BEYOND GASTRONOMY & TOURISM. FOOD, CULTURES, IDENTITY AND HEALTH

1. Beyond
Gastronomy & Tourism
Food, Cultures, Identities
and Health
Prof. Jean Pierre Poulain
Chair of « Food Studies »
Université de Toulouse, France
Taylor’s University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Co-director of LIA-CNRS « Food, Cultures and Health »

5. Plan
• Food, Gastronomy and Tourism
a successful encounter.
• Food, Cultures & Identities
• Food, Cultures and Health (of
the human beings and of the
planet)

6. A dedicated journal

7. Topics Google Scholar Citations First titles
Food
tourism 505000 8440 643
Hall, C. M., Sharples, L., Mitchell, R.,
Macionis, N., & Cambourne, B. (Eds.).
(2004). Food tourism around the world.
Routledge
Gastronomy
tourism 94500 1910 719
Hjalager, A. M., & Richards, G. (Eds.).
(2003). Tourism and gastronomy.
Routledge.
Gastronomic
tourism 105000 3650 719
Hall, C. M., & Mitchell, R. (2007).
Gastronomic tourism: Comparing food and
wine tourism experiences. In Niche
tourism(pp. 87-102). Routledge.
Culinary
tourism 262000 7000 909
Long, L. M. (2013). Culinary tourism.
In Encyclopedia of food and agricultural
ethics (pp. 1-8). Springer Netherlands.
Gourmet
tourism 12900 390
Total 979400 21390
Food & Tourism as
an established topics

8. Litterture review…
on english sources

10. Food particularities will change social status…
To become a means to get into contact with the culture
of others and, therefore, to become
one of the sharpest interests of the desire to travel »
Léo Moulin, L’Europe à Table, 1975

11. Tourism
Studies
Food
Studies
Articulation
of both fields
• Gastronomic tourism
• Oenological tourism
• Food souvenir market
• Restaurant design and
engineering
• Innovation and tradition
Impact of tourism
On Food market
• The role of legitimacy of tourist
on food heritage
• Valorization of food heritage by
tourism
• Geographical indications
•
Impact of food on
tourism activity
• Food as a part of the
identity of a region
• inter-cultural issues of food
and tourism
• Food as an entry in the
visited cultures
And also
• Food crisis management
• Food safety
Jean-Pierre Poulain

12. Food and tourism
4 centers of gravity to thinks
the relation between Food
and tourism:
– Tourism phenomenon,
– Agro-food chain,
– Economy of the territories,
– Interactions between
populations.
Tourism
Territoires
Populations
Food
production

13. Tourism & Folklore
Local cultures
Academic world
Cultural studies &
Food studies
Nouvelle Cuisine
Patrimonialization &
Gastronomisation
1800
1960
1975
2003 Articulation
Food studies

14. The first alliance of tourism with gastronomy
• 1900, Michelin guide
• 1920, «Inventory of French gastronomic
treasure» by Austin de Croze and Curnonsky
• 1950, Le salons des arts ménagers
14

15. Les cultural studies : Richard Hoggart
• The use of literacy: Aspects of Working-
Class Life Opposes the culture of elites
and cultures of the working class
• Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies
(CCCS), in 1964 at the University of
Birmingham. A comprehensive
ethnography of popular class culture …
• Get out of the invisibility and legitimize the
culture of the poors

16. Food in the academic world
• Food gradually takes a place in the field of
scholarly culture
• Ethnologie
– Claude Levi-Strass,
– Mary Douglas,
– Georges Condominas,
– Jacques Goody
– ….
• Sociologie
– Léo Moulin,
– Claude Fischler,
– Stephen Mennel,
– Jean Pierre Corbeau,
– Jean Pierre Poulain
– …
16

17. Food cultures
"The diet is a vital element of the social space by
the central position it occupies in the production
system from which it controls the technology and
economy of a group »
(Condominas, 1980, 32).

