{"id":1535,"date":"2026-10-06T00:01:05","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T04:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/foodstudies\/?p=1535"},"modified":"2026-10-06T00:01:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T04:01:05","slug":"when-does-adaptation-become-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/foodstudies\/2026\/10\/06\/when-does-adaptation-become-tradition\/","title":{"rendered":"When Does Adaptation Become Tradition?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Does Adaptation Become Tradition?<\/h1>\n
\n

\u201cFood has a culture. It has history. It has stories, it has relationships, that tie us to our food.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Winona LaDuke (2012)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"

Fruit and Vegetable Market With a Young Fruit Seller<\/p><\/div>\n

Figure 1<\/strong>
\nNote. Figure 1 depicts Jan van Kessel the Elder\u2019s Fruit and Vegetable Market With a Young Fruit Seller (1650\u20131660), presenting food within a social and cultural setting. From Fruit and Vegetable Market With a Young Fruit Seller [Painting], by J. van Kessel the Elder, 1650\u20131660, Statens Museum for Kunst. CC0.<\/em><\/p>\n

Food and Identity<\/h2>\n

Food encompasses the human experience unlike anything else. Massimo Montanari (2006) compares food to language because both communicate culture, tradition, and collective identity. Yet food, much like language, is not simply inherited and kept unchanged. It moves with people, encounters new cultures, and changes with the circumstances available to those who make it. LaDuke’s point that food carries stories and relationships is what makes the question of change feel so personal (see Figure 1).<\/p>\n

This complicates what we mean when we call food \u201cauthentic.\u201d We often imagine authenticity as a connection to an original version of a dish. Yet what we inherit as tradition may itself have once been adaptation. What feels traditional to one generation may simply be an adaptation that an earlier generation chose to accept and carry forward. If yesterday\u2019s adaptation can become today\u2019s tradition, then when does that transformation happen?<\/p>\n

This becomes especially important when thinking about foodways, the practices and traditions surrounding how people produce, prepare, and consume food. Montanari (2006) challenges the idea that cultural identity must come from a pure beginning, focusing instead on how traditions spread and develop (pp. 134\u2013135).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"

Centers of Origin and Primary Regions of Diversity for 151 Crops<\/p><\/div>\n

Figure 2<\/strong>
\nNote. Figure 2 depicts the centers of origin and primary regions of diversity for 151 food crops, demonstrating the geographic origins of crops now consumed around the world. From \u201cA Map of Where Your Food Originated May Surprise You,\u201d by J. Cherfas, 2016, NPR. Map credited to The Royal Society.<\/em><\/p>\n

When the Foreign Becomes Familiar<\/h2>\n

Pasta demonstrates how complicated this boundary can become. Pasta now seems inseparable from Italian cuisine, yet its history is not confined to Italy. Montanari (2006) explains that Arabs introduced dried pasta to Sicily, while Hebrews were also spreading it throughout Europe. As he writes, tradition can develop \u201cvery far from its places of origin\u201d (p. 135). This does not make pasta\u2019s place within Italian cuisine less authentic. Origin serves as a record of where something began, but tradition tells us what people chose to do with it.<\/p>\n

At the same time, adaptation cannot mean that preservation no longer matters. Colin (2017) describes su filindeu, or “threads of God,” a rare Sardinian pasta passed down through generations and traditionally prepared for an annual pilgrimage. With only a few people possessing the skill to make it, su filindeu presents the opposite problem. Food survives because people not only adapt but also remember. The two pull against each other, since changing a dish risks losing what made it distinct, and freezing it risks losing the dish altogether. Tradition seems to live in managing that tension.<\/p>\n

A World Already Mixed<\/h2>\n

The Columbian Exchange makes the scale of adaptation even clearer. Tomatoes traveled from the Americas before becoming central to Italian cuisine, while chili peppers became embedded in cuisines such as those of India and Korea (Nunn & Qian, 2010). Cherfas (2016) reports that foreign-origin crops account for 69% of national food supplies globally. If nearly 70% of what a country eats came from somewhere else (see Figure 2), then authenticity cannot mean original, because very little food is original to the place that claims it.<\/p>\n

When Adaptation Becomes Personal<\/h2>\n

I am firmly pro-adaptation, and I think this matters for our generation because we encounter other cultures through food. Many of us are living away from home for the first time, and food is often the easiest way we meet someone else’s culture. That also makes us the ones deciding what gets kept, what gets borrowed, and who gets credited. That is something worth celebrating, but it also comes with a responsibility. Adaptation should not mean forgetting where something came from or removing the culture that gave it meaning.<\/p>\n

A friend of mine, who is half Nepali and half German, made this idea real for me. At their house, pretzels are served with Nepali chicken stew, while German dishes like Leberk\u00e4se (Figure 3) are eaten with achaar (Figure 4). The first time I encountered these combinations, they seemed strange, yet eating them changed that completely. Neither culture felt erased or diluted. Both remained recognizable while creating something that belonged naturally to the family eating it.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Leberk\u00e4se<\/p><\/div>\n

Figure 3<\/strong>
\nNote.<\/em> Figure 3 depicts Leberk\u00e4se, a Bavarian specialty used to represent the German side of the German-Nepali food pairing. From Leberk\u00e4se<\/em>, by GermanDeli.com, n.d.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Momo Achar<\/p><\/div>\n

Figure 4<\/strong>
\nNote. Figure 4 depicts momo achar, a dipping sauce used to represent the Nepali side of the German-Nepali food pairing. From \u201cEasy MOMO Achar (Requested Recipe)!!,\u201d by nepalitummy, 2013<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If that combination is eaten repeatedly, remembered, and eventually passed down, at what point does it stop being \u201cfusion\u201d and simply become family tradition?<\/p>\n

For me, adaptation becomes tradition when people give something meaning, make it part of their lives, and choose to carry it forward. Authenticity should not require food to remain frozen in time. Something unfamiliar enters a kitchen. Someone decides it belongs there. Another person grows up with it. Eventually, what once looked like adaptation simply turns into tradition.<\/p>\n

With all of this in mind, I leave you with two questions to ponder:<\/p>\n