Cultural Dimension of Food Studies

Cultural Dimension of Food Studies

Learning about foods and the proper ways to handle and prepare them provides opportunities for natural connections with families as the primary source for modeling attitudes, customs, and experiences with foods. Communication between the teacher or caregiver and the family is essential so that parents can help reinforce good nutritional and eating habits promoted at school or in the care setting (Marotz, Cross, & Rush, 2001).

In addition, sharing favorite family foods is an excellent way to integrate and honor the cultures and traditions of children and families. Many teachers engage families in collecting recipes for class cookbooks or visiting the classroom to demonstrate/share in food preparation activities. In programs where children pack lunch, the different kinds of foods children bring from home present a rich source of information for teachers and arouse curiosity among children.

Regional cuisines offer additional opportunities for planning experiences that are relevant to the daily lives of children. For instance, preschool teachers who live in the coastal plain, where the program directed by the author is located, planned excursions with family members to introduce the children to crabbing, learning how to cast a shrimp net, and pier fishing. These activities produce many of the foods available in local markets and restaurants. In addition, these teachers made use of cookbooks written for children that describe the African, Caribbean, and Native American origins of many of the foods eaten in this region for more than three hundred years.