Yemek as a Tool for Social Change
Social Gastronomy is a social movement that takes an interdisciplinary approach to the production, consumption, and presentation networks of gastronomy, and offers multi-dimensional solutions with its sustainable examples.
To understand what Social Gastronomy is, it is necessary to explain its practitioners and applications, its interdisciplinary approach ranging from gastronomy to architecture, education, its mediation that goes beyond economic and cultural distinctions, and its collaborations with multinational organizations, institutions, and companies based on World Health Organization data and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Chef, Master Chef, and Gastronomy
Chefs, who are defined as individuals who make cooking their profession according to the dictionary definition, can receive formal education from an institution, and they can also train themselves by apprenticing to an experienced chef or a master chef.
Among the responsibilities of chefs are preparing meals, managing food stations, cleaning the kitchen, and assisting chefs. A Master Chef is a trained professional chef who is an expert in all aspects of meal preparation and often focuses on a specific cuisine.
Gastronomy, on the other hand, is the science of preparing delicious food and beverages by considering hygiene, taste, and visual appeal, and enjoying eating and drinking in moderation for pleasure and health. Etymologically, Gastronomy is derived from the combination of the Ancient Greek words “gastḗr,” meaning related to the stomach, and “nómos,” meaning law or rule. The word was first used in 1801 in the poem “La gastronomie” by the French poet Joseph Berchoux to refer to food culture.
Slow Food & Citta Slow and the Inspiration that Started in the 1980s
Chef David Hertz, one of the pioneers of the Social Gastronomy Movement, talks about how food can trigger local-level change and improve global systems, and cites the Slow Food movement as an inspiration. Slow Food started in the late 1980s as a grassroots movement protesting the opening of Italy’s first McDonald’s and has become an international movement with branches in 150 countries. The Slow Food movement, which has the philosophy of “choosing good, clean, and fair food,” has developed and spread with Cittaslow (Slow City). The aim of the Cittaslow movement, which includes 17 cities from Turkey, is to bring the Slow Food philosophy to the urban dimension.
Social Gastronomy
We can use food to create a more inclusive society. Food touches every aspect of human life: the environment, agriculture, economy, health, and even our social lives. Social gastronomy uses food to turn social inequalities such as hunger, malnutrition, unemployment, and inequality into dignity, opportunity, and well-being.
At the center of the Social Gastronomy Movement is the human being, and it addresses the issue of social inequality by using the power of food and gastronomy to improve nutrition education, eliminate food waste, and create local job opportunities.
The goals of the movement include bringing different stakeholders together under common objectives, inspiring families and households to change their habits and behaviors, empowering companies to be more socially and environmentally sustainable through Social Gastronomy, supporting Social Gastronomy initiatives in various parts of the world, changing consumer behavior by using Social Gastronomy as part of a purchasing decision, and sharing the best and most successful practices within the movement through knowledge transfer.