Gastronomy and the World’s Culture
A Recipe for Success or Disaster?

Aims and Objectives

Numerous divisions exist within a single culture based solely upon differences in preparation, ingredients, methods of eating, traditions, and so on. Numerous objectives will be addressed: globalization and emigration’s effect on cultural food and drink; tourism’s spread of cultural gastronomic competitiveness and misunderstandings; international messaging in cultural gastronomy; the media’s effect on cultural traditions; marketing and thematic cultural cuisine portrayal to the public; the demographic impact on specific cultural cohesion and continuance in gastronomic areas; aesthetic effects and interpretation as gastronomically pertinent; the physiology, emotional, social, and psychological responses triggered by cultural cuisine and the contrary effects when altered or deliberately changed; and the economics of cultural cuisine’s purity or forced changes. The purpose of this study will be to identify, explore, compare, and educate the reader concerning major world cultures over the centuries, particularly as it applies to gastronomy and cultural division in the world today.

Introduction

Gastronomy is the scientific categorization for the process of eating – searching, procurement, and preparation of food – with a focus on preserving mankind’s existence. It is gastronomy which motivates vine dressers, hunters, hybrid cultivators, and cooks/chefs in preparing food for human consumption. As alimentary substances, then, food is quantifiable within various scientific and socioeconomic strata and is applicable to physics for properties, chemistry for composition, commerce for global marketplace competitiveness, cookery for palatable and proper preparation to sustain life, cultural for identity and adhesion, and political for taxation and international exchange power.

Life is ruled by gastronomical principles; from birth to death, the need for sustenance is irrefutable. From the simplicity of an egg’s required time to ebullition to a banquet fit for royalty, gastronomy is a science of life embracing an objective of preservation, execution as cultivation, production as exchange, industry as preparation, and experience as application.

Literature Review

A comprehensive literature review will be conducted with the purpose of understanding different culture’s gastronomical perceptions and traditions. Based on this in-depth review, a logical summary of such differences will be presented.

From an anthropological and linguistic perspective, food can be translated as a code to understand social relationships. According to Douglas, “The message is about different degrees of hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, boundaries and transactions across the across the boundaries. … the taking of food has a social [and] biological component … and … food categories encode social events” (1972, p. 61).

Justification

In order to understand cultural differences – and promote better intercultural relationships – gastronomy needs to be included. Better understanding the emotional relationship between people and food will promote better relationships within and among cultures. This study is designed to further that cause with thoughtful scholarship into the psychosocial elements of food, people, and relationships.

References

References will be pulled from historical databases, unique cultural collections, peer-reviewed scholarly articles, and seminal works by socio-cultural scientists.

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