The significance of culinary cultures to diet

The purpose of this paper is to explore the routine, everyday experiences and attitudes people bring to cooking and eating and aims to compare the significance of such culinary cultures to diets in France and Britain.

The initial phase of this qualitative, comparative research involved in-depth interviews with 13 French and 14 British citizens who were each asked to reflect upon foods eaten in the home, preparation methods and issues surrounding dietary practices and culinary cultures. The next phase of the research asked “experts” working within the field to reflect and elaborate upon the initial findings and in total ten French and nine British “experts” were interviewed.

The results reveal how to a greater extent French respondents relied upon raw ingredients from which they more regularly prepared “traditional”, structured and commensal meal occasions. Such a food model remains a significant part of everyday life and culinary cultures in France support the consumption of a relatively healthy diet unlike in Britain.

This is a small exploratory study based on a limited number of respondents. Further research would benefit from observing what people actually do rather than relying on what people say they do.

Those responsible for promoting healthier diets need to further prioritise the significance of culinary cultures to cooking practices and diet.

While the influence of domestic cooking practices on food intake has received some scholarly attention, this paper presents a more holistic insight into how culinary cultures can play a significant mediating role on diets more generally.