Urban and Rural Attitudes toward School Food

Abstract

In the social sciences, it is a classic practice to contrast the development of the countryside and the city as two endpoints of a chain. However, since the beginning of the 21st century, the validity of the rural-urban dichotomy has been increasingly questioned, and we are now talking about two interconnected and complementary systems instead. In examining contemporary school meals, we ourselves observed this close and varied pattern of intertwining between the city and the countryside. Therefore, we believe it is useful to identify rural and urban features in contemporary public catering practices, and to outline mixed models that can be placed between the two endpoints in space and time. All of this can be edifying because urbanized foodways, following current food health and gastronomic trends, sustainability, climate and environmental protection requirements, as well as social considerations, return from time to time to the old village farming practices and foodways in various ways, and utilize knowledge related to traditional farming. Illustrated with specific examples, the study outlines three types of school catering models, from the oldest practice called “rural” to the “urban” (urbanized) type. A comparison of these types of public catering practices reveals the problems observed in today’s public catering.