18. Jean-Pierre Poulain
1974, nouvelle cuisine and
the compelling of creativity
• Before nouvelle cuisine
The ambition of a chef was to be
a good interpreter of the
master’s works of the 19th
century ; the golden age of
gastronomy
• Nouvelle cuisine promote the idea of a dual
gastronomic heritage:
• the haute cuisine and table manners of the elite and
• the local, regional food cultures founded on popular tradition.
• After nouvelle cuisine
Chefs have to be creative
But how to go about it ?

19. JP Poulain CETIA-ERITA UTM
The articulation of the
three movements
• Léo Moulin, L’Europe à table, 1974
• 1984, début des inventaires régionaux :
Ethno-cuisine, Itinéraires gourmands, CNAC
• Sites remarquables du goût
• 2006, « Les cultures culinaires de l’Europe »

20. JP Poulain CETIA-ERITA UTM
From nouvelle cuisine to local gastronomies
We then shift from French inspired international cuisine
to truly local gastronomies

21. The gastronomisation
• "... a phenomenon that consists in
designating local culinary cultures as
gastronomies, is much more than a
patrimonialization. It is a reversal of
hierarchical perspective of two food
universes in opposition.
• Thus thanks to the connection between
local cuisines and learned cuisines could
emerge everywhere in the world of "local
gastronomy".
• The emergence of leading chefs all over
the world is a positive consequence of
"nouvelle cuisine".

22. The legitamtion of UNESCO
16 novembre 1972

23. World Heritage Convention, 1972
Culturel Naturel Mixte Total %
Afrique 47 35 4 86 8,9 %
États arabes 67 4 2 73 7,6 %
Asie et Pacifique 148 55 10 213
22,1
%
Europe et
Amérique du
Nord
393 59 10 462
48
%
Amérique latine
et Caraïbes
90 35 3 128
13,3
%
Total 745 188 29 962 100%

25. From « tangible » to « intangible heritage »
• In 1993, debate on authenticity of Ise sanctuary (伊勢神宮,
Japan)
• In 2003, a new convention to protect world’s “intangible
heritage”.
伊勢神宮

26. “Intangible cultural heritage”: Definition
“ICH” means the practices, representations, expressions,
knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects,
artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that
communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals
recognize as part of their cultural heritage.
“ICH”, transmitted from generation to generation, is
constantly recreated by communities and groups in
response to their environment, their interaction with
nature and their history, and provides them with a sense
of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for
cultural diversity and human creativity….

27. Alba (Italy)
Belém (Brazil)
Bergen (Norway)
Buenaventura
(Columbia)
Burgos (Spain)
Chengdu (China)
Cochabamba (Bolivia)
Dénia (Spain)
Ensenada (US)
Florianopolis (Brazil)
Gaziantep (Turkey)
Hatay (Turkey)
Jeonju (Korea)
Macau (Macau, China)
Östersund (Sweden)
Panama City
(Republic of Panama)
Paraty (Brazil)
Parma (Italy)
Phuket (Thailand)
Popayan (Colombia)
Rasht (Iran)
San Antonio (US)
Shunde (China)
Tsuruoka (Japan)
Tucson (US)
Zahlé (Lebanon)

28. Plan
• Food, Gastronomy and Tourism
a successful encounter.
• Food, Cultures & Identities
• Food, Cultures and Health (of the human
beings and of the planet)

29. Cultural studies
Cuisine(s) and identities

30. Descendant
Norbert Elias
Aristocratie
Bourgeoisie
Peuple
Cultures et civilisation
Le système de la mode
Moteur du
processus de
civilisation

31. The distinction of Pierre Bourdieu
Espace des cultures populaires
“Autonomy of popular tastes”
Distinction process
Les classes montantes copient les classes superieures
qui pour se distinguer déplacent leur goûts
Conséquences :
1. Idéalisation du populaire
2. La gastronomie est réduite aux avatars du processus de
distinction

