Culinary Tourism

When Marin handed out this reading in class last week, she’d mentioned that it was very different from the types of readings we’ve had so far.  As soon as I started reading this piece, it became clear that this was going to be the case.  The tone of the writing felt more philosophical, or like it was something that was meant to inform rather than entertain, and as I read I found that it seemed to serve its purpose; it got me thinking.

I was surprised to read how much research and thought has gone into the concept of tourism.  I’d always thought that vacations were a pretty simple concept, but reading the introduction especially made me realize that it, like anything else, can be broken down and studied by the right group of people.  I found it interesting that one of the main definitions for tourism was something that was supposed to be a departure from the normalities of everyday life.  I found myself looking back on vacations that I’ve taken throughout my life, and found that this was oftentimes the case.  Going on a trip to a different or exotic place can be an excellent way of breaking the mundane routines of life, and both vacations that I took with family and vacations that I’ve taken alone or with friends often served this very purpose.

Moving on to the more central idea of the article, and moving from the introduction to chapter one, I was also very interested by the idea of food as tourism.  We’ve talked a fair amount in class about using food as a way of experiencing different or unknown cultures, and so this was a relatable point for me to read about.  The fact that culinary tourism can mean one of two things was interesting to me-- it could either be exploring food while traveling or using food as a way to travel vicariously.

This idea of traveling through food contrasts with some of the other things that we’ve read and discussed in class, though.  In reading The Reporter’s Kitchen, we read about and discussed the idea that food generally does not travel well.  Reading Long’s different ideas on this matter was a nice eye-opener.  While Kramer discussed the idea that food is often confined to a location, and is impossible to perfectly replicate outside of a particular setting, Long  disagrees.  She seems to think that food can actually act as a vessel for travel-- that we can experience new places through food itself.

Finally, I found the section which discussed “The Ethnic Other” to be very interesting.  I’ve never really noticed it before, but it is true that a lot of products consciously make the decision to either play up the ethnicity of something completely or entirely downplay it.  The pictures on page 25 really caught my eye and drove home the point for me; I’ll admit that I eat a lot of Ramen noodles, and while I’ve always considered it to be Oriental, when compared to the Thai Kitchen package, the Ramen does look very bland and Americanized.