ABSTRACT
In an ethnographic study of the adaptation of international postgraduate students to life in England, food emerged as an issue of central importance to many participants. English food was rejected by many students, with criticisms of bland, fattening and unhealthy dishes, as well as poor-quality fresh food. These students reverted to the preparation of their home country dishes, exemplifying a segregation strategy towards food habits. Eating together was one of students’ main leisure activities, and food of the origin country or region was the most popular cuisine. The greatest variable in the willingness to adapt to a foreign diet proved to be the degree of cultural similarity: Students whose daily diet was the least varied tended to come from an extremely dissimilar culture, such as China, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia or Taiwan. Nearly all of the South-east Asian students in the study adopted a rigidly mononational eating plan, often going to a great deal of trouble to emulate their national diet (including shipping ingredients from abroad and dedicating a lot of time to food preparation). Some students adopted a multicultural strategy towards food consumption, trying not only local food but also dishes prepared by their international friends. The two greatest variables in the decision to try different foods appear to be a motivation to learn and an openness to new experiences. Growing markets exist for the sale of foodstuffs from South-east Asia (the primary source of international students) and for higher-quality, more varied foods on university campuses.
