National Geographic Launches Food Site: Foodie-Anthropologists Rejoice

Foods of the World, a new site from National Geographic, launched yesterday to relatively little fanfare. The site is equal parts global food bazaar, recipe resource, and exploration/research tool. In fact, the marriage of National Geographic and food in one convenient site makes so much sense that we were more surprised to hear that it didn’t already exist than that it was launching at all.

After the jump, more on Foods of the World.

The site is a veritable treasure trove for geography/food/anthropology nerds, as well as anyone who likes National Geographic. The “Explore World Foods” tab is a slippery rabbit hole in and of itself — we clicked on “Research The Continents” and found ourselves skipping madly from one country to the next, totally enthralled by the chance to combine thinking about foods we like and countries that we’d like to visit.

If you have a little more time and money to burn, you can even sign up for a Culinary Adventure through the site: an expert guide takes you to some far-flung and exciting destination, where you eat your way through the country and learn about food within that culture. Not only does this sound like our dream way to vacation, but the next destination is especially enticing (Southwest France with Raphael Kadushin).

Before we begin to sound like shills for a site that isn’t even ours, Foods of the World is by no means perfect — it’s a very cool idea with a pretty good beginning, but, at the risk of sounding like a middle school report card, there is room for improvement. For one, we wish that it went even bigger as a food anthropology site and would love to see more true National Geographic-style articles about food and cultural context.

Moreover, as pointed out in the comments on the Epi-Log, for a National Geographic venture, Foods of the World could do a little better about being a lot less Eurocentric. As one commenter puts it, “the articles of national geographic usually encompass all walks of life, so i was a tad disappointed not to see commonplace foods from various cultures, for example, something like inca kola from peru.”

In the meantime, have fun browsing through the site and pretending that you are eating/visiting the foods and places that Foods of the World does highlight!

Foods of the World [Official Site]
National Geographic Launches New Site: Foods Of The World [Epi-Log]

[Photo: via Foods of the World]

National Geographic Launches Food Site: Foodie-Anthropologists Rejoice