Food, in itself, is a social concept, a perception of an idea that is constructed through cultural and social practice. Food is constructed through cultural practice, defined by its particular usage and representation among particular ethnic and cultural groups. Therefore, food’s significance is much more than simply satiating hunger. Take religious restrictions on pork, for example. What reason caused Islam’s belief in the pig as haram, considering it is eaten by the vast majority of the world? Simply put, why do Muslims avoid pork? This can be rationally analyzed, and is attributed to the climate and geographical limitations of foodways in the Middle East. However, as Islam spread throughout the world, the habitual action of avoiding …show more content…
Taking into consideration the stigmas and stereotypes such as “a woman … to evoke the idea of the kitchen” (Parasecoli, 288), food preparation and cooking has been a source of attention on how gender inequality, or more specifically, hegemonic masculinity, is reproduced in both the everyday home activities and in the professional realm of celebrity chefs and hosts. It must be noted that although food habits in today’s world are reflected in the development and expression of male masculinity, there is little to no attention towards how the male identity is affected by food preparation and food culture. The current state of knowledge and attention in scholarly articles remain, for the most part, on how masculine identity discourse is displayed through specific mediums such as food shows. This mock research paper attempts to address this hole using survey interviews. The research questions I ask are: “How does masculine identity influence food habits?” and “How have food habits affected participants’ body image and masculine ideals?” State of Knowledge Throughout the history of mankind, food has always been connected with male identity, especially in a male-dominated patriarchal society where “cooking in our society remain deeply linked to gender” (Swanson, 141). What one eats and how one is seen by society in regards to food habits affect male behaviour in their development and expression of identity. The current state of knowledge brings attention towards the
It is a known fact that every human being communicates through language, but perhaps a little known fact that we communicate even through the food we eat. We communicate through food all the meanings that we assign and attribute to our culture, and consequently to our identity as well. Food is not only nourishment for our bodies, but a symbol of where we come from. In order to understand the basic function of food as a necessity not only for our survival, we must look to politics, power, identity, and culture.
Thinking about the importance and significance of food respective to our health, ethnic culture and society can cause cavernous, profound, and even questionable thoughts such as: “Is food taken for granted?”, “Is specialty foods just a fad or a change in lifestyle?”, and even “Is food becoming the enemy.” Mark Bittman, an established food journalist, wrote an article called “Why take food seriously?” In this article, Bittman enlightens the reader with a brief history lesson of America’s appreciation of food over the past decades. This history lesson leads to where the social standing of food is today and how it is affecting not only the people of America, but also the rest of the world.
For example Muslim doesn’t eat pork by being aware of it we provide his food without pork and individual has his dietary needs meet.
Neither life nor culture can be sustained without food. On a very basic level, food is fundamentally essential for life, not simply to exist, but also to thrive. A means by which carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, nutrients, and calories are introduced into the body, food is a mechanism of survival. However, on a more abstract level, food is also fundamentally essential for culture by establishing its perimeters and dimensions and in shaping its authenticity and character. Food becomes the
Food is a highly unique commodity, for though it is essential to every single person on earth, there is no other commodity which is acquired and consumed in such diverse ways. It is a multifaceted social instrument, serving to connect people across cultural boundaries while simultaneously drawing lines through society, dividing people across race and class. Though we have discussed the connections between certain alternative food movements and the creation of a ‘white’ identity, I contend that the social mechanisms of food extend beyond the production of ‘whiteness’, and are intricately bound up in the creation and perpetuation of other racial and class identities in Western society. As the ways in which we consume and engage with food
In Jessica Harris’s “The Culinary Season of my Childhood” she peels away at the layers of how food and a food based atmosphere affected her life in a positive way. Food to her represented an extension of culture along with gatherings of family which built the basis for her cultural identity throughout her life. Harris shares various anecdotes that exemplify how certain memories regarding food as well as the varied characteristics of her cultures’ cuisine left a lasting imprint on how she began to view food and continued to proceeding forward. she stats “My family, like many others long separated from the south, raised me in ways that continued their eating traditions, so now I can head south and sop biscuits in gravy, suck chewy bits of fat from a pigs foot spattered with hot sauce, and yes’m and no’m with the best of ‘em,.” (Pg. 109 Para). Similarly, since I am Jamaican, food remains something that holds high importance in my life due to how my family prepared, flavored, and built a food-based atmosphere. They extended the same traditions from their country of origin within the new society they were thrusted into. The impact of food and how it has factors to comfort, heal, and bring people together holds high relevance in how my self-identity was shaped regarding food.
