ABSTRACT

The purpose of this chapter is to initiate a general understanding of some Asian food behaviors and to provide data about beliefs and practices of those populations whose flavors are increasingly a part of the world’s diet. Each chapter section investigates each of the larger Asian population groups living in or from the countries of, in an alphabetical order, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, North and South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. The people and the food behaviors will be discussed in terms of geography, language, population, and religious data under headings that speak for themselves, namely: “Food Selection,” “Eating Behaviors,” “Intracultural Differences,” and “Feasts, Hol­ idays, and Special Foods.” Some smaller Asian populations are also offered. Differences in the length of each section are somewhat arbitrary but, for the most part, are based on the size of population and/or representative of the pop­ ulation in the Americas, and/or on the number of people that visit or do busi­ ness with them.