The imperative nature of gastronomic practices within social space of a modern person

Abstract

This article analyzes the main approaches to the study of food practices in sociological tradition. The attention is paid to the imperative dimension of gastronomic practices, where they come out as the social way to influence people. Their creation, despite the existential nature, depends almost entirely on existing cultural norms. Some trends of modern gastronomic practices are considered, where their total character is focused on a set of almost all social positions, the growth of semantic-symbolic component when food gets extra meanings and values, diffuse essence and industrial nature, organized on the principles of rationality specialized production, are particularly evident. Such tendencies lead to new ways of social adaptation of modern society. The article is an attempt to provide the classification of main gastronomic practices of modern society, which offers four main discursive approaches: culinary, status, health and national discourse, in the framework of which food practices of modern man are formed. These modern practices on the one hand act as the need to ensure internal social harmony and identification, and on the other as an expression of social pressures external cultural norms.