Tom Junod starts the article building credibility, he discusses his role as the cook of his house and then addresses why he holds this role and who inspired him to take it. When I started reading the article, I was unaware about who the author was. At first, I thought after reading the first couple of sentences that the voice was of a woman. It was not until the author addressed himself as a “husband who cooks for his wife, which makes me a man who cooks for his woman…”, (citation) that in fact it was revealed to me that the author was a male. I found this introduction to the author very clever, it caught me off guard and made me want to read further. Junod continues on to state that cooking is his job and not something
For many people, culture and identity are closely tied to identity-- sometimes so closely that the things they do, eat, or say may not even feel like a conscious decision. However, from an outsider’s point of view, it is easy to note the differences between cultures in many different ways. One of the most tangible examples of this is, of course, food. When speaking to many people from older generations, it is easy to see how much food is entwined in their stories from the past, whether they come from far away or are still living where they were born. Throughout Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, food is heavily used in many different ways to represent multiple races.
Chris Dummitt, a cultural and political historian who specializes in modern Canadian history , explores the North American man in the 1950’s in his article, “Finding a Place for Father: Selling the Barbecue in Postwar Canada.” Through the analysis of several magazine and scholarly journal articles, as well as commercial advertisements, Dummitt entices historians with his exploration of how “men’s barbecuing transgressed normative gender roles” (209). Dummitt argues that barbecuing’s masculine attributes arose out of the changing notions of fatherhood and the place of the father within domestic family life (210). However, the importance of the altering female role within society is not recognized within the article. Without the rise of female
In today’s society, masculinity has changed throughout time. Fast forward one hundred years ago, masculinity is defined as being strong and having a good paying job. But as the world is changing so is the representation of manliness. You don’t have to show your dominance over men or women today, but you should support your family nowadays and we have all been brainwashed by the thought of masculinity from our ancestors. As men our reputation is always being valued but now it isn’t so much about our reputation but about caring for one another and especially for our families. Perspective of manhood is also a significant factor in portraying what masculinity is in the eyes of other people. Masculinity has been shown through money, appearance, and providing protection for your family members but as we shift into the modern world, masculinity is not seen as displaying the most discipline but caring for one another by taking out some of your time to help one another. Throughout the paper, I will be writing about my interviews from a broad spectrum of ages from one of my younger sisters to my dad with not friends not at Seb’s in between so I can get what it really means to be a man from all ages.
Food, has a specific meaning to all of us; for some it is a form of nourishment, for others it is a cultural act,
Sleep, sex, and food are the three most important aspect of a human life. Each of them represents resting, reproducing, and surviving – essential elements that form the foundation of human culture and society. The status of these elements always represents the social stature and cultural ideology, of the desire or dislike of people. Some standards are universal, while some are uniquely formed through generations of different cultural traditions. Food in this case might be the most simple and yet the hardest ideology of desire for anthropologists to catch. Its meaning is never as plain as a recipe of a cooking book, but always attached with the cultural and psychological ideology that is connected with individual and cultural identities.
During the first week of class, four readings were assigned. One of the readings, “Food and Eating: Some Persisting Questions,” by Sidney Mintz, discusses the paradoxes of food. Although food seems like a straightforward concept, it is actually extremely complicated. According to Mintz, there are five paradoxes, including: the importance of food to one’s survival, yet we take it for granted, how people stick to their foodways, but are willing to change, whether the government should allow people to freely choose food or if they should protect the people through regulations, the difference in food meanings according to gender, and the morality of eating certain foods. All of these paradoxes give people questions to think about, making this an extremely philosophical look at food studies. It also mentions that food must be viewed through the cultural context that it is in, which became important in “The Old and New World Exchange”, by Mintz, and “Maize as a Culinary Mystery”, by Stanley Brandes. These discuss the diffusion of foods after 1492 in different ways. The Mintz reading gives an overview of all of the foods spread from the Americas to the Old World, and vice-a-versa, but does not go terribly in depth on the social changes and effects of specific foods. Brandes focuses on the cultural impact of specifically maize on the European diet, noticing that most Western Europeans shunned it. He studies the cultural implications of this, concluding that maize was not accepted
We as a people eat every day, several times throughout the day because it is something we need to do in order to survive. What many people do not realize is that food has a hand in shaping who you are as individuals. The more obvious, like religion also has a great deal in shaping us as individuals and when you put the two together you will be surprised with the outcome. Food and religion have a play in community, tradition, and issues of purity and cleanliness. I will explain how Judaism, Muslims, and Protestants are all involved with shaping the community we live in and have a say so on what is to be eaten.
Food is very much a part of pop culture, and the beliefs, practices, and trends in a culture affect its eating practices. Pop culture includes the ideas and objects generated by a society, including foods, and other systems, as well as the impact of these ideas and objects on society. For example, Mcdonald's is another of the thousands of fast food chains that populate our cities though they often use the term “popular culture” only to refer to media forms. Their popularity has also increased internationally. Although all humans need food to survive, people's food habits and how they obtain, prepare, and consume food, are the result of learned behaviors. Mcdonald’s, like other food chains, has made an effort to ‘localize’ its products so that they will be more successful in each different cultural context. These collective behaviors, as well as the values and attitudes they reflect, come to represent a group’s pop culture.