Culinary tourism or food tourism or gastronomy tourism is the exploration of food as the purpose of tourism. [1] It is considered a vital component of the tourism experience. [2] Dining out is common among tourists and "food is believed to rank alongside climate, accommodation, and scenery" in importance to tourists. [2]
Culinary tourism became prominent in 2001 after Erik Wolf, president of the World Food Travel Association, wrote a white paper on the subject. [3]
Culinary or food tourism is the pursuit of unique and memorable eating and drinking experiences, both near and far. [4] Culinary tourism differs from agritourism in that culinary tourism is considered a subset of cultural tourism (cuisine is a manifestation of culture) whereas agritourism is considered a subset of rural tourism, [5] but culinary tourism and agritourism are inextricably linked, as the seeds of cuisine can be found in agriculture. Culinary/food tourism is not limited to gourmet food. [6] Food tourism can be considered a subcategory of experiential travel.[ citation needed ]
While many cities, regions, or countries are known for their food, culinary tourism is not limited by food culture. Every tourist eats about three times a day, making food one of the fundamental economic drivers of tourism. Countries like Ireland, Peru, and Canada are making a significant investment in culinary tourism development and are seeing results with visitor spending and overnight stays rising as a result of food tourism promotion and product development. [7]
Food tourism includes activities such as taking cooking classes; going on food or drink tours; attending food and beverage festivals; [8] participating in specialty dining experiences; [3] shopping at specialty retail spaces; and visiting farms, markets, and producers.[ citation needed ]
The World Food Travel Association estimates that food and beverage expenses account for 15% to 35% of all tourism spending, depending on the affordability of the destination. [9] The WFTA lists possible food tourism benefits as including more visitors, more sales, more media attention, increased tax revenue, and greater community pride. [9]
A growing area of culinary tourism is cooking classes. The formats vary from a short lesson lasting a few hours to full-day and multi-day courses. The focus for foreign tourists will usually be on the cuisine of the country they are visiting, whereas local tourists may be keen to experience cuisines new to them. Many cooking classes also include market tours to enhance the cultural experience. [10] Some cooking classes are held in local people's homes, allowing foreign tourists to catch a glimpse of what daily life and cuisine look like for those in the country they're visiting. Both the local hosts and foreign guests benefit from the cross-cultural experience.[ citation needed ]
Food tours vary by locale and by operator. They are common in major cities such as London, [11] Paris, [12] [13] Rome, [14] Florence, [14] Toronto, [15] Kuala Lumpur, [16] and Barcelona. [17]
June 10, 2017, was the first annual National Food Tour Day, celebrating food tourism around the world. [18] The World Food Travel Association introduced World Food Travel Day on April 18, 2018, [19] as a way to put the spotlight on how and why we travel to experience the world's culinary cultures. It is designed to bring awareness to both consumers and trade, and support the Association's mission – to preserve and promote culinary cultures through hospitality and tourism. The day is celebrated all around the world every year on April 18.[ citation needed ]
Food tourism [20] offers a multitude of benefits for travelers, including:
A cuisine is a style of cooking characterized by distinctive ingredients, techniques and dishes, and usually associated with a specific culture or geographic region. Regional food preparation techniques, customs, and ingredients combine to enable dishes unique to a region.
French cuisine is the cooking traditions and practices from France. In the 14th century, Guillaume Tirel, a court chef known as "Taillevent", wrote Le Viandier, one of the earliest recipe collections of medieval France. In the 17th century, chefs François Pierre La Varenne and Marie-Antoine Carême spearheaded movements that shifted French cooking away from its foreign influences and developed France's own indigenous style.
Diana Kennedy was a British food writer. The preeminent English-language authority on Mexican cuisine, Kennedy was known for her nine books on the subject, including The Cuisines of Mexico, which changed how Americans view Mexican cuisine. Her cookbooks are based on her fifty years of travelling in Mexico, interviewing and learning from several types of cooks from virtually every region of the nation.
