Food's Connection Individual and Cultural Identity

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. This paper will look at how food is connecting with individuals and cultures, as an anthropological medium.

First, the connection between individual and food are the preference of individual and the potential meaning of food consume, which involve with biological, psychological, and cultural motivation and understanding. In the practice of food preference, though there are biological reasons for food choices, individual preference and avoidance are mainly based on psychological and social reasons. According to Paul Rozin (1987), he agreed that “genetically determined predispositions” which lead to certain food choice are true, and “the best-documented biological constraints are: an innate preference for sweet tastes and an avoidance of bitter taste or irritation of the oropharyngeal surface” (P.182.). He raised more examples of subconsciously preference of infants toward sweets and rats toward sodium salt (under the condition of sodium deficiency) to support this point of view (1987, P.182).

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... life, food is way beyond a plain representation of basic instincts, its meaning and interaction between individual and society will always be a primary object of study in Anthropology.

Works Cited

Brumberg, Joan Jacobs 1997. The Appetite as Voice. In Food and Culture: A reader. Counihan, Carole and Penny Van Esterik, eds. Pp 159-179. London: Routledge.

Douglas, Mary 1975 Deciphering a Meal. In Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology. Pp: 249-275. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Harris, Marvin 1985. The Abominable Pig. In Good to Eat: riddles of food and culture. Pp. 67-81. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Rozin, Paul 1987. Psychobiological perspectives on food preferences and avoidances. In Food and Evolution: Toward a Theory of Human Food Habits. Marvin Harris and Eric B. Ross, eds. Pp.181-205, 605-606. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.