Food and Identity

I like to pick up a copy of The Metro every day and a recent article by comedian, Carl Donnelly, about being a vegan caught my eye.  He says there is an assumption that all vegans can't stop going on about living a cruelty-free life, however in reality the requests to discuss it usually come from meat-eaters.  It got me thinking about my own decision to become a vegetarian when I was little and how food affects our identity.

Unlike culinary tourism where you seek out locally made food, some tourists look to reinforce their sense of identity when in a foreign country.  This could be the English seeking fish and chips in Greece, Australians hunting for Vegemite on Toast in Asia, and Americans looking for burgers everywhere.

Tea has become the most widely-drunk beverage in the world and has important cultural traditions and social practices in certain countries, for example, the Japanese tea ceremony and the English afternoon tea.

Tea is much-loved by British people of all social classes.  A cup of tea is such a vital part of everyday life for the majority of British people, and so integral to their daily routine, that it is difficult to imagine life in the UK without it.  Going to a tea shop became a favourite past-time of ladies in the nineteenth century and evolved into an elaborate social occasion.  Tea would be drunk from the best china and small amounts of food presented perfectly on little china plates.  On offer might be bread and butter, scones and cakes, and sandwiches with the crusts cut off.  Photographs from the time can provide a record of the history of tea rooms and how the social identity of women has changed over the years.  It became socially acceptable for women to visit tea rooms either alone, or in company, without it looking like they were breaching propriety, they were even regular meeting places for Suffragettes.

Image courtesy of J. Lyons & Co.

Nowadays food and politics mix in politicians' quest to be seen as in touch with their public.  In the image below, Barack Obama treats David Cameron to the traditional fare of hotdogs at a basketball match during the Prime Minister's trip to Washington in March 2012. Eating food seems to have overtaken kissing babies as the photograph opportunity of choice for many politicians.

Image courtesy of BBC News

These occasions are closely monitored, often staged, and hardly ever found in publications without a reason behind them.  In some cases photojournalists are given advance notice of the lenses to use to get the best photograph.  Often the aim is to make them look like a normal, everyday person and authenticate their identity.  What do you think of these photographs?  Do they achieve this aim?