FOOD AND CULTURE

CHAPTER 4.1
 What is culture?
• Culture is broadly defined as the values, beliefs, attitudes
and practices accepted by members of a group or
community.
• Culture is learned, not inherited; it is passed from one
generation to generation through language acquisition and
socialization in a process called enculturation.

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 What is culture?
• It is a collective adaptation to a specific set of
environmental conditions, and cultural behaviour patterns
are reinforced when a group is isolated by geography or
segregated by socioeconomic status.

• Yet culture is not in a static condition. It changes over time,

from place to place, and in response to social dynamics.

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 Ethnicity

• Cultural memberships is defined by ethnicity. Unlike

national origin or race (which may include numerous
ethnic groups).

• Ethnicity is a social identity associated with shared

behavior patterns, including food habits, dress, language,
family structure, and often religious affiliation.

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 Eating vs Feeding
• Human not only gather or hunt, but they also cultivate plants
and raise livestock.
• Agriculture means that some foods are regularly available,
alleviating hand-to-mouth sustenance. Human cook, softening
tough foods.
• Choosing foods to combine with other foods, and prompts
rules regarding what to eat and what not to eat.
• Human use utensils to eat and institute complex rules called
manners.

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 Food habits
• Refers to the ways in which humans use food,
including everything from how it’s selected, obtained,
and distributed to who prepares it, serve it and eats it.
• Why don’t people simply feed on the diet of our
primitive ancestors, surviving on forage fruits,
vegetables, grains and the occasional insect or small
mammals?
• Why do people choose to spend their time, energy,
money and creativity on eating?

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 If so, then you may be guilty of Ethnocentrism!
• People who are ethnocentric apply their own values in
judging the behavior and beliefs of other people raised
in other cultures.
• Ethnocentrism contributes to social solidarity and a
sense of value and community.
• However, it also fuels conflict.

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If so, then you may be guilty of Ethnocentrism!

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 The Acculturation Process
• When people from one ethnicity move to an area with
different cultural norms, adaptation to the new majority
society begins.
• This process is known as acculturation, and it takes place
along continuum of behaviour patterns that can be very
fluid, moving back and forth between traditional practices
and adopted customs.

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 The Acculturation related terms
⚫ Acculturation
◦ Adaptation
⚫ Bicultural
◦ Cultures complement each other
⚫ Assimilation
◦ Fully merged
⚫ Ethnocentric
◦ Using your own values to evaluate the behaviors of others
⚫ Ethnorelativism
◦ Assuming all cultural values have equal validity
⚫ Prejudice
◦ Hostility directed toward a person of a different cultural group

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 The Acculturation Process
•It occurs at the micro-level, reflecting an individual’s change in
attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours and at the macro level, resulting
in group changes that may be physical, economic, social, or
political in nature.
•Assimilation occurs when people from one culture group shed
their ethnicity and fully merge into the majority culture.

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The Acculturation of food habits
Culturally food habits are often one of
the last practices people change through
acculturation.
Unlike speaking a foreign language or
wearing traditional clothing, eating is
usually done in privacy of the home,
hidden from observation by majority
culture members.

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 The Acculturation of food habits
• Adaptation of new food items does not
generally develop as steady
progression from traditional diet to the
diet of the majority culture.
• The lack of available native ingredients
may force immediate acculturation, or
convenience or cost factors may speed
change.

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 The acculturation of food habits
•Some immigrants, however adapt the
foods of the new culture to the
preparation of traditional dishes. Tasty
food, pastries, candies, and soft drinks,
conversely unpopular traditional foods
may be the first to go.

•Mexican children living in the United

States quickly reject the variety cuts of
meat, such as tripe, that their parents still
enjoy. It is the foods most associated with
ethnic identity that are most resistant to
acculturation.

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 Cultural food habits
• Prestige food, often protein items or expensive or rare foods.
Body image foods, believed to influence health, beauty and
well-being.

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 Cultural food habits
• Sympathetic magic foods, whose traits, through association of
color or form, are incorporated.

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 Cultural food habits
•Physiological group foods, reserved for, or forbidden to, groups
with certain physiologic status, such as gender, age, or health
condition.

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 Cultural food habits
Researchers have proposed numerous models to identify and understand the food
habits of different cultures. Some of these categorizations are helpful in
understanding the role of food within a culture, including
i. The frequency of food consumption.
ii. The ways in which culture traditionally prepares and seasons its foods, as
examined by flavor principles.
iii. The daily, weekly and yearly use of food, as found in meal patterns and meal
cycles.
iv. Changes in food functions that emerge during structural growth in a culture,
as predicted by the development perspectives of food culture.

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 Core and Complementary food model
Foods selected by a culture can be grouped according to frequency of consumption.
Changes in food behaviours are believed to happen most often with peripheral
foods and least often with core foods.

A person who is willing to omit items that she or he rarely eats is typically much
more reluctant to change food eaten daily and associated with her or his cultural
identity.

