Due to its centrality in human activities, food is a meaningful object that necessarily participates in any cultural, social and ideological construction and its qualification as 'traditional' is a politically laden value. This book demonstrates that traditionality as attributed to foods goes beyond the notions of heritage and authenticity under which it is commonly formulated.

Through a series of case studies from a global range of cultural and geographical areas, the book explores a variety of contexts to reveal the complexity behind the attribution of the term 'traditional' to...