The Map of Food Culture of Peoples of the World

Abstract

The article discusses the basic principles and perspectives of mapping the ethnography of food globally. It pinpoints the principal food patterns that are characterized by the traditional proportion of important sources of starch, as providing the largest volume of calories, and of supplementing it protein, especially animal protein; as well as pinpoints pre-agricultural stage relic food systems in which starch had not yet appeared as the main source of calories. Food patterns can be further divided into food systems and subsystems which reflect the local and historical specificities of the populations that practice them. Food patterns and systems are related with economic-cultural types and historical-ethnographic areas.