Core Food Secondary Food Peripheral Food

The staples regularly Food widely but less Foods eaten only
included in a person’s diet, frequently eaten such as sporadically.
usually on a daily basis, are chicken or lettuce or apples, These foods are
at the core of food habits. are consumed once or a characterized of individual
These typical include week or more, but not on food preference, not cultural
complex carbohydrates, daily. group habits.
such as rice, wheat, corn,
yams, cassava, taro, or
plantains.
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 What is culture?
(revisit the meaning)

• The values, beliefs, attitudes, and practices accepted by

members of a group or community!
• Culture is learned, not inherited; it is passed from
generation to generation through language acquisition
and socialization in a process called enculturation.
• It is a collective adaptation to a specific set of
environmental conditions, and cultural behavior patterns
are reinforced when a group is isolated by geography or
segregated by socioeconomic status.
 Ethnicity

• Unlike national origin or race, ethnicity is a social

identity associated with shared behavior patterns,
including food habits, dress, language, family
structure, and often religious affiliation.
• Members of the same ethnic group usually have a
common heritage through locality or history and
participate together with other cultural groups in a
larger social system.
 Enculturation
• As culture is learned, not inherited, it is passed from
generation to generation through language
acquisition and socialization in a process called
enculturation.
 Acculturation
When people from one ethnicity move to
an area with different cultural forms,
adaptation to the new majority begins.
This process is known as acculturation.
VS and VS
Assimilation ..on the other hand..
When people from one cultural group shed their ethnic identity
and fully merge into the majority culture.
 Culture is learned behavior
• Each child goes through a process of enculturation when
they grow up in a culture.
• Children learn by observing the behaviors of people in their
surroundings, including the recognition of symbols specific
to that culture.
Examples of cultural symbols
 Culture is shared
• Culture is an attribute not of individuals per se but of
individuals as members of groups.
• Culture is transmitted by society.
• Enculturation unifies people by providing us with
common experiences.
 Culture is symbolic
• Symbols can either be verbal (linguistic) or nonverbal (object,
written symbol).
Culture and Nature: Differences in how we meet the call

►Culture defines what people eat, how food is prepared,

and when and how food is eaten.
►Waste elimination is culturally prescribed.
 Culture is all-encompassing and integrated
• Culture envelopes each of us, and touches every aspect of
our lives.
• Culture is systematic and integrated (it is not a random
phenomenon).
• Cultures teach us to share certain core values that helps
shape the personality of the individuals within a culture.
 Levels of culture
• National: learned behavioral patterns, beliefs, values, and
institutions shared by the citizens of a nation.
• International: cultural traditions that expand beyond cultural
boundaries.
• Subculture: different traditions practiced by groups set within a
larger culture. Frequently regionally based.
What makes cultures change?
• Diffusion: borrowing of traits between cultures.
• Acculturation: exchange of cultural features that results
from long-term exposure between cultures.
• Independent invention: Developing to solution to
problems by individual cultures. Example: agriculture.
 One World Culture? Globalization in the 21st Century

• Cultures are increasingly coming in contact as a result of

improved trade relations, better communication, and easier
travel.
• Multinational corporations and business “outsourcing” to the
Third World are becoming more commonplace.
 Flavor Principles

• The significance of food flavor in a culture cannot be overestimated. The

ways foods are prepared and seasoned is second in importance only to the
initial selection of ingredients in the development of food habits.
• It is no less than the transformation of feeding into eating.
• Food demonstrate variability according to location. Much is made, for
example, of wine terroir-the soil texture, natural minerals, drainage, source
of water, sun exposure, average temperature, and other environmental
factors in which grapes are grown. For that, food must be seasoned.

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 Flavor Principles

• Seasonings can be used to classify cuisines culturally. Unique

seasoning combinations, termed flavor principles, typify the foods of
ethnic groups worldwide.
• They are so distinctive that few people mistake their use. For example,
a dish flavored with fermented fish sauce shouts Southeast Asian not
Chinese, Norwegian, or Brazilian.
• These seasoning combinations are often found in the complementary
foods of the core and complementary foods model, providing the
flavors associated with the starchy carbohydrates that are the staples of
a culture. They usually include herbs, spices, vegetables and a fat or oil,
though many variations exist.
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 Flavor Principles
Some widely recognizable flavor principles include:
 Asian Indian: garam masala (curry blend of coriander, cumin, fenugreek, turmeric, black
pepper, cayenne, cloves, cardamom and chili peppers).
 Brazilian (Bhia): Chili peppers, dried shrimp, ginger root, and palm oil.
 Chinese: soy sauce, rice wine, and ginger root.
 French: butter, cream, wine, bouquet garni.
 German: sour cream, vinegar, dill, mustard, and black pepper.
 Italian: tomato, garlic, basil, oregano and, olive oil.
 Japanese: soy sauce, sugar, and rice wine.
 Korean: soy sauce, garlic, ginger root, black pepper, scallion, chili peppers and sesame
seeds or oil.
 Mexican: tomatoes, onions, chili peppers and cumin.
 Thai: fermented fish sauce, coconut milk, chili peppers, garlic, ginger root, lemon grass,
and tamarind.
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Thank you for digesting
 References:
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste.
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Beardsworth, A., & Keil, T. (1996). Sociology on the Menu. New York:
Routledge.
Counihan, C., & Esterik, V. (1997). Food and Culture. New York: Routledge.

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