PSYCHOLOGY AND CUISINE or CUISINE AND PSYCHOLOGY

By Evelina Grava and Daniel Jahn

What does a table set for a banquet say about us? What determines our nutritional choices? What do eating habits tell us about the relevant individual? Can two areas of science that are so very different – psychology and the culinary arts – even be brought together, and are they really all that different? All that remains is to make a few observations that lead to new revelations, confirmations and conclusions!

The book covers ten periods in time, starting with the Stone Age and ending with the present day. The authors have described culinary trends during each era, as well as the psychological portrait of a consumer who has created cooking traditions and makes use of them for nutritional purposes. Readers of the book will discover that the desire to be a vegetarian can be linked to the Art Deco period, which means that this discovery can help one to understand one’s emotional world and be more conscious in approaching such elegant rationality. On the other hand, people who represent the worldview of the Baroque era and try to accept the psychological rules of Art Deco can lose some of themselves and their uniqueness.

The uniqueness of the book rests in the fact that it brings together two important topics – the culinary arts and psychology, thus offering an unprecedented opportunity to study one’s own personality through the prism of nutrition. Readers will recognise their ideas about themselves and the world, separate conscious and subconscious beliefs about food, identify themselves in accordance with the relevant historical era, and put the new knowledge to practice.

The book offers a chance to find regularities between cause and effect when it comes to eating habits. It is a way to focus on personal growth without clichés. The content of “Psychology and Cuisine” will inspire the readers to become more interesting for themselves and those around them, because the choice of foods is a personal business card. Preparing and eating breakfast, lunch and dinner is a form of self-realisation. The book also includes an original test that readers can use to quickly understand their nutritional style and psychological appropriateness therein.

This book is informative about how to choose a meal and how to understand one’s own psychological type. It is also a brief history of the culinary arts, a guidebook to learn more about oneself and those around oneself through the prism of these arts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Evelina Grava
• Release date: Oct 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386974888

Book preview

Evelīna Grava un Daniel Jahn

PSYCHOLOGY AND CUISINE

or

CUISINE AND PSYCHOLOGY

What does a well-laid banquet table tell others about us?  What determines our choice when it comes to nutrition?  What do our dining habits tell us about our personality?  Is it even possible to merge two very different areas of sciences as psychology and the culinary arts?  Oh, yes!  Gastronomy has an influence on people and their psychology, and people and their psychology correlate directly with gastronomy.  Gastronomy is a very good indicator of the person’s psychological aspects and lifestyle, and it also helps to learn about the person’s philosophy about life.  The things that people eat, the way in which they choose their meals and their ingredients can help to model their psychological portrait. Even more, as we learn to identify these factors, we find that they serve as instruments to analyze the individual.  Among us there are people who are vegans or vegetarians, those who only eat meat, those who do not eat fish, etc.  There are endless combinations in terms of human dining habits.  What, however, do they tell us about the people?

Answers can be found in the history of global culture – a process in which people and gastronomy had a role to play.  As human beings developed, the world in which they lived also developed.  During each period of history, people had adapted desires and priorities, and these were directly related to gastronomy.  During the Stone Age, the priority for people was simply to eat food to survive, while during the Baroque era, the priority was ornateness, saturation and showmanship.  Very different eras, very different priorities and incomparable aspects of psychology ruled the world.

The Stone Age was not the most perfect or creative environment for the rapid development of humankind and gastronomy.  Still, there were people who looked for options when it came to food.  They learned how to grow crops and found ways of ensuring that food could be kept fresh and usable for a longer period of time.  There were also, however, those who stuck to the meat from animals that they had hunted.  They were basically lazy and preferred to stick to their habits.  These people were ruled by quiet and instinctive emotions and primitivism.

What about today?  The Stone Age is very much long ago, but today there are still those types of people – those who wish to change nothing, are satisfied with accustomed values, and have no interest in changing their approach toward gastronomy.  Their priority is to satisfy their hunger irrespective of the quality of what they are eating.

