O que é comida típica?: uma análise sobre o conceito

Abstract

What is “typical” food? This is a very important debate, both within gastronomy and in anthropology, cultural history, sociology. When researching on the topic, the most common answer is a list of preparations. By poring over the concept, trying to find it, we can relate typical food to the eating habits of a people or the origin of its ingredients, climate, geography. The aim of this article is to try, through bibliographic analysis and data observation, to propose an elementary concept of “typical” food. Typical food, as a concept, is beyond current group eating habits, the geographical origins of its ingredients, techniques or influences, as common sense usually proposes. We discovered in our analysis that it is contextual, and that the set of socio-cultural and historical elements are its true determinants.