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I heard a new Qdoba commercial recently in which one of the “customers” proclaims that (paraphrase) “Qdoba is fresh, not like traditional Mexican food with all the fried stuff.” In light of that commercial and the ridiculousness of the claim that traditional Mexican is fried, I’ve decided to do a series on traditional diets of various cultures throughout the world and throughout history. I’m not sure what will be learned from this, but I think it should be interesting nonetheless. So far I’ve come up with the following cultures/cuisines to look at:
- Mexican
- Italian
- Japanese
- Chinese
- Indian
- Thai
- German
- Native American (South and North American native tribes)
- African
Obviously these are very broad categories. Southern Italian is different from Northern Italian. The Incas likely ate differently than the Mayans and the Anasazi. The Ju/wasi (Bushmen) of the Kalahari don’t eat like Egyptians or South Africans. The hope isn’t to get into the intricate details of each specific area nor to paint entire regions with one broad brush, but to explore some of the regional variations of the countries and hopefully find some foods that we can all use to spice up our nutrition plans while using the high-quality ingredients that are the hallmark of an evolutionary diet. I’m also not sure where I’m going to find reliable information, but I’ll do my best to research it thoroughly.
I’m hoping to get the first one up next week and then try to pop one out every week. Hopefully I can make it a regular weekly thing for a month or so while we look at how different cultures have eaten throughout the ages. I am starting a new job in early January though, so we’ll see how regular of a schedule I can stick to. Feel free to leave any additional cuisines that you think would be good to look at in the comments.
Edit - Additional cuisines: Polynesian, Korean, Aborigine, Greek
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Filed in Other 11 Comments so far
Anna on 04 Dec 2007 at 5:10 pm #
Great idea, Scott.
I vote to add Polynesian! All that coconut and coconut oil in the food is fantastic! Also pork and veggies. Little in the way of starch and concentrated sugars.
Robin on 04 Dec 2007 at 10:00 pm #
Good luck with avoiding fried food in China!
I’d also vote for Korean and Aborigine. Kimchee and Grubs!
Scott Kustes on 05 Dec 2007 at 9:32 am #
Ahh yes, Korean. That is one I intended to include as well. We might not be able to avoid fried foods in China. Surely there’s something that isn’t fried that is plenty healthful though. 1.3 billion people can’t be completely unhealthy.
I’ll add Polynesian, Korean, and Aborigine. Guess I should start researching and writing. Thanks for the input!
Cheers
Scott
Alex on 06 Dec 2007 at 5:53 pm #
Greek! Might be close to Italian in some respects, but it’s very different in others. You might focus on island v. mainland foods — and perhaps try and figure out why they serve french fries with everything (I even had a sandwich with french fries ON it on a Greek island!)!! I’m sure that’s not “traditional!”
Ferienwohnung piemont on 25 Apr 2008 at 5:11 pm #
Thanks for a very thorough investigation, I was particularly interested in the Italian category as I live in Piedmont (or Piemonte/Piemont - depends on your language!), in northern Italy. There is as you state above a regional difference between the north and the south. An interesting read.
The Dude on 09 May 2008 at 10:41 am #
Great website, I think it would be cool if you looked at the traditional diets of North and Western Europe, in particular Scandinavia, Northern France, Germany, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and England.
Scott Kustes on 12 May 2008 at 8:50 pm #
Mr. Lebowski, thanks for stopping by. I’m hoping to get back to putting these posts together in the next few weeks with a bit more exploration of the Mediterranean and then moving along to somewhere…I was thinking Southeast Asia or Oceania, but will keep your request of North and Western Europe in mind too.
Cheers
Scott
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Meg on 16 Jul 2008 at 9:09 am #
I have a question for you: is it possible to look into traditional diets of caucasoid peoples? I mean, I guess you could say that tea and scones and chipped beef or something of the sort could be called a traditional English diet, and many works of historical fiction would have us believe that something in the Scottish genome allowed them to live and thrive on not much besides oat porridge and meat. And for the Irish, believing popular fiction (and seeing the number of pubs per capita) would indicate that for them, alcohol is actually a food group. But I am one of what must be a staggering number of Anglo Americans with a heritage of mixed caucasoid Europeans, wondering what traditional diet my body might be genetically best suited for based on my ancestry?
We know that love or hatred of such things as garlic, cilantro (I could eat it by the bowlful, but my husband can’t stand much of it), and coffee, have genetic influences, and I personally suspect that whether one thrives on or becomes ill with dairy consumption has genetic roots also.
Much as I love the traditional diets of cultures around the world which have not yet completely assimilated into chain restaurant-style eating habits, I wonder what the traditional diet of my own ancestors could have been, and how far back do we have to go in order to call it traditional?
Scott Kustes on 17 Jul 2008 at 10:04 am #
Meg, I was taking this more from the perspective of looking at what these countries eat and the ingredients they use outside of the Americanized fast food/chain restaurant influences. It’s not so much about genetic adaptation as there’s nothing saying that Mexicans are genetically adapted to all that corn, just that they are able to continue procreating and maintaining sufficient health on that diet. Basically I’m looking at “What do X eat? And how can that be adapted to our Paleo-style diet?”
Cheers
Scott
Bud Fuller on 02 Aug 2008 at 12:51 pm #
Thank You Scott!!! Wonderful Series. As a culinary student at the Art Institute of Houston, your series is a tremendous learning experience as well as helping me to satisfy class requirements on ethnic diversity in the kitchen. Again, Thanks, Bud Fuller Looking forward to your native American diets, North and South.