The Geographies of: Food

The geographies of food is a well recognised area of human geography and can be defined as 'the patterns of food production and consumption on a local to global scale'. I am particularly interested in this topic and am keen to explore it further, discovering how it links to other fields of study and seeing its evolution over time.

Eating a meal in the 1950s was quite a different event to what it may be now. The woman of the household would spend approximately two hours producing a meal and pudding from scratch in addition to laying the table, taking care of the children, making herself look 'presentable' and preparing for her husband to return from work. The dinner must then be served as soon as he walked through the door, and tidied away by the woman quickly after whilst the man retired to read the evening paper. In those times this was seen as acceptable, mainly due to the status of women within the country. A woman's job was to look after and manage the household due to a lack of education and sexism, with the husband working full time in order to provide for his family. Nowadays these are what we consider to be 'traditional' values and is upheld in very few households today in the United Kingdom.

Representative of a 1950's house wife

The education of women has increased dramatically and the way in which they are viewed has also taken a turn for the better. In October 2012, it was estimated that 56% of women in the country work full time compared to 87% of men. Due to the current economic climate, many mothers have been forced to return to work and not be the stay at home wives they once were at large, and many women these days put their career first which never would have been seen in the 1950s. Consequently, as often both the people in a relationship are working full time, creating meals has become much more of a team effort between the man and the woman, but has also become a necessity rather than a large event as it used to be. In addition, very few families eat around a traditional dining table and discuss the days events or debate on current events as it previously was done, with 70% of families in the UK admitting to eating their main meal on the sofa or in front of a television.

It's not only how we eat that has changed, what we eat has too. Increasing amounts of fast food and convenience meals has resulted in people having a diet high in calories and lacking in nutrients, which is often due to limited time in which to prepare food unlike in our 1950s scenario. Back then fresh produce would have been bought from independent shops each day, and waste was minimal. Therefore it makes sense why obesity levels are exponentially rising.

It may not be immediately thought that food and geography link, but they do! And that is one of the reasons why I love the subject as much as I do.

If you are interested to read further, click on this link.

My next 'The Geographies of..' will be on..........   BONFIRE NIGHT