After all, food is an essential unit of all cultures. It is what defines us. But it is not just what we eat, but how we eat that signifies who we are as a society.
Food is the stuff of quotidian habit, social taboo, and social ritual.
But food is also the stuff of art. In Webster's definition, gastronomy is something rare, something unattainable to ordinary people. Indeed, Americans today are only now beginning to emphasize the art inherent in eating, a ritual well practiced in older nations now for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years. And true to the red, white, and blue, we Americans are throwing ourselves into the hobby with patriotic zeal. Americans today love to dine out almost as much as we love shopping.