Borne and bread: McDonaldization, individualization and ethnicity

Two broad strands can be discerned in theoretical approaches to production and consumption of food in contemporary societies. On the one hand, there has been a focus on rationalization process with attention centred on the standardizing and homogenizing outcomes. The other significant focus has been on differentiation where, initially, arguments dealt with class-based differentiation. More recently, arguments addressing the spread and intensification of individualization in the contemporary world have challenged both the thesis of homogenization and class-based differentiation. There have been few attempts to bring the two strands together into a comprehensive theoretical or conceptual framework for the sociology of food. A conspicuous absence in both theses concerns the interconnections of food and ethnicity. Where ethnicity and food are considered together they are treated as expressions of self-identity or symbolic ethnicity. These issues are important but don‘t consider the relevance of enduring ethnic cuisines to the question of rationalization and its limits. In this regard, a focus on the persistence of ethnic cuisines sheds light on localization, the countertrends to homogenization, the continuing significance of collective belonging, and the interplay between traditional foodways, individualization and the industrialized food industry.