FOOD CULTURE
How are food choices affected by our culture? Food and culture are two different worlds that go very well together. Food is essentially considered to consist of nutrients that support body growth and metabolism to provide energy. But apart from all the nutritional value, the food we eat also represents our culture, and is a very important component of it. The types of food consumed by millions of people around the world vary according to region and different cultures, this diversity did not start in the same way but it changed gradually with time to match our society and our available resources. So, to understand or even have a deep knowledge about a certain culture one must learn how does culture affect food choices. All the necessary requirements of making food and the activities such as capture, cultivation, preparations, and consumption are considered a vital part of a cultural act. It has been gradually adopted as per climatic conditions and availability of prey. So, to study the way as how does culture affect food choices it is important to understand the different aspects of food making, which greatly varies among different cultures.
Food during Renaissance During the Renaissance period there came a lot of changes in Italy, which started at the origin of the creative cooks in Europe. So, the food during Renaissance period is a strong example to understand how culture affects food choices, as many modern cultures during this era overlapped and produced some of the world’s finest dishes. During this period people grew fond love for pasta, pasta noodles, stews, stuffed pasta and this became a part of the Italian culture since that time, which was a huge turn over from the usual bread answering as to how does culture affect food choices?
Asian food and culture Rice is consumed at a very high rate in all parts of Asia. Rice is mainly served either steamed or as porridge and even as rice noodles. The Chinese and some other cultures follow Buddhism, which prohibits them to a certain extent for consumption of huge amount of food at a time. The Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese cultures all consume their food with chopsticks but with different shapes.
Middle Eastern food A deeply intricate and historically influenced culture is that of the Middle Eastern culture. As most of the Middle Eastern countries are Islamic their food excludes the consumption of pork or alcohol in any form. The most common use is of chickpeas and olives in the Middle Eastern cuisine and pita bread is very popular flat bread that is consumed there. Thus, it signifies as how does culture affect food choices drastically. So in order to jot down all the facts related to culture and food and understand the authenticity of how does culture affect food choices, it can be said that the transformation of recipes into real food that eventually acquires its own language and comes out as a product of complex culture that is affected by external factors such as geography, climate, the pursuit of pleasure and the wish to acquire good health. It can be easily concluded that food has always symbolized class and cultures.
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September / October 2020 - www.globalonemagazine.com
