- What is gastronomy?
- History of gastronomy
- Types of gastronomy
- Importance of gastronomy
- Mexican gastronomy
We explain what gastronomy is, its history, the types that exist and their importance in culture. Also, the Mexican gastronomy.
What is gastronomy?
Gastronomy is the discipline, understood as a art, which studies the relationships of human being with their way of eating and with the cultural environment in which cooking occurs.
Gastronomy provides an approach to the culture using food as a central axis. It cares so much about techniques cooking, data nutritional and food science, as well as the professional handling of flavors and aromas in the preparation of a culinary dish.
Gastronomy is not simply the taste for food or cooking. In fact, this discipline deals with multiple appreciations of the cultural around cooking and feeding, such as the choice of ingredients, the tradition around food or religious influence on the way of eating.
Not every cook is a gourmet, not even those who bear the label of "chef." A true gourmet is one who is dedicated to experimenting, discovering, investigate, understand and generate documentation about the way we humans eat in different cultures.
History of gastronomy
The history of gastronomy dates back to classical antiquity, when the first cookbooks emerged, partly driven by the presence in Imperial Rome of food from various corners of Africa, Asia Y Europe from North.
The traditional Roman diet was then greatly enriched, which also turned the act of eating into a ceremonial act in which food was introduced before incorporating it into the banquet, intended for the nobles and the rich. There was no shortage of writers on food, such as Luculo and Marco Gravio Apicio.
Later, the medieval He was greatly influenced by Byzantine and Arabic cuisine, heirs to the Greek and Roman, especially in areas where the Moors dominated, such as southern Spain (Al-Andalus) or Italy.
Gastronomy was highly valued in this long period in which, paradoxically, famines and misery abounded. Culinary treatises such as The forme of Curry, of Richard III of England, or Daz Buch von Guter Spise, anonymous German work.
With the Renaissance European cuisine, gastronomy gained even greater prominence, especially in France, where the baroque and the Bourbon dynasty promoted the arts of good eating among the nobility, even in times when the populace were starving.
This undoubtedly had its impact on the French Revolution 1789. One of the greatest gastronomic treatises of the time was Art of cooking, pastry, biscuit and canning by the Spanish Francisco Martínez Motiño.
Already in the Contemporary age, gastronomy became popular and was no longer exclusive to the aristocratic sectors. However, it eventually became a mark of class and distinction again, only this time at the hands of the bourgeoisie.
With the birth of restaurants and preserves (during the Industrial Revolution), a food paradigm changed forever in the West, as described by Brillat Savarin (Taste physiology, 1826) or Alexandre Dumas (Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine, 1873).
With the arrival of the twentieth century and the massive production of food, gastronomy became enormously diversified, distinguishing among other things the "signature" cuisine or "artistic" restaurants, from the fast food. In this framework, the nouvelle cuisine, what is trying to put together tradition and simplicity in a new way of cooking.
Types of gastronomy
We can distinguish some different types of gastronomy:
- National gastronomy. It has a strong link with the National identity of a country or culture, and involves elements of its tradition or its history. For example: German, Armenian, Arabic gastronomy.
- Gastronomy Gourmet. It involves “signature” cooking styles, that is, avant-garde culinary trends.
- Gastronomy vegan. It does not use any type of animal derivatives in its preparations (neither meat, nor dairy, nor eggs) and chooses vegetables, fruits and cereals instead.
- Macrobiotic gastronomy. It is governed by macrobiotic principles, that is, by a balance (ying-yang) between foods related to the biochemical composition of the body.
- Religious gastronomy. Those shared by different peoples who have a similar religious culture, such as Jewish or Islamic food, etc.
Importance of gastronomy
Gastronomy gives us the opportunity to incorporate into the artistic and cultural context an aspect that formally seems neglected, which is the kitchen. Although it is not considered among the Fine arts, the culinary art is undoubtedly one of the most widely practiced and with the greatest nuances, variants and cultural baggage of humanity.
Gastronomy, like other disciplines dedicated to the study of the various aspects of human culture, tells us who we are and where we come from, based on our way of cooking.
Mexican gastronomy
The gastronomy of Mexico is one of the most famous of America and from the West, since it reflects the complex and extensive process of cultural pairing that took place in this country during the 500 years of European colonization.
Spanish food, native indigenous food and some Negroid contributions make up a gastronomy of enormous personality, recognizable throughout the world for its use of corn tortillas, grains, sauces and especially spicy (chili pepper).
It is an extremely diverse gastronomy in which each Mexican state intervenes in a different and decisive way, even generating a current within the US border states with Mexico, known as “Tex-Mex” (Texas-Mexican).