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Countries of the Baltic Region in the Global Culinary Space

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Globalisation is creating a global culinary space where culinary traditions of different countries interact and compete. The author sets out to explore characteristic features of the culinary space of nine Baltic States as part of the global culinary space. The author uses empirical data on the number of restaurants serving different national cuisines in the main cities of the region. The Baltic culinary space incorporates the world’s leading cuisines (Italian, Japanese, Chinese, etc.) as well as the local cuisines of the BSR countries. The world’s leading cuisines prove to be more influential in the region than the local ones. Some countries of the Baltic Sea region (Russia, Poland, Sweden, Latvia, and Denmark) have culinary sovereignty, since their residents prefer national cuisines. In some other countries of the region (Finland, Estonia, and Lithuania), the public favours the world’s leading cuisines — Italian, Japanese and American — over the local ones. The non-capital Baltic cities of Poland and Germany, as well as St. Petersburg, display a greater sense of culinary patriotism than Warsaw, Berlin, and Moscow respectively. This article attempts to explore the features of the Baltic culinary space. The author considers the environmental and socio- historical factors key determinants of the countries’ cuisines.
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Social Geography
88
Globalisation is creating a global culi-
nary space where culinary traditions of dif-
ferent countries interact and compete. The
author sets out to explore characteristic
features of the culinary space of nine Baltic
States as part of the global culinary space.
The author uses empirical data on the num-
ber of restaurants serving different national
cuisines in the main cities of the region. The
Baltic culinary space incorporates the
world’s leading cuisines (Italian, Japanese,
Chinese, etc.) as well as the local cuisines
of the BSR countries. The world’s leading
cuisines prove to be more influential in the
region than the local ones. Some countries
of the Baltic Sea region (Russia, Poland,
Sweden, Latvia, and Denmark) have culi-
nary sovereignty, since their residents pre-
fer national cuisines. In some other coun-
tries of the region (Finland, Estonia, and
Lithuania), the public favours the world’s
leading cuisines — Italian, Japanese and
American — over the local ones. The non-
capital Baltic cities of Poland and Germa-
ny, as well as St. Petersburg, display a
greater sense of culinary patriotism than
Warsaw, Berlin, and Moscow respectively.
This article attempts to explore the features
of the Baltic culinary space. The author
considers the environmental and socio-
historical factors, key determinants of the
countries’ cuisines.
Key words: global culinary space, culi-
nary powers, culinary sovereignty, culinary
nationalism, culinary cosmopolitism, Baltic
region, Russia, Germany
Global culinary space and ranking
of culinary powers
Globalization covers all spheres of
life, including such a specific area as
cooking. Cooking means preparing food
for direct consumption by a human and,
at the same time, it is a specific branch
COUNTRIES
OF THE BALTIC REGION
IN THE GLOBAL
CULINARY SPACE
A
.
B. Rakhmanov
1
B
altiс Region. 2017. Vol. 9, 2. Р. 88—103.
1 Lomonosov Moscow State University
1 Leninskie Gory, Moscow,
119991 Russia.
Submitted on February 27, 2017
doi: 10.5922/2079-8555-2017-2-7
© Rakhmanov A. B., 2017
A. B. Rakhmanov
89
of production. Cooking involves, firstly, using culinary utensils (cooking
pots, frying pans, cauldrons, knives, meat grinders, etc.), and, secondly, raw
materials (agricultural, fishery and hunting products, as well as products of
food manufacturing industry — meat, flour, fish, dairy products, vegetables,
salt, spices, semi-finished products, etc., processed to various extents).
Thirdly, there is an individual, an employee with his\her anatomical and
physiological organization, as a bearer of culinary knowledge and skills, a
subject of culinary competence and activity. Fourthly, the culinary trade has
its goal. The interaction of these four components, once it has become stand-
ardised, can be called a cooking technology, and the latter will result in a
culinary recipe in its reference to the production of a particular type of prod-
uct (a certain dish).
In the era of globalization, there is an interaction of culinary achieve-
ments and traditions of different nations, resulting in the rise of global culi-
nary art. The latter relies on the emerging global division of labour in culi-
nary production: the production of any dish involves relevant tools, technol-
ogies, raw materials and workers from around the globe. Besides, the rise of
the global culinary is promoted by mass migrations. For example, the immi-
gration of Italians, Chinese, Japanese and Mexicans resulted in the import of
their culinary traditions to the United States. Each ethnic cuisine continues to
evolve given the unity of contradiction between the reproduction of the old
and the introduction of the new. On the one hand, old (traditional) dishes are
reproduced, while on the other hand, new dishes appear, firstly, due to tech-
nological development and skills of staff, and secondly, due to ideas bor-
rowed from other cuisines. In the era of globalization, countries that origi-
nated ethnic cuisines are considered territories of production of the most per-
fect dishes. Maintaining high standards of production and taste, these coun-
tries no longer monopolise their ethnic culinary product, which is successful-
ly produced outside its country of origin. For instance, the number of pizzas
or sushi produced and eaten outside Italy and Japan respectively probably
exceeds those produced and eaten in their home countries.
