Professional Documents
Culture Documents
05 - Food in Tourism
05 - Food in Tourism
755–778, 2004
# 2004 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Printed in Great Britain
www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures 0160-7383/$30.00
doi:10.1016/j.annals.2004.02.003
FOOD IN TOURISM
Attraction and Impediment
Erik Cohen
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Nir Avieli
National University of Singapore, Singapore
INTRODUCTION
Erik Cohen is the George S. Wise Professor of Sociology (emeritus) (Department of Soci-
ology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91905, Israel. Email <mserik@mscc.huji.ac.il>). His
principal interests are tourism, commercialized arts, festivals, and Thai studies. He is editor
of Studies in Asian Tourism. Nir Avieli is a postdoctoral fellow at the Asia Research Institute,
National University of Singapore. He is mainly interested in anthroplogy of food, tourism,
and Vietnamese studies.
755
756 FOOD IN TOURISM
local porters and guides eat tzampa oat porridge, momo dumplings,
and dal-bat (rice-lentils portions).
However, tourists on a trip are frequently eager for new experiences
and willing to take greater risks than in their ordinary life. The trip
may stimulate their neophylic tendencies, motivating them to try
novel and strange dishes and beverages (as well as intoxicants and
drugs). But even those who search for new culinary experiences may
be repelled by the local culinary situation and reluctant or unable to
partake of the food served in local culinary establishments, parti-
cularly in Third World countries. Therefore, it is important to analyze
the local culinary situation and examine the impediments which it
imposes on the tourists.
their home setting, and even their preparations, will in most cases be
insufficient to deal with the actual encounter with the local culinary
situation. Tourists at the destination face not merely unfamiliar food-
stuffs and dishes, but a whole unfamiliar culinary institutional set-up.
Since their accustomed domestic arrangements in the preparation
and consumption of food are normally not reproducible on the trip,
the tourists have to satisfy their alimentary needs in alternative ways,
primarily in commercial culinary establishments. Insofar as tourism-
oriented establishments are not locally available, they have to struggle
with a whole range of unfamiliar and sometimes repulsive or even
threatening local culinary arrangements even before they attempt to
approach the menu. While for the more adventurous tourists such
circumstances may present a challenge, most tourists tend to experi-
ence anxiety, insecurity, and frustration. Various contextual features
of the local culinary situation may act as impediments to taste or eat
local food, even for tourists with a neophylic inclination.
‘‘I don’t eat meat in Thailand; people here touch the meat with their
hands’’ (German female youth tourist, overheard in Pai, northern
Thailand, in 1999).
‘‘So I went all the way to India and won’t see the
Taj-Mahal?!. . .’’ (Israeli tourist who had to see a doctor for severe
diarrhea in Agra, India, in 1998).
and beverage (just as they tend to provide them with a wide range of
preventive drugs and inoculations).
The heightened concern with health problems caused by food is
reflected in the many stories tourists tell abut their unfortunate culi-
nary experiences, as well as by the widespread tourist myths regarding
alleged culinary threats typical of particular destinations. The tourists’
apprehensions regarding the safety of food (and beverage) in pro-
spective destinations can be both assuaged and exacerbated by the
routine warnings and advice regarding culinary matters found in
guidebooks. A perusal of these popular sources indicates that the
most common sickness mentioned is diarrhea: ‘‘Travelers diarrhea has
been around for along time—even Marco Polo had it. . .’’ (Buckley,
Samagalski, Cummings, Storey and Strauss 1994:135). ‘‘Almost every
traveler who stays in Egypt for more than a week seems to be hit with
Pharaoh’s Revenge—diarrhea. . .’’ (Wayne and Simonis 1994:71). The
most common warning in guidebooks is against drinking tap water.
Thus, a guidebook on the Philippines warns that ‘‘care in what you
eat or drink is the most important health rule; stomach upsets are the
most likely travel health problem’’ (Peters 1991:65). Tap water in
many destinations (both in developed and developing countries) is
indeed unsafe or contaminated, and even locals often consume bot-
tled water or boil it out of the tap. However, stressing the dangers of
consuming the most basic nutrient (second only to oxygen), induces
and enhances suspicions and fear that might develop into a general
avoidance of local foodstuffs. Indeed, the second author found that
tourists avoid salads ‘‘because the vegetables were washed in contami-
nated water’’.
Avoiding the local drinking water is only the first line of defense.
Many tourists are reluctant to eat local food at hawker’s stalls, though
it may look inviting. Indeed, such fastidiousness led the authors of
Thai Hawkers’ Food to argue that ‘‘One misconception to hawkers’
food is that most of them are [sic] unhygienic’’. However, after admit-
ting that ‘‘there is bound to be some litter on the floor [around the
stall]. . . terrible looking display of chicken, heaps of unwashed plates
and maybe uncovered condiment bottles’’ the authors ask, ‘‘if millions
are happy gobbling down hawker fare daily, surely it would not be as
clinically disastrous for a visitor to have a go, just for once or more
times?’’ (Yee and Gordon 1993:28). Similarly, a guidebook on the Phi-
lippines advises ‘‘Don’t become paranoid; trying the local food is part
of the experience of travel’’ (Peters 1991:65).
