All Topics  
Gastronomy

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Gastronomy
 
 
  Topics Gastronomy Topic Home

Gastronomy is the study of the relationship between culture
Culture

Culture is difficult to define. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions....
 and food
Food

Food is any substance, usually composed of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and water, that can be Eating or Drinking by an animal or human for nutrition or pleasure....
. It is often thought erroneously that the term gastronomy refers exclusively to the art of cooking (see Culinary Arts), but this is only a small part of this discipline; it cannot always be said that a cook
Cook (profession)

A cook is a person that prepares food for consumption. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland this professions requires government approval . The profession requires profound knowledge concerning nutrition....
 is also a gourmet
Gourmet

Gourmet is a culture ideal associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine. The term and its associated practices may have negative connotations of elitism or snobbery, but is often used positively to describe people of refined taste and passion....
.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Gastronomy'
Start a new discussion about 'Gastronomy'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Desserts
Gastronomy is the study of the relationship between culture
Culture

Culture is difficult to define. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions....
 and food
Food

Food is any substance, usually composed of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and water, that can be Eating or Drinking by an animal or human for nutrition or pleasure....
. It is often thought erroneously that the term gastronomy refers exclusively to the art of cooking (see Culinary Arts), but this is only a small part of this discipline; it cannot always be said that a cook
Cook (profession)

A cook is a person that prepares food for consumption. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland this professions requires government approval . The profession requires profound knowledge concerning nutrition....
 is also a gourmet
Gourmet

Gourmet is a culture ideal associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine. The term and its associated practices may have negative connotations of elitism or snobbery, but is often used positively to describe people of refined taste and passion....
. Gastronomy studies various cultural components with food as its central axis. Thus it is related to the Fine Art
Fine art

Fine art describes any art form developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than utility. This type of art is often expressed in the production of art objects using Visual arts and performing art forms, including painting, sculpture, dance, theatre, architecture, photography and printmaking....
s and Social Sciences, and even to the Natural Sciences in terms of the digestive system of the human body.

A gourmet's principal activities involve discovering, tasting, experiencing, researching, understanding and writing about foods. Gastronomy is therefore an interdisciplinary activity. Good observation will reveal that around the food, there exists dance
Dance

Dance is an art form that generally refers to Motion of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of Emotional expression, social social interaction or presented in a spirituality or performance setting....
, dramatic art
Drama

Drama is the specific Mode of fiction Mimesis in performance. The term comes from a Ancient Greek word meaning "Action " , which is derived from "to do" ....
s, painting
Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . In art, the term describes both the act and the result, which is called a painting....
, sculpture
Sculpture

Sculpture is Three-dimensional space artwork created by shaping or combining hard and or plastic material, sound, and or text and or light, commonly Stone sculpture , metal, glass, or wood....
, literature
Literature

Literature is the art of written works. Literally translated, the word means "acquaintance with letters" . In Western culture the most basic written literary types include fiction and non-fiction....
, architecture
Architecture

The term architecture can refer to a process, a profession or documentation.As a process, architecture is the activity of designing and construction buildings and other physical structures by a person or a computer, primarily to provide shelter....
, and music
Music

Music is an art form whose media is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics , and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture ....
; in other words, the Fine Arts. But it also involves physics
Physics

Physics is the natural science which examines basic concepts such as energy, force, and spacetime and all that derives from these, such as mass, charge, matter and its Motion ....
, mathematics
Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, structure, space, change, and related topics of pattern and form. Mathematicians seek out patterns whether found in numbers, space, natural science, computers, imaginary abstractions, or elsewhere....
, chemistry
Chemistry

Chemistry is the science concerned with the composition, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions....
, biology
Biology

Biology is a branch of the natural sciences concerned with the study of living organisms and their interaction with each other and their environment ....
, geology
Geology

Geology is the science and study of the solid and liquid matter that constitute the Earth. The field of geology encompasses the study of the composition, structural geology, physical properties, dynamics, and History of the Earth of Earth materials, and the processes by which they are formed, moved, and changed....
, agronomy
Agronomy

Agronomy is the science and technology of using plants for food, fuel, feed, and fiber. Agronomy encompasses work in the areas of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and soil science....
, and also anthropology
Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humans and humanity in its totality. Anthropology has origins in the natural sciences, and the humanities. In Great Britain it was originally divided into physical anthropology and cultural anthropology, which itself was divided into archaeology, technology, ethnology and sociology ....
, history
HIStory

HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I is a double album by Michael Jackson, released on June 20, 1995, and is Jackson's ninth. The first disc, named "HIStory Begins" consists of a selection of Jackson's greatest hits from the singer's past fifteen years, while the second, named "HIStory Continues" features new songs, with the...
, philosophy
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
, psychology
Psychology

Psychology is an academic and applied science discipline involving the science study of human mental functions and behavior. Occasionally it also relies on symbolic hermeneutics and critical theory, although these traditions are less pronounced than in other social sciences such as sociology....
, and sociology
Sociology

Sociology is a branch of the social sciences that uses systematic methods of Empiricism and critical theory to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, sometimes with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare....
. The application of scientific knowledge to cooking and gastronomy has become known as molecular gastronomy
Molecular gastronomy

Molecular gastronomy is a scientific discipline involving the study of physical and chemical processes that occur in cooking. It pertains to the mechanisms behind the transformation of ingredients in cooking and the social, artistic and technical components of culinary and gastronomic phenomena in general ....
.

The first formal study of gastronomy is probably The Physiology of Taste by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin was a French lawyer and politician, and gained fame as an Epicureanism and Gastronomy. He was born in the town of Belley, Ain, where the Rhone River then separated France from Savoy, to a family of lawyers....
 (early 19th century). As opposed to the traditional cooking recipe books, it studies the relationship between the senses and food, treating enjoyment at the table as a science. Most recently, in 2004, the founders of the Slow Food
Slow Food

The Slow Food movement was founded by Carlo Petrini in Italy to combat fast food. It claims to preserve the cultural cuisine and the associated food plants and seeds, domestic animals, and farming within an ecoregion....
 movement founded the University of Gastronomic Sciences
University of Gastronomic Sciences

University of Gastronomic Science is an academic institution that has two campuses in Northern Italy. The main campus is home to the three year undergraduate program and is located in Bra , a city in the north-west region of Piedmont....
 in Bra, Italy, devoted to the principles of gastronomy. Other centres for the study of gastronomy include the School of Oriental and African Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies

The School of Oriental and African Studies is a constituent college of the University of London, specialising in the laws, politics, economics, languages and humanities concerning Asia, Africa and the Near East and Middle East....
 of the University of London through its Food Studies Centre, the University of Adelaide
University of Adelaide

The University of Adelaide is a public university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third oldest university in Australia....
 through its Master of Arts in Gastronomy program run in cooperation with Le Cordon Bleu
Le Cordon Bleu

Le Cordon Bleu is the world's largest hospitality education institution, with 29 schools in five continents serving 20,000 students annually....
, New York University
New York University

New York University is a private university, nonsectarian, research university in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan....
's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development through its Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, the Universities of Barcelona
University of Barcelona

The University of Barcelona is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia in Spain. It is a member of the Coimbra Group and Joan Llu?s Vives Institute....
, Bologna
University of Bologna

The University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating degree-granting university in the world:, the word 'university' being first used by this institution at its foundation....
, and of François Rabelais in Tours through their Master in the History and Culture of Food, and Boston University
Boston University

Boston University is a private nonsectarian university located in Boston, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States. Although chartered by the Massachusetts Legislature in 1869, Boston University traces its roots to the establishment of the Newbury Biblical Institute in Newbury, Vermont in 1839....
 through its Master of Liberal Arts in Gastronomy program.

Etymologically, the word "gastronomy" is derived from Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
 ?ast?? (gastér) "stomach", and ??µ?? (nómos) "knowledge" or "law".

See also

  • Cuisine
    Cuisine

    Cuisine is a specific set of cooking traditions and practices, often associated with a specific culture. A cuisine is primarily influenced by the ingredients that are available locally or through trade....
  • Gastropub
    Gastropub

    A gastropub is a United Kingdom term for a public house which specializes in high-quality food a step above the more basic "public house#Pub_grub." The name is a combination of pub and gastronomy and was coined in 1991 when David Eyre and Mike Belben opened a pub called The Eagle in Clerkenwell, London....
  • Culinary art
    Culinary art

    Culinary art is the art of cooking. The word "culinary" is defined as something related to, or connected with, cooking or kitchens. A culinarian is a person working in the culinary arts....
  • Food Studies
    Food studies

    Food Studies is an umbrella term that refers to the critical examination of food and how it becomes meaningful within society. As a field it has ties to traditional areas of study, such as Nutrition, Agriculture, Gastronomy, and Culinary Arts....
  • Gourmet Library and museum


External links