There have always been and will be people who think ahead and want to change the situation in their lives.  During the Stone Age, too, there were those who wished to improve their own lives and those of others.  They sought answers to questions about how best to create fire, how to prepare something new, or how to keep food fresh for a longer period of time?

How did those who wished to change something differ from others?  They had primeval intelligence, for instance, which allowed them to use nutrition to change their psychology.  They had fantasies, ideas, courage and a force of will to pursue those aims.  They did not make peace with the existing situation; they wanted to change things.  There have always been such people, and with them, we would not be where we are.  These are people who have led the process of progress, people with more intelligence and a greater level of interest.  These are the individuals who led the way from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages, from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, and from the Renaissance to the present day.

Intelligence is a problem in modern society, too.  So is courage.  A courageous intelligent person is uncomfortable when it comes to the elite.

Each era and the psychological elements that govern the relevant society have offered a large contribution toward the development of cuisine, and we can see that in the present day, as well.  The Middle Ages were a time when the most intensive habit related to livestock breeding, while the first cookbooks appeared in cloisters.  These were developed further by chefs who began to share their knowledge and the nuances of taste.  Dining as an element of culture and education began to emerge, and the expanded opportunities created greater interest and an opportunity to share knowledge.  Even more important than cooking itself was the need to know how to manage gastronomy in an economic way.  This issue remains important today, and it is important among people in terms of how to cook dinner for a family with a limited range of ingredients, etc.

As time moved on, the middle classes began slowly to emerge.  Lower class people still lived with the psychology of the Stone Age, basing gastronomy on food that was necessary for survival and survival alone.  Higher class people could afford knowledge and experiments in relation to tastes and enjoyment.  This led to changing attitudes toward gastronomy.

The Renaissance was a period during wealthier members of society demonstrated their night through various elements of pageantry that could be seen in architecture, fashion and gastronomy.  This was an outstanding form of self-promotion.  During the age of absolute monarchies, everyday things were turned into public ceremonies to promote the monarch’s brand, power and influence.  Important ministers took part in the morning rituals of the monarch, and it was a matter of great honor to present the ruler with a chamber pot.  These processions became rather perverse, with the monarch’s bedroom becoming a place where recognition could be facilitated and power could be cultivated.

Present-day oligarchs still have the psychology of the Renaissance, cultivating it even though it is sometimes not visible.  Today, too, there are masters who know how to prepare outstanding meals.  The issue, however, is whether there are many people who can appreciate it.

During the Baroque era, everyday lives became more colorful and visually expressive.  This was also seen in trends related to cuisine.  Foods became richer and obtained ever higher quality, which was possible because of the influx of spices from all over the world.  People were happy to demonstrate their wealth by organizing all kinds of banquets and parties.  Noblemen had great influence on society and the trends of fashion.  Excessiveness ruled everything, including gastronomy.

Rococo continued the stylistic lines of the Baroque era.  The style brought greater lightness, extravagance and theatricality into fashion and cuisine.  All of the excessiveness and a great amount of social inequality led to many revolutions that changed societies.  The Rococo era also led to a situation in which people sought a higher level of quality not just in gastronomy, but also their lives.  Rococo people were strict and demanding.

Quality is important today, but not in all areas.  Quality is found where there is a specialist or a gourmand.  There are very high-quality restaurants in the world that are not all that popular, because they focus on understanding, not pompousness.  Pompousness is like a show, but top-quality chefs often do not accept it.  An appreciation of quality is more important for them, and they prove themselves through their knowledge.  Natural intelligence does not seek fame.