32. Modèle descendant
Des élites vers le peuple
Modèle remontant
Du peuple vers les élites
La Culture des élites versus les cultures populaires
Aristocratie
Bourgeoisie
Peuple
Several diffusion modeles in cohabitation
Several kind of food popular cultures :
• Regionales
• De milieux sociaux
• Paysans
• Ouvriers
• Artisans
Modèle influences
extérieures
Expansions colonisation &
flux migratoires
Categories sociales

33. The magret de canard

34. Lo Hei prosperity Yu Sheng

35. Impensé de PCI : la localisation dé-
connexion espace de production espace
de consommation
• Codfish
• Transnational products: pizza
• The samossas
• The chilli…

37. Dog meat meal a gastronomic
heritage?
Jean-Pierre Poulain

38. Eat dog festival, Yulin,
China

39. The foie gras: a
“cultural expection”
• Rapport homme
animaux
• Gaspillage alimentaire
• Torture

41. Les formes de légitimation
• Par les pairs : Bocuse d’or, MOF, culinary
academy of France, …. Chefs of very high level
evaluate other chefs and attest excellence
http://www.bocusedor.com/2009/equipes/?pays=FR
• Par les experts : le critique gastronomique.
• Par les média, Jamie Oliver
• Par les jurys degustateurs
• Par les consommateurs
41

42. Borders and controversies in heritage
• Durabilité et gaspillage
• Les limites de la durabilité et la notion échelle
de validité
• Universalisme et culturalisme du patrimoine
• Fermeture ou dialogue entre les cultures

43. Jean-Pierre Poulain
Plan
• Food, Gastronomy and
Tourism a successful
encounter.
• Food, cultures & identities
• Food, cultures, identities and
health

44. Jean-Pierre Poulain
Tourism is the meeting between
two food cultures
• Eating is a daily obligation and at same time a
way of entry in the culture of the visited country,
• Meal changes the tourist from spectator into an
actor, it is a “formidable machine to travel” (E. Morin)
• Tourist meal is a
meeting of two food models.
By doing this, it learns as
much from one as from
the other.

45. Jean-Pierre Poulain
The point of view of the tourist:
• A significant part of the activity of a tourist
How to go from a constrained time (biological activity +++) to a cultural
time (cultural activity+++)?
• 15% of the budget of a tourist + an important part of the budget
of the souvenirs
• A space at the medical risk:
– the “turista” is… a major tourist activity
– Avian flu
• A space of symbolic risk
• A space of discovered and pleasure

46. Jean-Pierre Poulain
Different kinds of food heritage
• Living heritage:
What we do in different
parts of society or the
different types of
restaurants
– The recording of traditional
dishes and practices
identified like such (books
of receipts…)
– Products, dishes, technical
practices, food ways
inventoried by the
ethnographic investigation
• Sleeping heritage:
What we have done in
the past, but we do not
anymore
– Written or oral history
– Forgotten products or
practices
• Constructed heritage:
What is in the spirit of…

47. http://www.remotelands.com/destination/
13102501_itinerary_vietnam_A-
Vietnamese-Culinary-Journey Jean-Pierre Poulain

48. Jean-Pierre Poulain
The times
of trip
Spaces of valorization
Before
 Tourist guides
 Ethnic restaurants in the country of origin
 Television programs
 Experiments through parents or friends
 Experiments with the Diaspora
During
 Restaurants, hosts tables
 Markets and store of food
 Guides
 Invitations at home
 Food souvenirs
After
 Ethnic restaurants in the country of origin
 Store and super market «ethnic products »
 Internet sales (ex colis pays…)
 Cooking at home dishes discovered in the visited country

49. The levels of action
 Inventory
 National level
 Regional
 Ethnic groups
 …
 Dissemination and networking
 Social scientists
 Historians
 Farmers
 Chefs
 Food industries
 Tourism actors
 Politicians
 Media
 …
 Promoting
 Before
 During
 After

