Introduction
As competition between tourism destinations increases, local culture is becoming
an increasingly valuable source of new products and activities to attract and
amuse tourists. Gastronomy has a particularly important role to play in this, not
only because food is central to the tourist experience, but also because gastronomy
has become a significant source of identity formation in postmodern societies.
More and more, ‘we are what we eat’, not just in the physical sense, but also
because we identify with certain types of cuisine that we encounter on holiday.
As tourists become more mobile, so does the food they eat. The comfortable
association of certain foods with particular regions is being challenged by the
growing mobility of food, culinary styles and the increasing de-differentiation of
dishes and cuisines. Far from producing an homogenized gastronomic landscape,
the tension between globalization and localization is producing ever more variations.
Not only are global drinks and foods emerging, such as Coca-Cola and
McDonald’s, but local and regional food is thriving, and new ‘fusion foods’ are
also being created to feed the ‘global soul’ (Iyer 2000). Tourists themselves are
contributing to gastronomic mobility, by creating a demand in their own countries
for foods they have encountered abroad.
Gastronomy has developed considerably through the ages, and there are
numerous studies that chart the development of gastronomic styles and tastes over
time. For example, Mennell (1985) traces the development of eating in England
and France since the Middle Ages, and Parsa (1998) has summarized the development
of Western cuisine in America. In Chapter 4 of this volume Rosario
Scarpato examines the development of the concept of gastronomy in some detail.
Gastronomy is not only extremely difficult to define, but the term, just like
‘culture’, has become more heavily laden over time.
As Scarpato shows, the original definition of gastronomy has broadened in
recent years. The Encyclopædia Britannica (2000) defines gastronomy as: ‘the art of
selecting, preparing, serving, and enjoying fine food’. Originally gastronomy was
for the nobility, but over time the concept has also come to include the ‘peasant
food’ typical of regional and local cuisine. As well as including a wider range of
foods, the growth of cultural practices related to food has meant that the concept
of gastronomy has begun to encompass cultural practices also, so that Scaparto
argues that we can now talk about ‘gastronomic culture’. More recently, the
serving and consumption of food has become a global industry, of which tourism
is an important part. In common with other services and ‘experiences’ offered to
(post)modern consumers, a distinct system of production, distribution and presentation
has emerged that can be characterized as one of the ‘cultural industries’. In
the cultural industry of gastronomy the value chain is being extended to include a
wide range of economic activities, many of which are related to tourism
(Hjalager, Chapter 2 this volume).
In this volume the development of gastronomy as a socio-cultural practice and
important cultural industry is examined from the perspective of tourism. The
various ways in which gastronomic experiences are created, developed and marketed
to tourists and the importance of gastronomic experiences for tourists are
analysed in a variety of different settings. In this introductory chapter we introduce
some of the main points of discussion surrounding the relationship between
gastronomy and tourism which are tackled in more depth in subsequent chapters