What is food culture?

[nuppe]

I'm about to make and serve an essay, but I'm short of one ingredients: a good definition of food culture. Does anyone have something readymade?

[Daniel Rogov]

Indeed......from Brillat-Savarin:

"Animals eat

Men and women dine

Men and women of good taste dine well"

[Carrot Top]

"Food culture" can mean many different things, depending on what your focal point is.

You can define "food culture" through the lenses of sociology, psychology, specific culture(s), history. . . it can be defined by connecting it to the new phrase "aspirational lifestyle" or even through myth, spirituality, or various religions.

What we put into our mouths has always mattered. Greatly. Soulfully. Even eternally.

Nobody has made that point more strongly than Joseph Campbell, the renowned scholar of world mythology. He believed eating was at the heart of the human urge to repent. People are forever guilty, Campbell said, because they must kill to survive.

From Green Jello and other Sacred Delicacies

It all depends on what you are trying to say, yourself, within the essay.

To me, an essay is not about getting it "right". It's about the opportunity to explore the wide-ranging, vast land of ideas and personal feelings. It's an adventure, of the best sort.

I hope that, when you do decide what your definition is, that you will share it here. . .rather as if it were a dish added to a banquet.

P.S. Here is a link to how Wikipedia defines "culture".

Just add "food", mix, and bake.

P.P.S. Thinking about essays reminded me of something once read about how an elementary-school child described to his mother how he was taught to write one: "You tell them what you are going to say, then you say it, then you tell them what it is you said. " I love that.

Edited November 12, 2006 by Carrot Top (log)

[nuppe]

Thank you! I think I'll manage to remember that. This evening I ate well, but if I should base on the rest of the week, I think I belong to the second category

Indeed......from Brillat-Savarin:

"Animals eat

Men and women dine

Men and women of good taste dine well"

←

[nuppe]

Thank you. I really appreciated your answer - especially for encourageing me to explore - and for defining my present task as an adventure.(and, yes, you're right) (and the child)

"Food culture" can mean many different things, depending on what your focal point is.

You can define "food culture" through the lenses of sociology, psychology, specific culture(s), history. . .  it can be defined by connecting it to the new phrase "aspirational lifestyle" or even through myth, spirituality, or various religions.

What we put into our mouths has always mattered. Greatly. Soulfully. Even eternally.

Nobody has made that point more strongly than Joseph Campbell, the renowned scholar of world mythology. He believed eating was at the heart of the human urge to repent. People are forever guilty, Campbell said, because they must kill to survive.

From Green Jello and other Sacred Delicacies

It all depends on what you are trying to say, yourself, within the essay.

To me, an essay is not about getting it "right". It's about the opportunity to explore the wide-ranging, vast land of ideas and personal feelings. It's an adventure, of the best sort.

I hope that, when you do decide what your definition is, that you will share it here. . .rather as if it were a dish added to a banquet.

P.S. Here is a link to how Wikipedia defines "culture".

Just add "food", mix, and bake.

P.P.S. Thinking about essays reminded me of something once read about how an elementary-school child described to his mother how he was taught to write one: "You tell them what you are going to say, then you say it, then you tell them what it is you said. " I love that.

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[srhcb]

I'm about to make and serve an essay, but I'm short of one ingredients: a good definition of food culture. Does anyone have something readymade?

←

You need only ask, and you shall receive!

SB (albeit two weeks later)

[Carrot Top]

Here is something on food culture from an anthropological view:

Food and Eating