Sixteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Food is much more than just the source of nourishment. While food is essential for survival, the range of what peoples of the world judge as edible is enormous. Anthropologists call attention to the fact that cooking is peculiar to humans in the same manner as language. Food habits are a language through which a society expresses itself. Claude Lévi-Strauss’s tripolar gastronomic system defines raw, cooked, and rotten as categories basic to all human cuisines. The idea of feasting is closely associated with food. The act of eating and drinking together is seen as a symbol of harmony and a confirmation of fellowship and mutual social obligation. The pandemic, has had a dramatic impact on the food system, eating habits with direct and indirect consequences on lives and livelihoods of people, plants, and animals. Due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic there has been a growing concern about the ideas of feasting and food security. Covid-19 has been identified as a zoonotic respiratory epidemic and there has been an abundance of precaution to control the transmission of the virus causing COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) worldwide. Though it has been observed that the SARS-CoV-2 virus cannot multiply in food and it requires an animal or human host to multiply yet there has been panic and fear regarding consumption of food. This paper considers food in popular culture with particular reference to the ongoing pandemic.