As time went by, interest in dining became ever more extensive in society, and it was not limited only to the kitchens of rich people.  During the late 19th century, there were distinguished chefs who marked out the traditions of gastronomy and remained in history with their development of kitchens and ways of improving public interests.  They came up with new recipes and turned gastronomy into a science. They experimented and put the best results in cookbooks, thus creating classic cuisine – dishes that are still prepared today.  Most of these chefs worked in the restaurants in hotels such as the Ritz.  These were luxury hotels with gourmet dining.  This is seen in a story about the German Kaiser.  When he was invited to the opening of the luxury hotel known as Adlon in Germany, he declared that your hotel is more comfortable than my castle. Such hotels, of course, employed fantastic chefs, and they prepared dishes that are known today as classical cuisine.

The period of Romanticism also related to the increasing desire of people to engage in mutual relationships and to communicate with one another.  They yearned to visit nature and engage in picnics.  This is a trend that is seen today in various ways.  There are various thematic garden festivals or picnics that are merged with outdoor activities.

The age of Classicism brought along changes in architecture and in human habits.  People become more introverted, and their values were found in families and friends.  This was an age of various traditions that involved friends – drinking coffee or beer together.  In terms of architecture, this brought along living rooms and salons in people’s homes, with cafeterias appearing outside of the homes.  There are people of that kind today – those who do not seek extravagance or any excesses.  They are happier to stay at home with people whom they know very well.

Everything in the world changed after World War I.  Aristocrats disappeared, and democrats took power.  Both before and after the war, middle class people had fashions that involved various styles such as neo-Baroque, neo-Classicism and the copy of other styles in an eclectic manner.  This was followed by Art Nouveau, which began before the war and continued after it was over.  People felt the need to seek out their own identities, and this could be seen in architecture and gastronomy.  Art Nouveau meant breaking out of that which was old and seeking something new.  There was a rapid development of various industries that also had an effect on gastronomy and the dining habits of individuals.  Canned foods were an example.  After the war, people wanted to live their lives, and eccentricity could be seen in their habits.  Vegetarians first began to appear, declaring that this was their lifestyle.  Art Nouveau people were harmonic and focused on development.  World War II, however, bought these developments to an end.

Great changes occurred in Europe after the war, with trends being imported from America. The first fast food restaurants were opened.  In countries such as Germany, Turkish and Italian guest workers brought in new culinary habits that were very important in the development of German gastronomy.  Germans began to think differently about food.  Pizzerias were opened, and the road toward diversity was open.

Latvia was behind the Iron Curtain at that time, and news from the outer world was hard to find.  Gastronomy was no exception.  Cookbooks were written and published by government agencies, and there many of them.  The recipes, however, involved ingredients that were freely found in Soviet republics.  Often they were based on ingredients that were in surplus.

The movement of people served the interests of European cuisine, with Italian and Spanish elements of gastronomy eliminating the boredom of German cuisine.  People understood that schnitzels were not the key achievement of the world.  People became accustomed to classical cuisine, but also new foods and ingredients that meant that there was a need for something new.  Regional cuisines from Asia began to appear, and international cuisine was the result.

The cult of fast food created the desire for diversity in terms of food, but people began to forget about quality.  A new trend during the 1990s and the early 2000s was so-called nouvelle cuisine – large plates, small portions.  Another trend that has passed down through the centuries is classical cuisine with national ingredients, but more recently people have been demanding higher quality in terms of what they eat.  They sought out natural foods.  Technologies changed, and people who could afford to eat healthy foods did so.

Healthy and ecological foods remain important in the grocery industry. Biological foods, both vegetables and meats, are popular, and there is even biological potato starch.  That is because people are more interested in what they are eating, but it is also true that governments propagandize health lifestyles, not least in terms of what people eat and how.

People continue to believe that biological food is expensive and rare, but the truth is different.  Large companies produce biological foods which are in increasing demand.  It is precisely this growing demand that will push prices down when it comes to biological foods.  The thinking of people is changing, and the quality of food and environmental protection are of increasing importance in our everyday lives.

During the 1990s, people began to look for ways of combining their own cuisine with international and ethnographic cuisine.  Many chefs from Switzerland, Germany and Austria are working throughout the world.  Theirs is