Potentials of Culinary Tourism

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Culinary tourism refers to trips primarily made by travelers for the purpose of sampling authentic food and beverages identified with a particular place. Since most food can easily be transported from one place to another, culinary tourism throws in the whole package of food experience in an authentic setting. Such experience must be in such magnitude as to make it worthwhile for people to travel and spend.


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What are some of the reasons why travelers would be willing to take the effort?

Place of Origin

There is something so interesting about getting a specific food in the place which has been identified as its place of origin. Origin connotes authenticity in taste and presentation. In assessing the taste of any food, there is always the tendency to compare it to the original or the acknowledged best.

Place of Rebirth

It can happen that an existing food can be resurrected in some other place with some modification or innovation. Sometimes the results can be better than the original. It can also be a cultural variation that has managed to gain prominence.

Place of Total Experience

If there is one thing that cannot be completely approximated in a different setting, it is the total experience of authentic cooking, culture, people, and many other unseen factors. This provides the greatest motivation for culinary travelers to come and visit. The main goal is to pursue unique and drinking experiences that cannot be equaled. 

Know Your Food Facts and Fallacies

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Food is certainly a favorite topic of human beings. This is not at all surprising, considering that it is part of our everyday lives whether for survival or enjoyment. It is important that we know how to differentiate between food facts and fallacies so we will be guided accordingly with our choices.


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Here are some of the reasons why:

To Be Safe

When a food fad hits the market, the tendency for most people is to ride in the bandwagon. Delightful eating experiences have often resulted from trying something new and this isn't a bad thing. Consumers will have to be more discriminating however with newly introduced food that comes with some health benefit claims. While most would be relatively harmless and could be merely a promotional hype, some claims can be deadly.

To Avoid Unnecessary Deprivation

It is highly possible that many of us are unnecessarily depriving ourselves of enjoying or benefiting from certain food items due to misinformation. In the same manner that we are careful with what we take in our body, we should likewise be more scrutinizing of any food before we outrightly reject it. This would entail doing some research and asking around for personal experiences from other people.

To Know

We'll never really know when we will be able to use food information we have come across in our readings or interacting with other people. What is important is that the information is already there for the picking. Knowing is power.


Grocery Shopping as a Family Activity

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Once upon a time, weekend marketing or grocery shopping was a task performed by the primary homemaker in a household. Today, that is no longer strictly true. A typical grocery day will have families, even with the youngest member, in tow. 


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This interesting development has much to do with the immense improvement in the set-up of supermarkets. They do not only sell everything under the sun. They also do so in a very comfortable ambiance usually within a mall. Thus grocery shopping has become an enjoyable family activity, almost akin to a toned-down shopping spree for food and household necessities.

So what has this resulted to?

Democratized Decision-Making

Children, no matter what age have learned to exert their influence on what to buy. Parents or the mother no longer have the sole power to choose. This can go both ways depending on the budget and the children's insistence for a preferred item.

Highly-Targeted Promotion

The packaging of products, the sample booths on the side, and the give-away items attached to products all aim for one thing - for the products to be bought by consumers. Most will be targeting either the whole family or particular members of the family. Manufacturers try to second-guess how purchasing decisions are made in groceries and supermarkets resulting to highly-targeted promotion towards the family.

Centralized Convenience

Almost everything can now be bought in groceries and supermarkets. Families need not go to different stores for their every need except for the highly specialized ones. What they don't find inside the grocery, they will surely find within the mall. This has given families more time to spend together while having the opportunity to decide as a group what to fill their cart with.

Eating Out: Signs of the Times?

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No, we're not referring to any religious meaning when we ask this question. Rather, we are asking if eating out is actually just a manifestation of how the eating habits of people living in the modern times have been revolutionized. Why are more and more people choosing to eat out instead of dining at home?


There are several reasons why:

Convenience

What could be more convenient than hauling your family to the nearest restaurant and just ordering away according to individual preferences? No cooking, washing, and cleaning up after, right? We are living in a time when 24 hours just don't seem enough to get everything done so every form of convenience is welcome.

Variety

Wouldn't it be fantastic to have every choice of cuisine available to us? While we can have this as well at home, it does require more effort and preparation. Thinking of how to come up with at least 3 balanced meals a day is challenging enough but creating variety for family food can really be difficult especially if the homemaker is also holding a regular job.

Special Occasions

This is not of course to say that home-cooked food is not good enough for special occasions. Most of the times though, special occasions also require the homemaker to have some time off cooking and preparing food for the family. Eating out on special occasions relieves one person of the burden of having to attend to everything. After all, special occasions should be for every member of the family or group. There is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying a different ambiance and good restaurant service once in a while.

Signs of the Times

Preference for eating out is one of the signs of the times indeed. Many individuals and families are rushing all throughout the weekdays thus eating out or buying cooked food to go can be the easiest option. Households however need to be conscious of its effect in the budget. One other major consideration is ensuring that the family's health is not compromised with our choices.


Why Home Cooking Will Never Go Out of Style

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Home Cooking is an age-old tradition that will never go out of style. A picture of a happy home is never complete without a busy kitchen. The aroma of cooking food gently intermingles with the laughter of the house occupants waiting to share the food together.


Tradition of Eating Together as a Family

Eating together as a family is often thought today of as old-fashioned. Nothing can be farther from the truth. It may have been the way families have been accustomed to eat from the early times. We cannot deny though that such way is still applicable and preferable during these modern times. Families that eat together in spite of various constraints are continuing a tradition that is acknowledged to be beneficial to the members.

Home-Cooked Food

At the center of this tradition is the practice of preparing home-cooked food. Food can be a unifying factor among families especially since it is a common practice not to discuss problems while eating. The practice of gathering together to eat delicious food however simple is the stuff of which family memories are made of.

Why Home Cooking is Here to Stay

Home cooking will never go out of style because of its relation to preserving the closeness of the family. It also allows members to do something together and to partake of the healthy and inexpensive results after cooking. The key is to keep it simple but tasty.Remember that when family members eat together, it is not only the physical body that gets nourishment but the soul as well.