May I take your order?

Caption: This picture perfectly exemplifies the fast food culture that has emerged through urbanisation. This food culture is becoming pronounced through the process of globalisation. In this picture we see the big boys (franchises) such as KFC, Subway, Pizza Hut and Burger King. On the far right we see the Asian presence of Hong Kong City. In addition we see local Creole food being sold.  Picture taken from Trincity Mall, Trinidad

 On most days like this, hundreds of persons arrive at the Trincity mall, and often dine at the wide range of food outlets located within the mall's food court. Like most young people I love going to the mall to enjoy a good movie or to engage in a mini shopping splurge. While waiting in line to purchase my movie ticket, I looked around and looked at the "melting pot" of cultures being sold to many hungry customers. Flavours emanating from Asian, Indian and Caribbean culture in particular, and of course we have the popular franchises of Burger King, KFC, Subway and Pizza Hut. Pondering on this sight I wonder, with our growing urbanised population and our urban diet If our taste buds are becoming more diverse or homogeneous?

Globalisation plays a major role in constructing the diets of many urban populations today. Through the advent of technology and seemingly reduced or absence in the delays of communication, gglobalisation has allowed for the fast transmission of ideas and information. The new order of the day "globalisation" which is associated with post industrial countries has allowed for this information web and space-time compression among countries in the aspects of economic, politics and culture (Hall and Barrett, 2012). As a result some may argue that this lends to diversification as physical geographical barriers seem nonexistent when one can walk into trincity mall and enjoy authentic Asian cuisine, enjoy a lamb gyro at UWI St Augustine, or have a Japanese contestant compete in the International Soca monarch competition. It is important to understand that globalisation is a two way transfer of cultures but there is a greater streaming from the global north to the global south than there is from the global south to the global north.  So therefore the question arises again, with this dominance are our taste buds being diversified through globalisation or is our food culture becoming homogeneous?

Globalisation has sought the rise of transnational corporations (TNCs). These TNCs are prevalent in the fast food market.

 http://www.trinidadexpress.com/business-magazine/Not_Afraid_of_the_Big_Mac-132114693.html

There is a clear increase in the number of food franchise companies in Trinidad over the years. Thus, there is an increase in the preference of these type of foods, the type of food that are a big constituent of our urban diet. I know long ago persons would bring lunch from home to work, but today with increasing persons working in the urban areas, there are more persons preferring to purchase food from outside. This very  well explains the long lines in KFC and other major franchise restaurants during lunch hours. Therefore, we are really becoming diversified if there is an increase in food culture arising out of occident nations into Trinidad? Our urban diet is homogenous, sometimes i think trinis should declare KFC as their national dish. My friends have even told me that persons eat KFC on Christmas day. I chuckled hard at this because back home "Bequia" even eating KFC on a Sunday is an abomination.

Globalisation arising through urbanisation has brought the age of McDonaldisation and a like. It has been one of the prominent chefs in the construction of our urbanised diets, serving us the order of the day.

References

Hall, Tim and Heather Barrett. 2012. Urban Geography. USA: Routledge.