Food and identity: Ethnicity & Regionalism - Essay Example

Food and Identity: Ethni & Regionalism Americans have added ingredients form different origins to their cuisine as well assome foreign methods of food preparation and presentation. Americans try different forms of food preparation and in each situation, they try to be unique in their own way to maintain the prestige. They have used them at homes and in events including them though in ways which do not disturb their palates. A common saying that many agree with is ‘you are what you eat’ that brings a dimension to food of culture and personal identity.

As people adopt different cultural practices and beliefs, food is not left behind, as a matter of fact; it is at the center of these changes. People must adopt to different foods, this approach in their culture advances cross cultural interaction which is best for national peace promotion and cohesion. The wide spread changes in governments, technology and cultures commonly known as globalization have been at the center of these changes as Appadurai argues. Due to these changes, cook books have been designed; information has been made available of different cultures.

Not only these, but others have come up that are targeted at specific groups such as working class people. The confines of city food as well as peasant food have been broken through by technology and emerging is a group of people that daily consume the same food daily. This is in line with the mentalist that views the world through an idea, the idea her being a people, similar in culture. Technology, in as much as is viewed as being a cultural growth development, plays a significant role in ensuring culture is upheld in different spheres around the globe America being the center stage.

Now people can easily access information on the internet about preparation of given food for a given culture and share it in a click of a button. The other way in which food culture changes is as people involve new products such as ingredients to form cuisines that still remain true to their identities so that over time, their culture is still maintained. It complies with the view by materialists concerning everything being a reality. That the food and ingredients they use are real despite the different cultural settings the ingredients have been adopted from in the given region.

It meets the peoples need for identity, and identity, is all what is important in a given cultural and religious setting. Changes in food culture in this way are due to changes that are inevitable such as extinction of certain ingredients.For both the views though, food identity still changes over time, even though one does not leave people feeling as though they have been robbed and their culture eroded do that they remain feeling lost. Formation of national cuisines, that have to be adopted all over a region (such as the Japanese dish that children have to carry on their first day of school) serves as a perfect example of the first perspective held by Appadurai.

Works CitedAllison, Anne, "Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunch Box as Ideological State Apparatus (F&C)Appadurai, Arjun, How to Make a National Cuisine (WEB)Levenstein, Harvey, The American Response to Italian Food, 1880-1930 (USA), in Food in USA, edited by Carole Counihan, 78, New York, Routledge, 2002 Lockwood, Yvonne R. and Lockwood, William G. Pasties in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; Foodways, Internethinic Relations and Regionalism in Shortridge, 1998, Print