• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Food Tourism Becomes Popular in U.S.

Posted on: Tuesday, 13 March 2007, 03:00 CDT

By Samantha Gross

NEW YORK - Surrounded by imported pasta and grains, Carol Berger inhales deeply, raises her arms and shuts her eyes in appreciation.

"Look at that beautiful prosciutto over there," she sighs, pointing at a glass case filled with meats, while others on the guided tasting tour shuffle into the shop to gape at a large jar of black truffles.

The expedition through the specialty shops of Manhattan's Chelsea Market is just one stop on the Florida resident's culinary ramble through New York City - and she's not alone.

A new study says that 27 million Americans have made culinary activities a part of their travels within the past three years.

"It's something that really took off in the past five years or so," said Cathy Keefe, the manager of media relations for the Travel Industry Association of America, which helped pay for the study along with Gourmet magazine and other organizations.

Of the 160 million U.S. residents who travel for leisure, about one in six have recently taken a food tour, enrolled in a cooking class, toured a winery or otherwise participated in culinary activities as part of a vacation, according to the study.

Nearly half that group took a trip or chose a destination because of the food and wine activities they would find there.

Walking from a bread bakery toward a wholesale seafood shop across the way, Ms. Berger, a payroll tax accountant from Del Ray Beach, Fla., said her trip to New York - planned with a group of foodie friends she calls her "dinner club" - was motivated by food.

"We come to New York to do restaurants," she said.

New York state is one of the most popular destinations for food travel, outdone only by California and Florida, according to the Travel Industry Association of America study.

For Carmen Botez, that crush of interest became apparent last year, when the 29-year-old found herself essentially drafted into becoming a tour guide. After launching a Web magazine offering a virtual "chocolate tour of New York," Ms. Botez was deluged by hundreds of requests for the real thing. She has since launched her own company, New York Chocolate Tours, which charges visitors $70 apiece for a tasting tour of the city's high-end sweets shops.

The interest in culinary tourism has accompanied a rise in emphasis on food throughout American culture, said Barry Glassner, a sociology professor at the University of Southern California and author of the book Gospel of Food.

"We define ourselves by how we eat. We show others and we show ourselves what kind of people we are by how adventurous we are about food," he said.

Dr. Glassner attributed the shift, which he said has accelerated over the past five to 10 years, in part to the many foods that new waves of immigrants have brought with them to America.

The increased availability of new items at supermarkets around the nation, the appearance of more food-oriented television programming, and the many Internet food discussion boards have also played a role, he said.

"We believe that if we've tasted their food we've gotten closer to their culture," Dr. Glassner said.

Source: Augusta Chronicle, The

More News in this Category