Sustainable Culinary Systems

Local Foods, Innovation, Tourism and Hospitality

There is increasing public and academic interest in local and sustainable foods and food tourism. These interests have been reflected in such diverse elements as the growth of farmers markets, green restaurants, food miles, crabon and sustainability labelling, concerns over food supply and security, Slow Food, Fair Trade, and a desire to buy and 'eat locally'. Food related hospitality and tourism is integral to this process because of the way in which it simultaneously acts to globalise and localise food consumption and create new foodways and commodity chains. This book therefore aims to provide an integrated understanding of the contemporary interest in food and food tourism through the use of an international collection of illustrative case study chapters as well as the provision of a novel integrative framework for the book, a sustainable culinary system.

This is the first volume to examine the concept of sustainable culinary systems, particularly with specific reference to tourism and hospitality. Divided into two parts, firstly the notion of the local is explored, reflecting the increased interest in the championing of local food production and consumption. Secondly treatment of sustainability in food and food tourism and hospitality in settings that reach beyond the local in a business and socio-economic sense is reviewed. The book therefore, reflects much of the contemporary public interest in the conscious or ethical consumption and production food, as well as revealing the inherent tensions between local and broader goals in both defining and achieving sustainable culinary systems and the environmental, social and economic implications of food production and consumption.

This book provides the reader with an integrated approach to understanding the subject of how culinary systems may be made more sustainable and will be valuable reading to all those interested in sustainable food and food tourism.