Tasting From The Digital: Cultural Reflections of Foods’ Spectacle In The “New” Gastro Places

Food is an important part of the human life. It is beyond being a physiological need and it has social functions, as well. Throughout the history, food has been the simplest way for people to express themselves, to interact and to transfer their culture to other communities. Being the most natural tool for human interaction, food has undertaken various missions over centuries and managed to take place in every stage of history. Food culture, which has achieved to create gastro-places for itself from politics (gastro diplomacy) to economy (restaurant, café, fast food etc.) and from religious rituals to celebrations, has gone beyond the physical space and become a spectacular show, with the spreading of digital technology in the XXI. century. When studying the issue of food, which has become a spectacular show as it involves the concepts of both entertainment and show, Guy Debord’s research, where he theorized the concept of the ‘Society of the Spectacle’, was taken as a basis. Visuals of food, which are deemed as elements of interaction due to their symbolic values, have brought meaning to our daily lives, indicators of the social status and tools for the expression of the identity. Users’ experiencingthe foods and venues shared on social media, has led to the variation of the eating habits of the society. In this respect, the research aims to discuss the food culture as an interaction tool and to study it within an argumentative framework with respect to the correlation between the consumption habits of the society and the social status. This research brings together the materials, cooking techniques and the ways of eating belonging to different food cultures of the social media. It explains the hybrid food culture which has come out of this interaction and the emphasis put by this new hybrid food culture on the international food interaction