50. Some actions: research, training and
professionalisation
Data collection
 Ethnological
 Historical
 Technological
 Biological
 Expectations and
food models of
visitors
 …
Education
 Continuing
education
 Technical
education tourism
and culinary art
 …
Dissemination
 Scientific
 Professional
 Public
 In and out the
country
 Media
 …
Touristification
 Networking
 Conceptualisation
of gastronomic
tourism products
 Festival
 …
Jean-Pierre Poulain

51. JP Poulain CETIA-ERITA UTM
• Léo Moulin, L’Europe à table, 1974
• 1984, début des inventaires régionaux :
Ethno-cuisine, Itinéraires gourmands,
CNAC
• Sites remarquables du goût
• 2006 « Les cultures culinaires de
l’Europe »

52. Plan
• Food, Gastronomy and Tourism
a successful encounter.
• Food, Cultures & Identities
• Food, Cultures and Health (of
the human beeings and of the
planet)

53. The enviromental turn:
- Feeding the planete and
- Preserve the enviroment

54. Malthus’ theory
54

55. 55

56. Feeding humanity:
a recurrent question
• Anton Zischka, Bread for 2 billions humans, 1942.
• Josué de Castro, Geography of hunger
• FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization)
• Joseph Klatzman, Feeding humankind, 1991
• 2008, Hunger riots
• 2011, Starvation in the horn of Africa
56

57. 57

58. 58

60. Supposed causes of food insecurity
return
• Bad harvest in 2007 (in US,
aurstralia and Russia)
• Raising production of
Bio-fuel
• Financial speculation
60

61. Development and transformation of
food consumptions
61

62. On Malthus’ trace
• Food production depends on:
– Exploitable agricultural areas
– Water supply
– Sunlight
– Agrarian techniques
– Inputs (fertilizers.)
– Agricultural machinery
– Energy supply
– ...
• Food requirement depends on :
– The number of individuals to feed
– What people consume = FOOD MODELS
62

63. 63
Poulain JP, 2018,

64. 64
Cadragesocio-
anthropologique
Cadrage économico-
écologique

65. Perspective
Économico-écologique
Perspective
socio-anthropologique
Concepts clefs Primat à l’environnement.
Empreinte écologique,
(km/aliment), CO2
Primat aux humains
Commerce équitable, AMAP, Slow
food, community supported agriculture
Critères d‘orientation
et d’évaluation
Universalisme des enjeux
écologiques globaux
Equité intergénérationnelle
Quelle planète laissera-t-on à
nos enfants ?
Particularisme des situations sociales
et culturelles
Equité intra-générationnelle
Solidarité avec les victimes et
scandale de la faim
Modalités d’évaluation
des systèmes
Modélisation mathématique Etude de cas, retour d’experience
Relation au marché Le marché est donné, il
convient d’en comprendre le
fonctionnement
Le marché est une construction
sociale et politique,
il faut agir pour l’orienter vers ce qui
est favorable
Place des
consommateurs
Consommateurs opèrent des
choix
Consommateurs sont des acteurs des
systèmes
Science princeps Econométrie, écologie,
agronomie
Anthropologie, sociologie, sciences
du développement

66. Development and transformation of
food consumptions
66

67. Food Convergence theory
67
Bricas, 2011

68. Cultural inertia of food patterns
The concept of inertia reflects a phenomenon of reaction to changing
factors. It takes the form of a resistance that opposes the change, slows.
The inertia of dietary patterns is the consequence of the fact that food
practices are not individual decisions. They are supervised by social norms
and systems they are supporting social functions (in Durkheimian sense).
68Bricas, 2011

70. Purchasing
Power
Or level of
developpement
Ratio of Animal
Calories on
Total Calories
Proteins
Fats
Proteins
Fats
• Pre-Set by the ‘Food Model’:
• Taboo
• Food & Culinary Systems
• Food Decision-Making
• Socio-Economic Determinants
• Cognitives determinants
Main Focus of Classical
Nutritional Transition
Scientific Problematic

