The semantic meaning of \u2018traditional food\u2019 should be clear: a
food in which broad-sense knowledge (ingredients, way of
preparation, role, etc.) is transmitted from generation to generation.
Although not encompassing explicit reference to the
way the knowledge is transmitted, common interpretations of
this definition are the following:
\u2022 \u2018Traditional\u2019 knowledge is the complex of information and
skills belonging to communities, as a result of the interaction
with the environment in which they live and the
available resources.
\u2022 The transmission of \u2018traditional\u2019 knowledge generally
occurs through informal means, often orally.
Recent debates indicate that people have no difficulty to independently
interpret tradition, in connection to food, attaching
personal facets to this term, such as old-fashioned, consumed
often in daily life, linked to special events, folkloric, belonging to
a specific place, homemade, not elaborated, tasty, and natural.
For sure, \u2018traditional\u2019 is not a technical term and does not
indicate precisely defined attributes; it is rather routinely used as
a broadly agreed concept, with a not surprising share of subjective
interpretation. The term \u2018traditional food\u2019 encompasses a
series of different, overlapping, sometimes contrasting attributes,
with relation to the sociocultural and economic context.
Nevertheless, reaching a so-called objective definition of
traditional foods has been central in contemporary discussions,
even since traditional foods recently attracted the interest
of both industry and consumers, for different and, also in
this case, partially contrasting reasons.
These aspects will be shortly treated in this presentatio
