Food Cultures In Canada

In history, there were numerous types of food cultures existed in the world such as a time when people used to eat whales, and when people must be had to have the extreme diet like vegan diets by government’s law, or even the long prohibition of eating meat made people feel guilty of consuming animal products. In fact, food cultures have been changing over time by historical events, innovation of new technologies, and economic situation. In the 1850s, Japan was experiencing a transition to a new era with the introduction of European cultures. On the other hand; however, Canada was influenced by British settlers in the 19th century and their diets were based on Victorian cuisine. By comparing perspective of two nations’ historical events, economy,

According to the article “Transformations in the Production and Distribution of Food (1850-1930),” Canadians used to preserve meat by drying or smoking them, but after new technology has innovated, the food preservation has changed from raw to packaged such as cans and plastics. Therefore, an invention of packaged food lead food industry to introduce grocery stores. Unlike today’s huge grocery stores, they used to be a lot smaller and developed from Montreal, Quebec. For example, the grocery stores became popular when the popularity of public market declined, which there was less food distribution. The attraction of grocery stores was able to purchase non-perishable products like tea, coffee, alcoholic beverages, nuts, dried fruits, salt, and flour near dwelling area, which people do not have to travel a long distance to public markets. Although food became modernized, dietary remained almost the same so it was easy for grocery stores’ demand grew. As a result food products became more convenient to distribute to consumers. Additionally, the article indicates that “Grand Trunk Railway (1854), the Intercolonial Railway (1876) and the Canadian Pacific Railway (1885)” were constructed and lead to extend food transport to further regions in Canada. The advanced food distribution resulted in providing unusual or rare ingredients to

This movement stimulated new food businesses and contributed to growing Japanese economy. Based on “Meiji Period Japan History,” Japanese people’s eating habit changed significantly from Shogun era (Edo period). Although people were allowed to have meat, in the Meiji period, since people were banned from eating meat for very long time, people experienced difficulty to adapt themselves into meat eating culture. In addition, consuming meat, especially beef was more familiar to foreigners and wealthy Japanese samurais or other high-status people, but some locals managed to consume meat such as jerky style, according to “The Meat-Eating Culture of Japan at the Beginning of Westernization.” Nevertheless, a famous great figure named “Yukichi Fukuzawa,” who encouraged modernization in food and culture disseminated meat eating, yet did not become familiar to locals until World War I. After all from non-meat-eating diet period, Japanese gradually homogenized their dietary into modern style, which created the today’s Japanese food