Changes in Food Over Time

Many things have changed since 1950; we can look at that through the changes in food culture through out history. During World War II and the time shortly after, it was said that every home in America had a Betty Crocker cookbook. With the Internet, cookbook use has declined, now we have the option to find more culturally diverse cookbooks or use the Internet to find recipes. America is known as the melting pot, it can be seen by the increase in cultural globalization. Looking at two different sources, “Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book,” and “Global Kitchen,” by David Joachim, we can see the changes and continuities in our food culture. Food reflects larger changes in American culture in ways such as: the access of information, cultural globalization, and the growing access to world markets.

The access of information has dramatically changed the food world in the past 60 years. The nutrition information available in the 1950s was very basic, and you had no way to check its credibility. In today's tech savvy environment there are constantly studies to learning how food affects the body, and how to get the most nutrients in our food. In the “Betty Crocker” cookbook, all of the recipes are very American, and rather simply. Whereas the “Global Kitchen” has recipes that are from all different cultures and use spices from all over the world. In the 1950s when you want a new recipe you have to go to a bookstore and buy the cookbook, whereas today, you can google a recipe and pull up a pdf.The access to all of the different recipes from different places in the world was not available during the 1950s, this shows that not only the access of information has increased since the 1950s, so has cultural globalization.

Cultural Globalization is said to be the sharing of ideas to intensify social relations. The food industry is growing and growing, with that is the expansion of food from other cultures into our local markets. During the War, you couldn’t walk into a market and find an Asian isle. Now, you can go to your local market and find a section dedicated to different cultures. This is due to the increase in cultural globalization. The world is slowly sharing ideas, believes and now even more recently the food recipes from cultures around the world. The recipes found in the “Betty Crocker” cookbook would only have recipes that called for common ingredients, whereas the “Global Kitchen” cookbook would call for more exotic ingredients that not every market would carry.

World markets are starting to become more and more popular. With the increase in cultural immigration, these markets supply families of different backgrounds with meals from there home country. World markets have foods that would be found in a local market back in another country. All of the ingredients that are called for in the “Betty Crocker” cookbook are local ingredients. The “Global Kitchen” might require a trip to your local world market.

By looking at two cookbooks, published in completely different eras we can see the major changes in the American food culture. Just by looking at two different texts we were able to see the change in access of information, the increase in cultural globalization, and the rise of world markets.

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