Spatially analysing and visualising Karoo Cuisine for sustainable tourism
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Du Rand, G.; 2Booysen, I.
1UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA Email: gerrie.durand@up.ac.za
2UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA Email: ingrid.booysen@up.ac.za
Abstract
Food culture is the way in which a particular group of humans think about food and how they cook and eat the food. Cuisine is a skilled, thoughtful, refined cooking process of a particular style belonging to a specific culture and region. The spatial analysis and visualisation of a specific cuisine is made possible by using geographic information systems in the form of culinary mapping thereby contributing to regional development and tourism. The aim of the paper is to spatially analyse a regional cuisine such as that of the Karoo, a specific geographic area within South Africa. A framework depicting geography, food culture and the defining dishes from a culinary region will be used to achieve this goal (Sackett, L and Haynes, D. 2012. American regional cuisines. Food culture and cooking. Prentice Hall). The first step is to identify a culinary region - in this case the Karoo was selected. The Karoo incorporates most of the drier areas of the Northern Cape province but also covers part of the Southern Free State, the Eastern and Western Cape. In total twenty nine municipalities represent the Karoo region. The next step is to identify the geographical elements such as soil, vegetation, topography, climate and proximity to nearby populated areas. These elements determine the availability and consumption of food products within the Karoo region. Thereafter the homogenous food culture as established by the area’s earliest inhabitants, migrants and settlers over time, responsible for the identification of defining dishes that are unique and noteworthy of the region are identified. In recent times local food and regional cuisine have become indispensable elements in the tourism industry. It contributes to sustainable tourism as local food establishes agricultural activity and economic viability thereby creating attraction enhancement, pride generation and empowerment of the local inhabitants. Culinary mapping therefore can be used as a tool by the local inhabitants and tour operators to market and showcase product, place and people.
Keywords
GIS; Cuisine; Tourism