Meals and Snacks in Southeast and East Asia

Abstract

The concept of meal and snack has recently been the topic of interest of a body of various studies in the food choice domain. Food and drink are consumed as meal or snack. Meal and snack have a dynamic nature that is influenced by different aspects, especially culture. Culturally, the East and the West are considered to have a very profound influence on the eating and drinking of their people. This chapter explores the multicolored food culture of the East by investigating what people in East and Southeast Asia consume as meal and snack, how meal and snack are prepared and constituted, and in which manner those eating contexts happen. Besides, geography, ethnicity, and climate of those Asian subregions are also introduced. The chapter used various sources of information from public census data to research articles as well as unpublished data and prestigious education websites.