FOOD: IDENTITY OF CULTURE AND RELIGION

Culture is what makes everyone different from who they are and where they originate. It embraces all the aspects of human life and their way of communicating and interacting with other human beings. Food is an essential part of people's lives, and not just a means of survival. It is also the main factor in how we view and differentiate people and influences the impacts on their culture. Different cultures have varieties of food and ingredients and this is a fusion of foods with their culture. You are what you eat, it doesn't matter how they eat it or how they cook it as long as it represents them and their culture. There is a strong link between culture and food; this includes their religion, tradition. Media plays an important role supporting in retaining culture and food identity. The myriad of published cookbooks and food magazines, culinary festivals, TV shows, celebrity chefs, blogs has completely changed the meaning of food. The aim of this paper is to try to give answers to the questions of how food communicates our culture, and how we relate food to our religious and cultural identity. There is an increased awareness of significance of food within contemporary society and culture, and therefore there is a need to explore it.