While globalization is gradually and rapidly conquering our world, making even the most reserved and locked up cultures and countries come out to the public arena, share, interact and participate, many conflicts are being caused by the clash of cultures, backgrounds, cultural differences and preferences.
Exchange of food is one of the types of interactions between cultures, it helps people with various backgrounds and up-bringing become more familiar with each other’s way of living, as a result the clash between cultures becomes less possible, as food is a great way to learn about unknown places bit by bit.
Boundaries in the modern world are slowly being erased and due to this cultural interactions become inevitable. Unfortunately, in human society something new is not always recognized as something positive or good, many people have problems adapting to changes, instead they fight and get stressed. Sharing food is one of the initial stages of getting to know unfamiliar cultures, it helps a person get prepared for further interactions with the new culture and gradually learn to interact with this culture without a conflict.
Practically thinking, national cuisine represents the essence of the culture. Traditional food of all countries and nations brings knowledge about its people’s history, social development, spiritual beliefs, geographical location, health, lifestyle and many other factors. Food serves as a significant base for developing balance in interactions between the representatives of different cultures; it helps find understanding and appreciation of each other’s values, this is why sharing food is an important aspect of an introduction to a new culture.
The rate of violence in the modern world is quite high, conflicts happen for many reasons and the ways of prevention of conflicts are varied. Cross-cultural issues and misunderstandings are a common problem of the contemporary world. The improvement and maintenance of cross-cultural interactions could be accomplished though food sharing, because food represents the essence of a culture, learning about a nation’s traditional meals equals to becoming more familiar with an unknown culture.
Intercultural communication is a necessary process in the modern world; this process is complicated and has many aspects. Because traditional foods are carrying the knowledge about their nation’s background, history and lifestyle, sharing food is an important stage of cross-cultural interaction aimed at bringing the representatives of various cultures closer in order to avoid conflicts and misunderstandings.
To my mind, these thesis statements view food as a significant aspect of contemporary life and reveal the functions of food that never occur to most people. I present food as a type of “social glue” between different cultures. I think the most effective statements are the ones that enumerate the food’s multiple meanings for the society.