arises out of poverty and food cultures have been impacted by the
lack of availability of ingredients and the use of ingredients that were not considered edible by
the ruling classes. Soul Food in the USA is a perfect example of this. Slaves created a food
culture by using the ingredients they were “allowed” pork hocks and head, offal, cornbread and
greens with fatback.

Find words in the text which mean:

Indication (3)
A person related to you who lived long time ago (3)
The parts left over (3)
The most important person or a thing (3)
Transferred (4)
A medicine or treatment for a disease or injury (8)
Feeling of sickness (8)
Shared by all members of a group (13)
Native (13)
Closely connected (13)
Containers for household use (14)
Homogenous (18)

Discussion questions and quotes:

“Food is symbolic of love when words are inadequate.”
– Alan D. Wolfelt
“Food brings people together on many different levels. It’s nourishment of the soul and body; it’s
truly love.”
– Giada De Laurentiis
“The best comfort food will always be greens, cornbread, and fried chicken.”
– Maya Angelou
“You don’t need a silver fork to eat good food.”
– Paul Prudhomme
“Life is too short for self-hatred and celery sticks.”
– Marilyn Wann
“Food is our common ground, a universal experience.”
–James Beard
“Wine is bottled poetry.”
–Robert Luis Stevenson

1. How can we encourage people to eat more healthily?

2. Do you think people enjoy their food as much as they should? Why (not)?
3. Do you think cooking is a pleasure or a chore for people who have busy lives?
4. Are people in your country generally knowledgeable about healthy and unhealthy foods,
do you think?
5. What could be the consequences of people’s changes in diet?
6. Do you think your government is doing enough to improve people’s diets?
7. What can be done to make young people eat healthier food, do you think?
8. How important is retaining a country’s traditional food culture, in your opinion?
9. Do you believe that people in your country learn enough about healthy eating at school?
10. What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a fast food restaurant in your local
area?
11. In what ways does packaged food benefit society?
12. Do you think there is a danger that your country’s traditional cuisine could disappear?
13. How have people’s attitudes to foreign food changed over the last 50 years in your
country?
14. Why do you think different cultures have different table manners?
15. How technology has changed the way we prepare our food these days?