this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2025
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For many cultures food is just nutrition, something that you have to do. This doesn't mean you can't appreciate good food or that your traditional recipes are bad, just that it's not the same as cultures where there is a lot of importance on both the food and the context of consuming it with others
Absolutely. And in the less extreme variants, there are cultures for which good food is the base of socialization - you mostly meet up for dinner or similar - and others where good food is the exception, happening for big occasions and parties but not an every day occurrence.
I live in Norway. I can confirm this. Norwegian food
That's a great video.
And you can basically divide these cultures by latitude. Like in Europe the further north you go the less people care about gastronomy. Since these cultures were formed around food scarcity and pure survival, since they had very harsh winters ( before global warming), and the days up north are short in the winter and spring comes later. And before you go "but China and Japan". Beijing is on the same latitude as Madrid and Tokyo is even further south, so that still tracks.
The Chinese for “how do you do” translates as “have you eaten yet?”
And what's the correct formulaic response to that?
I'm not actually sure. I've always answered it at face value, but I'm not a native speaker. I've probably been committing a faux pas, like disagreeing with a British person when they say "lovely weather today".
English has a rote greeting in "How are you doing?" But, you can respond with anything from "great!" to "oh, okay". It would be a big faux pas to take that as an opportunity to launch into all your medical issues. Maybe in Chinese it's ok to respond honestly, but just not to assume someone is actually asking you if you want to eat something.
People keep making this broad assertion and then not following up.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but if there are many cultures for whom food is merely nutrition, could you name one?
From an anthropological standpoint, I'd be fascinated.
Like, this thread is full of jokes about how some cultures have shitty food, but that subjective assessment is very different than the idea that food's mere purpose is nutrition. It implies it has no ceremonial use.
So, of the many, just even tell us one.
There's several mentioned in this thread. Among them, Scandinavian countries, England and the US, and I don't disagree
Food has ceremonial and ritual value in all of those places, it is not merely a vehicle for nutrition.
Sure, I never said it doesn't. Just that it is not a centerpiece of the culture. The fact that Americans have a big Thanksgiving dinner once a year isn't comparable to the approach that the French/Italian/Greek/most Asian cultures have towards food on a daily basis
Well, at the risk of being pedantic, you literally said:
I understand now what you intended to communicate (which is strictly different than what you said)
I got excited when I read what you said, because i thought you actually had an example of a culture for whom food is just nutrition. It's a sci-fi trope that i find interesting because it is truly alien, and I've always wondered if any real culture fit that.
Even in puritan cultures that intentionally eat plain food to shun "hedonism", food becomes a vehicle for virtue signaling. The suffering is a ritual practice. Food, even then, plays a critical cultural role.
I understand what you mean now. I'm just disappointed.
Yeah, but one can view that cultural tradition and conclude that their culture does not value the deliciousness of food as much as some other cultures.
I'm not sure if agree with your conclusion. You might conclude that they put great value on the deliciousness of thier food, but the relationship is inverse: less delicious = greater value.
People of of two cultures might both place high value on decorations, but one culture might view another's style as tacky.
But you described it as "suffering." The subjective experience of a person in that culture is that the food is less pleasant to consume.
In other words, the enjoyment of the food is actively discouraged, in favor of another criterion (the suffering that comes from eating it). So we can point out that the culture does not prioritize the enjoyment of food as much, and can stand by that particular metric as having directionality on that spectrum.
I think we agree in principle.
I think if one conceptualize "deliciousness" as a "property that induces joy" and "not deliciousness" as a "property that induces suffering" as being distinct measures, then it makes sense to conceptualize puritan values as saying they don't value "deliciousness".
If you conceptualize "deliciousness" as having a negative axis, then Puritains DO value deliciousness, but along the negative axis, which is irregular and noteworthy, but still valuing deliciousness.
Same goes for suffering vs enjoyment. If you consider them independent vs as it being one measure with negative values.
I'm considering them as the same but with a negative axis. I feel like that's where the gap is. I think ultimately we're in agreement.
It is for like 350 days a year yeah. Eating take out food in front of the TV/PC doesn't count? There's someone else sharing their experience of Brits just "eating" those liquid protein shakes every day, that seems pretty close too. Of course, cultures are not homogeneous, and you can find Italians that drink protein shakes and Norwegians that are really into cooking high-quality ingredients for others. I'm not sure if you were picturing a country where everyone eats pills or what
I was picturing a culture for whom food was strictly for nutrition.
When everyone but you thinks your food is shit, it probably is.
See e.g. Germany
German food is incredible; I didn't even know hating German food was a thing. Gimme those sausages, sauerkrauts, cheeses, cold cuts, schnitzel and hot potato salads every day.
The breads, cakes, chocolate, and pastries are next-level too.
See, you highlighted why the German cuisine is not that great. There's simply not much variety in what you just listed. The German cuisine is kinda shallow, focusing mostly around the same stuff. If you're not that into cheese or meat, then that's 75% of the German cuisine eliminated.
One thing "food countries" have in common is that their cuisines have variety. Go to Spain or Turkey or China, and you'll be drowning in mouth watering options no matter what kind of food you like. Hard to say the same for countries like Germany or the NL or Denmark or whatever. Yeah they can be very good at what they do, but they just don't do a whole lot.