WE ARE WHERE WE EAT

We are where we eat. Or at least we used to be. It was all a matter of geography. As recently as a hundred years ago, in the Western world, what you ate depended on where you lived. For the vast majority, there was no question of any contact with any other type of food, even from different regions of the same country. Every region still has its own traditional dishes, which it is important to preserve, but over the last century more migration has introduced us to a wealth of culinary choices.

The search for work and a better life eventually led to migration from one country to another and from rural areas to big cities. And with these migrants came their cooking traditions. People in Minnesota were introduced to Indian and Mexican cuisine. Parisians were able to dive into a wealth of dishes from the Maghreb. Lisbon dwellers can now enjoy Bangladeshi and Nepalese dishes.

The arrival of new food cultures can sometimes pose a problem for translation services. Some dish names just have no translation however, and have simply crept into our lexicon, e.g. pizza, kebab and sushi.

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