CULTURAL FOODWAYS

Explore global adventures through cultural cuisines & customs,
discover our human roots

Welcome!

Foodways explores community building through awareness of global cultures. We provide a gathering of goodwill, connecting toward peaceful community building. We wish to cultivate understanding and appreciation through the anthropology of different cultures and their food.

The term foodways refers to the culinary practices of a people and land, historical and popular. Food plays a defining role in local and national cultures. What people eat and how they eat it reflects numerous factors, such as landscape, societal, spiritual, artistic, psychological, political, economic, and other conditions.

Foodways programs encounter a historical period, regional ethnic foods, cultural traditions, a plant item's modernity or multiplicity, a country's mores. Presenters inform participants about family customs, regional history and issues, arts, foods and eating habits, plants and spices, utensils/kitchenware, provide indigenous samples, and share their homeland to America stories. The presentations are developed to foster and exchange knowledge of individual heritage, build a neighborly region, learn our American roots and value the diverse global community.

We gather at the table, a level playing field, to realize and respect what diversity offers. Foodways is also a productive resource for chefs, travelers, food lovers, intercultural relations and any interested person. Foodways is open to all.

We informally 'come to the table' to unite our interdependent world. In past years, culinary history groups have formed across the U.S., as in Houston, Boston, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, Hawaii and elsewhere. The Austin organization began planning in January 1999. View Past Programs to see a sampling.