Gastronomie in Bewegung: Migration, kulinarischer Transfer und die Internationalisierung der Ernährung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Abstract

Migration, Culinary Transfer, and the Internationalization of Food Consumption in West Germany after 1945 Addressing both the economic and cultural dimensions of the internationalization of food consumption, this paper deals with the emergence of ethnic restaurants in West Germany after World War II. Migrant entrepreneurs appear as the central agents in the process of changing food consumption habits. The essay offers a short outline of the spread of ethnic restaurants, followed by a chapter on the growing popularity of ‘foreign’ food consumed both in restaurants and at home. In discussing transnational transfers of food items, but also of culinary knowledge, finally, the discourses and images of ‘foreign’ food and thus its cultural meanings are analysed as they are produced (and consumed) in restaurants, but also in the mass media.