The FAO and Slow Food aim to promote the indigenous cuisine of Africa, which has been subjected to a kind of “gastronomic colonialism” in which local cooking was cast aside for British, French or Italian cuisine.
Rather, the goal is to promote traditional food crops including cassava, yam, plantain, sweet potato, millets, sorghum and legumes. Some traditional crops — yams in Nigeria and the grain teff in Ethiopia — have become so scarcely planted that they are now considered a luxury.
It can be argued that gastronomic colonialism is very much still continuing, as companies introduce the very aspects of the Western diet — packaged and processed foods, soft drinks — that many in the developed world are seeking to wean themselves from.
As studies have shown, younger people in Japan who prefer a Western-style diet instead of one based on traditional foods (sushi, seaweed) have health problems (obesity, high blood pressure) like those of people in Western countries. In Mexico, eating fast food is regarded as a “sign of status” and not among the wealthy, but the middle class. China is certainly wary of Western beliefs regarding free speech and human rights, but its citizens (especially those who have recently joined the middle-class) have not hesitated to embrace fast food.
As Petrini says, “gastronomy is not just about beautiful food.” It is also about eating good food in the sense that your diet is beneficial for your health, whatever it looks like. We know that a Western-style diet can be detrimental to health. Efforts like the UN’s and Slow Food’s to stop the spread of “gastronomic colonialism” are worth getting behind.
Read more: How Cooking the Way Your Ancestors Did Can Fight Food Insecurity | Care2 Causes
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