71. Scientific Problematic
71

72. 72

73. The double burden theory...
73

74. Health transition: mortality rates (US, 1910-1970)
IUMSP-GCT
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
1900 1920 1940 1960 1980
Deathrateper100,000population
Infectious diseases
Heart disease
Cancer
Stroke
Violent/accident
Infancy disease
Tuberculosis
(up to >1000 earlier)

75. 75

76. Eating out: Meals
Meals only
 Breakfast
 And or Lunch
 And/or Diner
12,5
% on
Meals
% on
Individuals
64.1 % of the Malaysian individuals eat at
least on meal per day outside of the home
12.5 % of individuals eating only at home
have at least one meal that comes from
outside
Eating out
Eating at home with meals coming from outside
Eating at home
7.72
46.12
53.88
10,25

77. 77
Argentine Colombie
japon
Rwanda
Portugal

79. Asian Food Barometer
Barometer completed
Barometers in discussion
PhD in progress
PhD completed
Barometer in progress
Barometer: future plan
Taylor’s University
University Toulouse Jean Jaurès
CNRS Associated International
Laboratory :
“Food, Cultures & Health”

80. • Food consumption
– Vegetable
– Meat and fish
– Diary
• Nutrients
– Carbohydrate
– Fat
– Protein
– Micro-nutrients
• Variety
 Eating out
 Food intakes
– Food days
– Meals and snacking ,
structures and
compositions
 Representations on food
 Perception of risk
80
Nutritional
surveys
Socio-anthropological
surveys
Interdisciplinary
Dialogue
Public Health
Sensorial
analysis
Socio-cultural
determinants
Food lifestyles
Eating
decision
Food
Barometer

81. Studying food cultures, usefull for:
• Tourism and hospitality,
• Agro economy,
• Nutrition and Health,
• Food policy : Food security, Food safety, Food
crises management,
• Cultural policies.

83. From “gathering economy” to
« agri » and then « cultural » economy
• A double Methaphore of:
– « Agriculture »
– « Cultural economy »
Gathering
economy
Agricultural
economy
Cultural
economy
Organic food
Cultural transition
Ecological transition
Alimentation

84. Jean-Pierre Poulain
More
 Poulain Jean Pierre, 2012, dictionnaire des cultures alimentaires,
PUF.
 Guy Fontaine et Jean-Pierre Poulain, 2002, Dir., Le tourisme dans les
départements d’Outre Mer, Lanore.
 Jean-Pierre Poulain, 2002, Sociologies de l’alimentation, PUF.
 Jean-Pierre Poulain et Edmond Neirinck, Histoire de la cuisine et des
cuisiniers, Lanore, 2000.
 Jean-Pierre Poulain, « French gastronomie, french gastronomies », in
Goldstein D. et Merkele K., 2005, Culinary cultures of Europe Identity,
Diversity and dialogue, Éditions du Conseil de l’Europe, p. 157-170.
 Laurence Tibère et Jean-Pierre Poulain, « Découverte des saveurs
créoles : l’expérience Villages créoles à La Réunion », Pour, sept.
2006.
 Laurence Tibère, 2005-2, « Nourritures créoles. Cuisines symboliques
et identités à La Réunion », in Cuisines en partage, Diaspora n°6.
 Philip McLaughlin, Jean-Pierre Poulain, Laurence Tibère, 2003,
« Tourisme et altérité alimentaire », Espaces. N°202
 Jean Pierre Poulain, 2008, "Gastronomic Heritages and Their Tourist
Valorisations, West meets east: a recipe of success in this era of
globalisation, Tourisme, October 2008 pp. 1-18.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234166233_Poulain_J.-
P._Gastronomic_Heritages_and_Their_Tourist_Valorisations
 Jean Pierre Poulain, 2012, "The sociology of gastronomic
decolonisation », in Shanta Nair-Venugopal, The Gaze of the West:
Framings of the East, Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234059764_The_sociolog
y_of_gastronomic_decolonisation