Cuisine and Culture

Food ultimately shapes everything in our world in the past and modern day. Without food there would obviously be no life, but the way culture, society, technology and people all develop can all be connected to food. Of course modern food today is extremely different from the way we found, cooked and prepared food from centuries ago, but the foods people ate in the past are still foods that people eat today all around the world. The events, both positive and negative, that countries and civilizations go through can really have such an impact on their ability to produce and sell food to the people living in it, which can ultimately lead to the rise and down fall of an entire society. What people put in their bodies has such an impact on the diseases they may or may not get, it can have an impact on the safety of their country, for example ,giving the military the strength they need to fight for and defend their people, and most importantly just giving everyone the opportunity to survive and carry on with their everyday lives. It is unbelievable how historic events that happened several years ago, such as electing presidents, fighting in wars, passing laws, and developing new technology all had an impact on the creation of food back in the 1900's, and had an influence on the food everyone around the world eats today. When the Industrial Revolution arrived in America it brought about a lot of technological advancements, just like it did when it started in Britain. With electricity people were able to start using household appliances that are still used every day here to make their everyday tasks a lot easier, and more efficient. With these new appliances the need for household servants was no more and the food market and production changed dramatically. Some technology advancements that changed the way food was made and stored were electric stoves, toasters, refrigerators, and teakettles (Civitello 309). Not only with these advancements do we see more efficient and easier way to make and preserve food, we also start to see the development of supermarkets around the same time, the food industry businesses started increasing and things were looking positive for the United States. In October of 1929 the Unites States was hit with one of the most devastating economic problems of all time, the stock market had crashed and the whole country was about the be turned upside down. The Great Depression was then in the hands of President Herbert Hoover and he was responsible for picking the country up and getting it up and out of the huge economic slump they were in. During the Depression the first soup kitchen was set up in Chicago providing food for about 3,000 people every day (Civitello 310). Soup kitchens and charity programs involving feeing people that are in need of a meal are also used today all around the United States. The government today uses tactics to help our government just like it did during the Great Depression. In March of 1933 Congress passed a Beer and Wine Revenue Act based solely on the fact that the country was in desperate need of getting tax money (Civitello 312). Not that our country is in a depression today, but there are definitely some things our government is trying to do to pick our economy up. For example, relating to our current events, the debate on the legalization of marijuana has been an ongoing debate. Comparing that back to the laws back to the Great Depression and the Act's passed then, government needed the tax money, which is an argument as to why some people may be pro marijuana legalization, the country today can use the tax money. Even if it was many years ago, our history shows that we use a lot of the same tactics in our modern day as it did in the past. The Great Depression brought about many new marketing ideas to try and sell food and provide an income for some people, and a meal for others. We use a lot of those same techniques today as well for