Food Culture Within Social Changes of 20th and the Begining of 21st Century

Principal researcher: Nives Rittig-Beljak
Researchers and associates: Alojzije Jembrih, Melanija Belaj, Maja Godina Golija, Jelena Ivanisevic

Recent ethnological nutrition research in Croatia was conducted within different approaches and analytic procedures: from simple collecting of facts about traditional country dishes, through cultural and historical searches for the background of certain elements (for example eating habits during wartime, within the Croatian war ethnography).Croatian favorite dishes are one of the dominant topics of daily ethnology, and this project intends to give an additional incentive to through research of food and beverages in the historical Croatian society.
The presumption of this planned research is to find the link and offer a synthesis of various research directions in order to promote nutrition anthropology as an active and applicable knowledge. The historical culinary heritage research has to continue, and files that contain movement and links between nutrition regions regarding changes in the social context have to be added, while the multifunctional and multilayer characteristics of this vital aspect of our every day culture have to be highlighted. Nutrition habits research, which is supported by the neglected aspect and culture of drinking in this planned project, is placed in a wider context of cultural policies regarding Croatian culinary standards, and its symbolic position in the tourist “pleasure culture” as the overwhelming kind of global production and cultural identity exchange. Interdisciplinary research of the Croatian cuisine should unite all the existing knowledge about regional cuisine, conduct field research in areas where there is no such knowledge, and store the results in a picture of Croatian history in the 20th and beginning of the 21st century. In order to achieve that we need to systematize lexical information about food and beverages and create a synthetic part which should contain dictionary treasures of manuscripts and printed materials with numerous confirmations of culinary terms. The second topic should bi about exploring the links between the cuisine and nutrition habits with social changes in the twentieth century until today, the way in which ideology, economic standard, cultural and health policies shape the periods of stronger distinct characteristics regarding “taste and flavor”.