The tourists’ apprehensions regarding the safety of local food at
the destination constitute a significant impediment to novel culinary
experiences. Even when they do not suffer from neophobia, tourists
are often reluctant to eat, or even sample, local food out of health
worries or disgust caused by its unhygienic appearance. To this should
be added another common impediment: repulsion from the ways
foods are consumed locally.
COHEN AND AVIELI 763
Local Eating Habits and Table Manners. Western table manners are
thoroughly affected by aesthetic conceptions derived from the notion
of ‘‘civilized conduct’’ and the ethos of individualism. For Westerners,
the use of utensils is not only a hygienic device which safeguards the
contamination of food by contact with the fingers, but also mediates
between the food and the eater, between the meal as a ‘‘natural’’
substance, and its consumption as a ‘‘cultural’’ habit. Utensils thus
symbolize civilized eating as against the animalistic devouring of food
by ‘‘uncivilized’’ people (Elias 1978:139ff.).
However, in South and Southeast Asia, it is the local custom to
scoop rice balls with one’s hand, tuck them into the curry or sauce
and then put in the mouth. In many local eating venues that serve
such dishes, there are no utensils available at all. The second author
witnessed several occasions in which tourists, when finding out that
there were no spoons or forks in a local culinary establishment, were
very upset and even gave up the intention of eating there.
Western individualism finds expression in the separate apportion-
ing of food to each eater, and the use of personal eating utensils
(Elias 1978:143–144). Sensitive Westerners may be offended by such
local habits as tucking one’s fingers or utensils in a shared dish,
which are common in Asia. Such manners may appear unhygienic
and aesthetically repulsive. Thus, when Western tourists are given the
opportunity to experience a Thai meal and ‘‘share’’ the food, they
tend to use separate utensils to dish it out. Indeed, in tourism-orien-
ted establishments in northern Thailand, the tourists are served a
kantok dinner in miniature ‘‘individualized’’ sets so that eating from a
shared dish is avoided.
Even when not repulsed by local eating habits, tourists may feel
intimidated by their unfamiliarity. Perhaps the best known example of
difficulties experienced in handling local utensils are chopsticks,
widely in use in East and Southeast Asia. Much, indeed, has been
made of teaching Westerners the relatively simple art of chopstick use
by local hosts, most conspicuously by Chinese dignitaries demonstrat-
ing their use to visiting US presidents at state dinners. It should be
noted that such instruction could not be reciprocated: it would be
highly insulting if Western dignitaries would attempt to demonstrate
to their Asian guests the use of a fork, since it would imply that they
lacked a basic competence of civilized conduct.
The gap between the categories of culture and nature is even more
prominent when the raw ingredients used to prepare certain dishes
in some destinations are still alive upon the tourists arrival at the res-
taurant. Though criticized, it is still acceptable in the West to main-
tain live lobsters in a restaurant’s aquariums and to boil them in front
of the customers. Fish restaurants often display fresh-fish and seafood
over ice. However, as an Israeli told the second author, ‘‘lobsters have
no facial expressions and fish make no sounds. . .’’. It is a common
practice in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, and other countries
to display in restaurants live animals intended for cooking. Fish,
shrimps, and eels are kept in water tanks, while several kinds of birds,
reptiles and mammals (such as chicken, quail, snakes, rabbits,
764 FOOD IN TOURISM
bamboo-rats, and even cats and dogs) are kept in cages at the
entrance of restaurants. The display is intended to demonstrate var-
iety, quality, and freshness. The local clients point to the creature of
choice, which is promptly killed, cleaned, and cooked to order
(indeed, game restaurants in the West might display the catch for
similar reasons, yet the killing is never done in front of the diners).
The second author witnessed several occasions in which tourists
refused to eat freshly carved fish because ‘‘they were still moving on
the plate’’. In other instances, the tourists ordered the dish, photo-
graphed the killing and cleaning of the animal (as is often the case
with snake-soups served in South China), but were so repulsed that
they refused to eat it.
they are not considered ethnic any more. Other European cuisines,
such as the Turkish or Greek are also widespread. Of the non-Eur-
opean cuisines, predominantly the Chinese, Japanese, and Indian are
popular, and, more recently the Thai (Chaitrong 1999). It should be
noted that such ‘‘world cusines’’ originate from countries that are
major destinations, and thus tourism might very well be the reason
behind their popularity and proliferation. Restaurants representing
other ethnic cuisines can be found only in the major metropolitan
centers and are often expensive, remaining an exotic treat for the few
rather than a familiar experience for a broad circle of customers.
Second, the proliferation of ethnic restaurants does not necessarily
mean that a meaningful percentage of the general population fre-
quents such venues. In fact, Warde and Martens, in their survey of
‘‘eating out’’ practices in the United Kingdom, point out that
‘‘. . .multiculturalism is still limited. Only 20 percent of the people
had experience of three or more different cuisines while 48 percent
had never eaten in an ethnic restaurant in the last twelve months’’.
