In America, food-culture changed a lot after the Second World War. People began to cook at home less, especially when women began working more in the 1960s. At the same time, companies created many new ways to make food cheaply in factories, and they sold them as fast food or TV dinners.  Many technologies that had first been used to preserve food for soldiers were now used for American families. This style of eating was faster, and sometimes cheaper than cooking food "from scratch," but it was not natural or healthy. As a way of showing this, a few years ago a man made a movie about what happens to your body if you only eat fast food:

[The whole movie is available here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1432315846377280008#]

In New York, Farmers' Markets
 are very popular.

It is a big problem, because Americans are getting too fat. But not everyone follows this lifestyle. There is a growing movement towards natural, locally grown foods that are grown and harvested in a way that is good for both the environment and our health. In many American cities, there are now farmers' markets, where farmers can bring some of their products directly to the town center and sell them to shoppers. The farmers can sell directly, so they get a higher price, and the shoppers can know where their food comes from. This might seem like a normal thing to you, if you live in Cambodia or another developing country, and it used to be a normal thing in America.

Sometimes, good things are forgotten during development, and we must search through our history to recover them. The Slow Food movement was formed to preserve local foods and cooking cultures, and protect the unusual and special things about food in different places. Their mission is cultural, but also ecological: they help preserve biodiversity in plants and animals.

 Slow Food advocates learn and teach about local traditions and ways of cooking, but they also explore the unique fruits and vegetables of an area. Some of the most delicious examples are heirloom tomatoes. Most tomatoes in supermarkets are breeds that can stay on a shelf for a long time. In the same way, we have only one kind of banana in the US, because only that kind can survive the transport from Central America without rotting. But there are many other kinds of banana, and some of them are very delicious. Heirloom tomatoes are the same way. They may look strange, but they taste so much more delicious than regular tomatoes.

So, the next time you bite into a strange tomato or banana that only comes from your home province, or notice how your aunt uses a particular spice in her soup, ask more about it. It's the most delicious way to preserve your culture.