Gastronomy is the study of the relationship between food and culture, the art of preparing and serving rich or delicate and appetizing food, the cooking styles of particular regions, and the science of good eating. One who is well versed in gastronomy is called a gastronome, while a gastronomist is one who unites theory and practice in the study of gastronomy. Practical gastronomy is associated with the practice and study of the preparation, production, and service of the various foods and beverages, from countries around the world. It is related with a system and process approach, focused on recipes, techniques and cookery books. Food gastronomy is connected with food and beverages and their genesis. Technical gastronomy underpins practical gastronomy, introducing a rigorous approach to evaluation of gastronomic topics.
Gourmet is a cultural idea associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterized by their high level of refined and elaborate food preparation techniques and displays of balanced meals that have an aesthetically pleasing presentation of several contrasting, often quite rich courses. Historically the ingredients used in the meal tended to be rare for the region, which could also be impacted by the local state and religious customs. The term and the related characteristics are typically used to describe people with more discerning palates and enthusiasm. Gourmet food is more frequently provided with small servings and in more upscale and posh fine dining establishments that cater to a more affluent and exclusive client base. When it comes to cooking gourmet dishes, there are also frequent cross-cultural interactions that introduce new, exotic, and expensive ingredients, materials, and traditions with more refined, complex, formal, and sophisticated high-level cooking and food preparation techniques.
A cook is a professional individual who prepares items for consumption in the food industry, especially in settings such as restaurants. A cook is sometimes referred to as a chef, although in the culinary world, the terms are not interchangeable. Cooks' responsibilities include preparing food, managing food stations, cleaning the kitchen, and helping the chefs. Restaurants will give a title to the cooks according to their designated stations. Examples are broiler cooks, fry cooks, pantry cooks, and sauce cooks.
Hong Kong cuisine is mainly influenced by Cantonese cuisine, European cuisines and non-Cantonese Chinese cuisines, as well as Japanese, Korean and Southeast Asian cuisines, due to Hong Kong's past as a British colony and a long history of being an international port of commerce. Complex combinations and international gourmet expertise have given Hong Kong the labels of "Gourmet Paradise" and "World's Fair of Food".
Culinary arts are the cuisine arts of food preparation, cooking, and presentation of food, usually in the form of meals. People working in this field – especially in establishments such as restaurants – are commonly called chefs or cooks, although, at its most general, the terms culinary artist and culinarian are also used.
Marcel Rouff was a Swiss novelist, playwright, poet, journalist, historian, and gastronomic writer. With Curnonsky he wrote the multi-volume work La France gastronomique, guide des merveilles culinaires et des bonnes auberges françaises. He may be best known today for his novel about the fictional gourmet Dodin-Bouffant, La vie et la passion de Dodin-Bouffant, Gourmet, which was first published in 1924 and dedicated to his friend Curnonsky and the great nineteenth-century French gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. Rouff's novel was adapted for French television in 1973 by Jean Ferniot and in a 2023 feature-length movie by Trần Anh Hùng, The Taste of Things.
Food heritage is a term that encompasses the origins of plants and animals and their dispersal, the sites where people first cultivated plants and domesticated animals, as well as the earliest locations around the world where people first processed, prepared, sold and ate foods. These locations include farms, all types of mill, dairies, orchards, vineyards, breweries, restaurants and cafes, markets and groceries, hotels and inns. Food museums help to preserve global and local food heritage. Agropolis Museum in Montpellier, France is an example of a Food museum.
A food museum tells the story of what sustains humankind. These museums are located all around the world, and spotlight various varieties and origins of certain foods. Such museums may be specifically focused on one plant, as is the Saffron Museum in Boynes, France. They may also explore foods made from plants. For example, The Bread Museum in Ulm, Germany, South Korea; a product such as the National Mustard Museum in Wisconsin, Big Mac Museum in Pennsylvania, Museum Kimchikan in South Korea, Cup Noodles Museum in Yokohama; the art of food displayed at California's Copia; food heritage showcased at Sichuan Cuisine Museum in Chengdu; or historic farms, for example, Iowa's Living History Farms, feature broader exhibits on art, history, and influence of food production.
