Food culture as a method of studying social and cultural transformations

The article is devoted to research and analysis of modernity using food culture as a method of studying so- cial and cultural transformations, which implies the culture of cooking, consumption, and food production and which is the most bright and sensitive represent of social and cultural transformations taking place in society. In the study there are three main components of food culture: traditional food culture, which is the most conservative and conveys a special “spirit” of the ethnic group or nation; food with the elements of mix, innovation, improvisation, imitation; and finally, a network of high-tech types of food of a global culture and fast-food outlets (McDonald’s, KFC, etc.). The author discusses the change in culture from tradition, where food is a symbol of the ethnic group, people or nation to innovations up to a global monoculture of the universal and unified fast-food. The consumption of alternative food sold in hypermarkets and super- markets, the use of achievements of scientific-technical progress, love of comfort brought elements of «being like at home»; it erases the distinction not only between urban and rural culture or between states, but the whole world becomes a single space of global social cultural environment, where modern life style dictates and requires to eat fast food.