Furthermore, when Britons do eat in ethnic restaurants, almost half
(47%) order dishes with which they are familiar and have eaten pre-
viously at home (2000:84, 149). Thus, the experience of consumption
of new and unfamiliar dishes in such venues is rather limited.
Third, familiarity with a wide variety of ethnic cuisines at home
appears to be limited to a relatively small number of middle and
upper-middle or high-class prospective tourists, who posses the cul-
tural capital to appreciate and enjoy foreign food, and are sophisti-
cated enough to be able to order it. With the growing expansion of
tourism into lower and lower-middle classes in Western countries,
only a minority can be assumed to be acquainted with such a wide
range of foreign cuisines prior to their trip. The findings of Warde
and Martens (2000:84) support this claim. They suggest that cultural
and socioeconomic factors strongly influence the amount and range
of ethnic food consumption. Thus, the increasing numbers of tourists
from the lower sociocultural echelons are hardly likely to posses pre-
vious experience with the food of their destinations, especially if it
did not reach the ranks of a world cuisine.
Fourth, most ethnic restaurants feature only a limited selection of
‘‘iconic’’ dishes from a national culinary repertoire. In linguistic
terms, their menus represent a ‘‘simplified register’’ (Ferguson 1981)
of the various regional cuisines of the country, and are not represen-
tative of their actual diversity, which the tourists might encounter
when they visit that country. Rather than preparing prospective tour-
ists for the richness and diversity of the local cuisine, ethnic restau-
rants may induce them to fix on those iconic dishes with which they
are familiar from home. Thus, many Western tourists in Thailand
tend to order pat Thai (Thai fried noodles) or khao pat (fried rice) in
local restaurants, while in China their preferred dishes are sweet and
sour pork, spring rolls, and corn soup, all of which are widely avail-
able in Thai and Chinese restaurants abroad but are not necessarily
popular among the locals in their home countries.
766 FOOD IN TOURISM
indirect ‘‘knowledge about’’ it, which they had acquired prior to their
trips.
. . .the percentage of Balinese dishes offered [on local menus] had fallen
dramatically over [five years]. There was also a great commonality of
names of the dishes offered by the restaurants, but there was great vari-
ation in presentation, ingredients and flavor (Reynolds 1993:51–52).
CONCLUSION
Despite its considerable importance, the role and meaning of food
in tourism has been surprisingly little discussed in the sociological
literature. The principal aim of this article was to propose an
approach to the topic by integrating some such culinary notions in
culinary sociology with conceptions of the sociology of tourism.
This article has departed from the general tension between the
attraction and repulsion of novelty in food, to analyze the dilemmas
faced by tourists in unfamiliar culinary situations at their destinations.
The principal line of the presentation was to deal first with the variety
of constraints experienced in such situations, and then turn to the
different ways by which culinary establishments facilitate the over-
coming of those constraints. The article has shown how they provide
a ‘‘culinary environmental bubble’’ to tourists. However, through this
process aspects of the local cuisine are, to different degrees, filtered
and transformed, thus making local dishes accessible to tourists. In
the process a tourist cuisine frequently emerges, which, like tourist
arts, is not just an impoverished variant of local food, but often fea-
tures innovative dishes, creatively composed of elements from differ-
ent origins.
The analysis related primarily to Western tourists’ encounters with
Third World cuisines, with which they may be only superficially
acquainted at home and to which they are generally positively dis-
posed. This article did not deal extensively with Western tourism to
other Western countries, with whose cuisines tourists might be con-
siderably more familiar. It is surmised that in such cases the various
constraints dealt with in this article will be less salient when making
the local food more directly accessible to tourists. This way, they will
be less dependent on the intermediation of a ‘‘culinary environmen-
tal bubble’’. Consequently, such cuisines will undergo fewer adapta-
tions or transformations under the impact of tourism than those with
which the tourists are less familiar. The existing literature on the
topic (Hjalager and Richards 2002), by focusing on Western tourism
to well-developed Western destinations, overemphasizes food as an
attraction, while remaining mostly oblivious to its role as an impedi-
ment in less developed areas.
This article has purposely abstained from a systematic consideration
of the culinary aspects of Asian tourism in Western countries. This is
a topic in need of separate analysis, since it cannot be dealt with as a
simple obverse of the preceding presentation. The cuisines of Asian
countries have not been penetrated by outside influences to the same
extent as the Western ones. Consequently, Asians abroad tend to be
less disposed than Westerners to partake of the food of others, and
are more dependent than the latter on establishments providing their
own national cuisines. In the case of major national groups of Asian
tourists, such as the Japanese, this predilection for their own food
means that they will be reluctant to visit a given destination in signifi-
cant numbers, unless it features restaurants serving their national cui-
sine. The paper here has done no more than outline a systematic
776 FOOD IN TOURISM
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Submitted 1 June 2001. Resubmitted 18 May 2002. Resubmitted 13 April 2003. Accepted
14 February 2004. Final version 24 February 2004. Refereed anonymously. Coordinating
Editor: Pierre van den Berghe