Fuchsia Charlotte Dunlop is an English writer and cook who specialises in Chinese cuisine, especially Sichuan cuisine. She is the author of seven books, including the autobiographical Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper (2008). According to Julia Moskin in The New York Times, Dunlop "has done more to explain real Chinese cooking to non-Chinese cooks than anyone".
The global cuisine or world cuisine is a cuisine that is practiced around the world. A cuisine is a characteristic style of cooking practices and traditions, often associated with a specific region, country or culture. To become a global cuisine, a local, regional or national cuisine must spread around the world, its food served worldwide. There have been significant improvements and advances during the 20th century in food preservation, storage, shipping and production, and today many countries, cities and regions have access to their traditional cuisines and many other global cuisines.
Pujol is a Mexican cuisine restaurant in Polanco, Miguel Hidalgo, Mexico City. The restaurant is owned and headed by chef Enrique Olvera. Pujol's dishes are based on traditional Mexican cuisine, including maize-based food, seafood, and tacos, served in a sophisticated presentation through tasting menus or a taco omakase bar.
Oaxacan cuisine is a regional cuisine of Mexico, centered on the city of Oaxaca, the capital of the eponymous state located in southern Mexico. Oaxaca is one of the country's major gastronomic, historical, and gastro-historical centers whose cuisine is known internationally. Like the rest of Mexican cuisine, Oaxacan food is based on staples such as corn, beans, and chile peppers, but there is a great variety of other ingredients and food preparations due to the influence of the state's varied geography and indigenous cultures. Corn and many beans were first cultivated in Oaxaca. Well-known features of the cuisine include ingredients such as chocolate, Oaxaca cheese, mezcal, and grasshoppers (chapulines), with dishes such as tlayudas, Oaxacan-style tamales, and seven notable varieties of mole sauce. The cuisine has been praised and promoted by food experts such as Diana Kennedy and Rick Bayless and is part of the state's appeal for tourists.
Joseph Favre was a famously skilled Swiss chef who worked in Switzerland, France, Germany, and England. Although he initially only received primary education because of his humble origins, as an adult he attended science and nutrition classes at the University of Geneva, and would eventually publish his four-volume Dictionnaire universel de cuisine pratique, an encyclopedia of culinary science, in 1895.
Traveling Spoon is a San Francisco, California-based food tourism startup company that connects travelers with local hosts who prepare homemade local cuisine in their homes. Travelers can also purchase cooking classes and visit marketplaces for cooking ingredients with their hosts. The company offers home dining packages in 38 cities in 15 countries located throughout South and Southeast Asia and Japan.
Monégasque cuisine is the cuisine of the principality of Monaco. It is a Mediterranean cuisine shaped by the cooking style of Provence and the influences of nearby northern Italian and southern French cooking, in addition to Monaco’s own culinary traditions. There is an emphasis on fresh ingredients, with the use of seafood, vegetables and olive oil playing a major role in the cuisine.
Cuisine of Berlin describes different aspects of Berlin's culinary offerings. On the one hand, it means the traditional Berlin cuisine of Berlin households with dishes from the German cuisine. On the other hand, often a rustic pub and snack kitchen, which has become increasingly international due to many migration waves since 1945 and 1990. After 2000, numerous top-class restaurants have evolved in Berlin.
Slow tourism is an alternative tourism choice in contrast to mass tourism. Slow tourism is a part of the sustainable tourism family, different from mainstream tourism and emphasizing the tourist’s greater personal awareness. It is characterized by reducing mobility and by taking time to explore local history and culture, while supporting the environment. The concept emerged from the Italian Slow Food movement and the Cittaslow movement.