Foodway

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The traditional practices, beliefs, and social habits that shape how a community grows, prepares, shares, and consumes food
2. A culture's distinctive patterns of eating, cooking methods, ingredient choices, and food-related rituals passed down through generations
3. The set of customs, knowledge, and behaviors related to food that define and distinguish a particular group or society

Etymology: "Foodway" is a plain compound: "food" joined to "way", where "way" in this sense means a route or passage, as in "airway" or "doorway". The coinage is a modern one, built from two ordinary English words rather than from an older borrowed root. The more interesting detail is what the word refers to. In its anatomical sense, "foodway" names the alimentary canal, the tube running from mouth to anus along which food travels. That meaning was modelled on "airway", the passage that carries air into the lungs, so the term treats the digestive tract as a route that food follows, much as a windpipe is a route for breath.

Synonyms: food tradition, culinary practice