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7 - Contacts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Kristen J. Gremillion
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
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Summary

Foreigners cannot enjoy our food, I suppose, any more than we can enjoy theirs. It is not strange; for tastes are made, not born. I might glorify my bill of fare until I was tired; but after all, the Scotchman would shake his head and say, “Where's your haggis?” and the Fijian would sigh and say, “Where's your missionary?”

Mark Twain, Roughing It

The display of fancy foods to enhance prestige often gets a boost from the importation of exotic goods which, because they are rare and often expensive, make ideal costly signals of wealth, power, and entrepreneurial skills. However, foods introduced through cultural contacts can have much more far-reaching consequences, becoming staples and sometimes completely replacing traditional sources of calories. When confronted with a novel food, people exhibit a wide range of responses at both the community and individual levels, from revulsion and rejection to enthusiastic incorporation into existing food traditions. Where on this scale any particular instance of food introduction falls depends on a number of factors. Historical happenstance often accounts for the availability of new foods – the where, when, and how of introduction. But to understand why some are adopted and others ignored, we need to consider both influences on human decision making and the forces of culture, which sometimes resists novelty but also plays the important role of incorporating new foods and techniques into the body of knowledge passed on to younger generations.

Type
Chapter
Information
Ancestral Appetites
Food in Prehistory
, pp. 115 - 131
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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  • Contacts
  • Kristen J. Gremillion, Ohio State University
  • Book: Ancestral Appetites
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511976353.009
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  • Contacts
  • Kristen J. Gremillion, Ohio State University
  • Book: Ancestral Appetites
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511976353.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Contacts
  • Kristen J. Gremillion, Ohio State University
  • Book: Ancestral Appetites
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511976353.009
Available formats
×