FOODWAYS

Food affects us in our every day lives, yet we don't always ask ourselves simple questions about: how the food was brought here? How was it prepared? What's in the food? What do I do for this food? Some questions we might be able to answer easily, some we think we can answer but would be wrong. But one fact will remain the same, through generations these questions will always change. This also applys to different economic levels and different ethnic backgrounds. I will be sharing why these changes occur from knowledge of my own family's foodways and the generations before me.
How food is prepared we can usually determine because before we eat it we can see the person who prepared it. As for how the person who prepared it got it from can often be a different story. Currently my mom does the shopping for the food and as she will rarely go to the supermarket to buy it, the food will most frequently come from fresh direct as she is often busy. This is the same as the generation before me in terms of where the responsibility fell for the "gatherer of food", which I am obviously referring to the mother. As for how it was gathered is now much different, instead 40 years ago my grandma going on a computer and putting a purchase for food via the Internet and then having it driven over to the home in a refrigerated truck she had weighed her options between two supermarkets having cost being the biggest factor on her mind while she had a pocket full of coupons. Before that it was even trickier than a click of a button or driving to one of two supermarkets. When my grandfather was young his parents would give him the responsibility to get what to eat (changes from 2 generations of the mother finding it to young son) he would take trips to the butcher and produce pushcarts to get what he needed for the family as his father would be labouring at the house while his mother would be at her job (not typical for the time). The mother of the family for many generations would be the one to prepare the food, in my generation you see more often that it gets more balanced that if someone is to prepare the meal in the household it is almost as likely that the Father will as the mother will. It is clear that how food was gotten has changed tremendously and up now more recently the female gender role isn't to prepare the food anymore.
People who don't frequently eat with their elders might not be aware of what food was available at their time or even what they ate in their younger days at the family table. The dinners I eat will always have a vegetable in them and the courses themselves can often be diverse (based on what's on sale at freshdirect), this can range from classic American burgers or steak to Indian, Mexican, Chinese and even Japanese food, all prepared at home. When my mother was growing up however the food she ate was "WASP Italian food". The vegetables she only ate were either out of a can or when they were in season and not expensive. When my mother brought up canned vegetables the idea was very foreign to me and a little unpleasant. In my mother's generation out of season vegetables could be flown in and probably could be delivered by refrigerated transport such as trains and trucks but the cost of that was so expensive that it wasn't readily available and if it was, the grown up depression babies would never have bought it at out of season price. To get vegetables in my grandparents youth was a seasonal thing only. The very depleted nutritional valued canned vegetables were'nt even an option. The food they usually ate at that time would typically be a soup  or stew of somesort with the cheapest of meats (as it was the depression). Over time the food itself can change, very much so by whats available, will the food in the future be more exotic as the trend seems to show over these generations or will there be a spontatnous decline and the foods we eat today will become less and less available?
What are the rituals of food before we actually eat them? Are we completely aware of everything we do before we eat? To be honest I don't think I am aware of everything I do before I eat but I think the customs I may or may not do aren't as noticable as what was done before my time. When my mother was young her family would always have dinner at the dinner table in the kitchen. This is much different to what it is now, assuming everyone is at home, dinner is usually consumed infront of the T.V. on a small table. My grandparents foodways in terms of where they ate dinner is very similiar to my parents upbringing, they ate at a dinner table, they definitly didn't eat infront of a T.V. and I'm sure eating infront of a radio wasn't very entertaining. As for the time of eating this seems to change pretty drastically by generation, I would say that the frequent time to eat would be around 9:00, whereas 7:30 would be the appropriate time for my parents when they were younger and and over an hour sooner for the generation before. This is probably due to the fact that with profits increasing for companies they hire more workers and use the middlemanage to pile on more tedious work. With adults coming from work at later times the time that dinner can be available to the family is at a later time.
Bob Dylan was onto something when he said "The Times They Are a-Changin'". As cliche as it may be it is no doubt true, and where ever you look it can be applied. Foodways especially since some many things have affected it; a frugal generation born in the worst economic crises in the country, increased trade between countries and the affordablity they can be transported, the role of a woman in the household and even how companies currently manipuate their employees. All these factirs and countless more have changed the way comming generations eat and go about their own foodways.