How fragile is a world so connected and tied together that a change in food fashion in one place can lead to starvation halfway through the world?

Food is also the stuff of international politics, and the power of one country to control the daily bread of another has always been politically important.

The idea that foods and diets will “just mix” when they come into contact is clearly a vast oversimplification.

People want to think of a food tradition as something that would continue unchanging and timeless, unless some outside force knocked things askew.

How old does a recipe have to be in order to be traditional? What should we think when an old industrial food like salted (corned) beef or pickled herring becomes a part of “traditional” ethnic cuisine?

The world becomes a pageant of diversity with its differences neatly organised and selected.

Globalisation creates a world where causes are remote form effects, and the connections between them are often hidden or obscure.

Or could it be that there is something about globalisation itself that produces local culture, and promotes the constant formation of new forms of local identity, dress, cuisine, music, dance and language?

The inevitable result of any search for authenticity is that you always end up with something completely modern in intent, since the purpose of the performance lies in the present, not the past.