Food Networks on Facebook

 Food networks on Facebook

By Madelaine Sacco

Retrieved from http://spaceelephant.com/ 

Facebook has the ability to be integrated in to the food network as a form of communication and exchange. Through Facebook, individuals can gain access to recipes from all over the world, including those from their country of origin (if they were/descended from migrants). As the Week 8 lecture describe, ethnicity was a food way that shared cultural recipes regardless of whether the ingredients are obtainable (Kuttainen, 2015). Thankfully, Facebook is a large basis for food networking, and so it is easy for an individual to ask others about where to find certain ingredients so as to try foreign or familiar recipes.

“One factor in the origin and persistence of foodways is that they often represent an important expression of our identity, both as individuals and in reference to a broader ethnic, class or religious grouping” (Atkins & Bowler, 2001). Atkins and Bowler (2001) discuss food as an expression of identity, and the same can be said for expressing identity through food on social media. Often you can find pictures that individuals have taken of their home made recipes, or a meal that they are having at a restaurant; all of this is indicative of a person’s identity. Through their choice of meal, or whether they are trying ‘something new’, an individual is giving hints of what kind of person they are, and their type of cultural heritage, based solely on cuisine.

Facebook itself has a unique interaction with food networks; including various pages created by people solely devoted to food, to posting pictures of a meal and commenting on cooking technique, the variety of food networking through social media such as Facebook is truly astounding. Videos are commonly shared showing cheat ways to cook an easy meal, or the success of baking a difficult looking pastry; Just last week a video was shared showing how to bake and decorate a cake so that it looked exactly like a watermelon. The topic of food on Facebook is a common and easy way to communicate to other cultures while surpassing barriers such as language, skill, and location.

References:

Kuttainen, V. (2015). BA1002: Food Network, week 8 notes. [Powerpoint slides]. Retrieved from www.learnjcu.jcu.edu.au

Atkins, P., & Bowler, I. (2001). Food In Society: Economy, Culture, Geography. New York, USA: Oxford University Press Inc.