Food Around the World: A Cultural Perspective

For a book with 25 chapters, I'm only 9 chapters in, and there is improper and politically incorrect terminology. I hope it gets better, but after looking at reviews and these first few chapters, I highly doubt it will.

As a book of culture, there's incorrect labeling and distribution of cultural regions. There's misinformation and mislabeling of rituals vs. cultural practices as well.

The book was published in 2015, and some of the disparities could be accredited to that. Unfortunately, this text is still used in educational institutions as of 2023. I would like to see an updated version or an alternate book provided by Pearson publishing.

If this book were to be peer-reviewed today, it would not pass.

There is another review on this book which claims there are false examples of Korean recipes, even mislabeling Chinese and Japanese recipes as Korean. I am not Korean, so I can't comment on that. However I am Scandinavian, and I will say the "Scandinavian" section is poorly organized for a book on culture and food.

The book labels Finland as a Scandinavian country, which, while they have similar foods, culturally they are separate. I would have used Nordic countries for their inclusion. They also don't label Iceland nor Greenland, both of which have extremely unique culture and food practices. (There are additional islands, cultures, and groups in Scandinavian/Nordic countries that I could add, but I shan't).