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Concept
Cuisine
Summary
A cuisine is a style of cooking characterized by distinctive ingredients, techniques and dishes, and usually associated with a specific culture or geographic region. Regional food preparation techniques, customs, and ingredients combine to enable dishes unique to a region.
Used in English since the late 18th century, the word cuisine meaning manner or style of cooking is borrowed from the French for "style of cooking," as originally derived from Latin coquere "to cook".
A cuisine is partly determined by ingredients that are available locally or through trade. Regional ingredients are developed and commonly contribute to a regional or national cuisine, such as Japanese rice in Japanese cuisine.
Religious food laws can also exercise an influence on cuisine, such as Indian cuisine and Hinduism that is mainly lacto-vegetarian (avoiding meat and eggs) due to sacred animal worship. Sikhism in Punjabi cuisine, Buddhism in East Asian cuisine, Christianity in European cuisine, Islam in Middle Eastern cuisine, and Judaism in Jewish and Israeli cuisine.
Some factors that have an influence on a region's cuisine include the area's climate, the trade among different countries, religious or sumptuary laws and culinary culture exchange. For example, a tropical diet may be based more on fruits and vegetables, while a polar diet might rely more on meat and fish.
The area's climate, in large measure, determines the native foods that are available. In addition, climate influences food preservation. For example, foods preserved for winter consumption by smoking, curing, and pickling have remained significant in world cuisines for their altered gustatory properties.
The trade among different countries also largely affects a region's cuisine. Dating back to the ancient spice trade, seasonings such as cinnamon, cassia, cardamom, ginger, and turmeric were important items of commerce in the earliest evolution of trade, and India was a global market for this. Cinnamon and cassia found their way to the Middle East at least 4,000 years ago.
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