Globalization came through the kitchen

This is an interesting article where he talks a little about the history of food in America and globalization.

It is difficult to say that the food were the first to globalize trade in the ancient world, and certainly were not alone. What we do know is that since before the Phoenicians crossed the Mediterranean ferrying goods to trade; or nourish the Romans with the wealth of Egyptian wheat, primitive man used food as the first elements of barter.

All helped globalize a world that for many centuries assumed, wrongly, that was composed of watertight compartments.

While we send to Europeans, among other things, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cocoa, tomato, to brighten the pots, the fact remains that they planted rice in what is now Panama in the century XVI and XVII took him to South Carolina in North America. Soon Caribbean diet of rice and beans is adopted, a perfect match from the nutritional point of view. Then came a sort of explosion of consumption with the arrival in the United States of Chinese and Japanese immigrants. Again, this country became one of the leading world producers.

Peanuts or peanut (as it is known in many countries and that is what they called the Aztecs), which is thought to be native to Brazil and is now spread throughout the world as part of basic recipes in Southeast Asia, peanut broadcasters in Africa and India were the Portuguese. Other major contributors to the concept of globalization that we are dealing with. Another main character of globalization, cocoa.

It is more credit to food and gastronomy character of active precursors in the exchange between peoples, civilizations, continents, in many different ways.

Food has exerted a decisive influence on our evolutionary history from millions of years ago. Mankind has been fed since ancient times following empirical practices, so that the components of their diet were safe, nutritious and satisfying for your needs. Additions or limitations that man has made ​​in their diets were due to other than health or welfare factors; including the physical appearance of the food, the cultural, social, religious, ecological and economic have played an important role in the diet of many populations.

The ways of eating, the products consumed and how to cook them relate to local resources, the characteristics of the physical environment, the forms of production and supply and trade, but also have to do with cultural practices that enroll in a given socio-economic context (Martin, 2005). Therefore, food is seen as an ethnic marker and has been one of the elements that have contributed to identity by finding the difference.

Although some authors have questioned whether this phenomenon has come to power (Fritscher, 2002), there is no doubt that the food industry is an activity that has become globalized, like other branches of industry. Today we can find a variety of food in the feeding centers, not only by the large number of brands, packaging, sizes, shapes, but in regard to its origin.

Food globalization, although it sounds paradoxical, brings integration and diversity in the choice of food, so that consumers can easily find products from other countries (exotic fruits, vegetables, sauces, spices, etc.), and a set of "new foods "ranging from soft drinks to various types of" snacks ", derived from milk, cereal, or other non-traditional foods.

The gradual adaptation of the power source to the new space and, therefore, the inclusion of procedures, ingredients or dishes receiving society also serves to reflect the degree of social integration of immigrants in the new context. However, this phenomenon is not entirely new, since migration has been, in specific historical periods, responsible for the arrival of new foods to the host countries. Chinese and Italian food are a good example and have spread around the world following the trail of the emigrants from these countries (Oviedo, 2005).

The society is very divided over the choice of keeping their own food culture against betting on novel foods: this depends on various factors, such as sex, age, and especially socioeconomic status. Thus, in certain social strata there is a very important element of food "location" (Oviedo, 2005): this is the development of food quality differential ("Certified label") and traditional ("appellations of origin", etc .). This development segments of the population able to appreciate (and pay) links this quality is often associated with the rise of rural tourism or internal (food, wine), and generated specific marketing channels (spaces "foodies", handicrafts , etc.).

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