"From Kosher Oreos to the gentrification of Mexican cusine, from the charismatic cook of Basque communities in Spain and the United States to the mainstreaming of southwestern foodways, Culinary Tourism maps a lively cultural and intellectual terrain."—from the foreword by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett

Culinary Tourism is the first book to consider food as both a destination and a means for tourism. The book’s contributors examine the many intersections of food, culture and tourism in public and commercial contexts, in private and domestic settings, and around the world. The contributors argue that the sensory experience of eating provides people with a unique means of communication. Editor Lucy Long contends that although the interest in experiencing "otherness" is strong within American society, total immersion into the unfamiliar is not always welcome. Thus spicy flavors of Latin Aermcia and the exotic ingredients of Asia have been mainstreamed for everyday consumption.

Culinary Tourism explains how and why interest in foreign food is expanding tastes and leading to commercial profit in America, but the book also show how tourism combines personal experiences with cultural and social attitudes toward food and the circumstances for adventurous eating.

Lucy M. Long teaches folklore and food studies in the International Studies and American Culture Studies Programs at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. She is the editor of the American Folklore Society's foodways section journal, Digest.

See other books in the series Material Worlds.

Reviews:

"...Long's Culinary Tourism demonstrate[s] how food becomes the central lure for tourists seeking exotic foods in restaurants, festivals, stores, and even participatory cooking experiences." --Choice  

"Culinary Tourism is based upon and extends well-established concepts of folk culture in its social and material aspects, and the book abounds in fresh examples of food-related expression."-- Western Folklore

"Serves a real purpose and deserves a respected place in the historical record."--Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

"A collection of articles which, without being heavy (like chocolate cake gone bad) or not-quite-there (like a flattened soufflé), takes you places by giving you an idea of the way people differ in what they eat yet similar in how it tastes."--Rockland (ME) Courier-Gazette

"Twelve different writers discuss how restaurants and festivals market food to tourists, politics of the food industry, authentic southwest cooking, and food choices of various groups such as baby boomers and Mormon missionaries."--Kentucky Living

"Contributors to the book are widely recognized food experts who encourage readers to venture outside the comforts of home and embark on new eating experiences."--Lexington Herald-Leader

"Folklorists and scholars should appreciate this collection of essays on the ways in which food and travel intersect."--Publishers Weekly

"A significant contribution to both food studies but also to the anthropology study of travel and tourism."--Hasia Diner, Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History at New York University

"As the study of tourism proper attends more closely to lived experience, and as the study of food continues to explore its tranactional character, these fields will find in Culinary Tourism a powerful conceptual framework with rich case studies."--Barbara Kirshenblatt- Gimblett

"Recommended."--Choice

"Nonanthropologist readers . . . will discover the unexpected and fascinating terrain of food as an index of human culture." -Virginia Quarterly Review