One way to promote culinary art is to use the advantages of globalisa-
tion. Global culinary space is a space in which ethnic cuisines from all over
the world coexist, compete, interact, and influence each other in each locali-
ty. From our point of view, the global culinary space is characterised by such
inherent attributes as compression, deterritorialization and reflexiveness of
processes that were marked out by R. Robertson [28] and M. Waters [31] as
distinctive features of the emerging global community. Globalization results
in the competition of the states not only in the fields of economy, military
and political might, or culture, but also in culinary. We can consider a cer-
tain country as a cooking power provided it has its own original and varied
ethnic cuisine. Having explored the popularity and influence of different
ethnic cuisines in the global culinary space, we can distinguish between cul-
inary powers of different ranks.
We have done an analysis of the global culinary space which was aimed
at finding out the degree of influence of ethnic cuisines of different countries
of the world [5]. For this purpose, we assessed the influence of various eth-
Social Geography
90
nic cuisines based on the number of restaurants of these cuisines in major
cities of several countries. These are the capitals as often as not; sometimes
major cities are the largest and most influential cities that are economic and
cultural centres of their countries (New York, Istanbul, etc.). We should
make a reservation here: it stands to reason that assessing the influence of
ethnic cuisines merely by the number of restaurants, i.
e. public catering fa-
cilities, is a simplification, because people also eat at home, at work, and in
the street. Yet, this simplification is fully justified, since there is a certain
correspondence between restaurant food, on the one hand, and food at home,
at work and in the street. Restaurant food often serves as a standard (with
appropriate modifications) for homemade and street food, while homemade
or street food is a common version of restaurant food. In this sense, there is a
correlation between restaurant menus and homemade food. Secondly, we do
not have any empirical methods to study peculiar properties of homemade
and street food. Besides, the identification of culinary and gastronomic pref-
erences of the most important cities of the country with those of the country
as a whole is a certain simplification as well. However, in this case, the sim-
plification we use is quite acceptable, as the eating preferences of the most
important cities are quite close to those of the respective countries.
We used the observational evidence of the world's largest travel website —
the American TripAdvisor. com (Russian version — TripAdvisor. ru) [7] to
obtain information on the number of restaurants of different ethnic cuisines.
The site contains information about approximately 5 million hotels, restau-
rants and points of interest of almost all countries of the world. Here one can
find observational evidence relating to restaurants in almost all cities in the
world.
We analyzed statistics of various ethnic cuisines of 50 world's most in-
ternational cities in accordance with the most reputable Kearney rating. The
rating was developed by the American consultancy firm A.
T. Kearney. 23 most
popular (influential) ethnic cuisines were identified. They include (in de-
scending order of influence): Italian, Japanese, Chinese, French, American,
Indian, Spanish, Thai, Mexican, Korean, Vietnamese, Greek, Turkish, Brit-
ish, German, Lebanese, Argentine, Russian, Brazilian, Irish, Moroccan, In-
donesian, Malaysian cuisines. According to the degree of influence of ethnic
cuisines across the globe, we have singled out culinary superpowers (Italy,
Japan, China), major culinary powers (USA and France), medium culinary
powers (India, Spain, Thailand, Mexico, Korea), small culinary powers (Vi-
etnam, Greece, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Germany, Lebanon, Argen-
tina) and ultra-small culinary powers (Russia, Brazil, Ireland, Morocco, In-
donesia, Malaysia and other countries). Many other countries of the world
can be included in the group of ultra-small culinary powers in addition to the
abovementioned. Our longitudinal investigation of the global culinary space
shows the stability of the identified ranking of culinary powers. However, it
may still change over time depending on the fluctuations of the popularity of
various ethnic cuisines. For example, in the future, given the extension of
China's influence and the upsurge of interest in everything Chinese around
the world, this country can become the top culinary superpower of the world,
A. B. Rakhmanov
91
taking over the leadership from Italy and Japan and shifting them down to
the second and third positions respectively. However, this is unlikely to hap-
pen soon. In my opinion, one should not expect deep changes in the existing
ranking of culinary powers in the coming years.
Culinary space of the Baltic Sea Region. The article aims to investi-
gate the culinary space of the Baltic Sea region as an integral part of the
global culinary space. The world's leading and local ethnic cuisines are inter-
twined and compete in the Baltic Sea region. To study the culinary space of
the Baltic Sea region we will employ a method which involves assessing the
influence of ethnic cuisines based on the data from TripAdvisor. ru — the
number of restaurants of various ethnic cuisines in the major cities of the
Baltics.
The Baltic Sea region countries include Russia, Finland, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. We will assess the pop-
ularity of various ethnic cuisines in these countries evaluating the situation in
the most important cities of the region: Moscow, Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga,
Vilnius, Warsaw, Berlin, Copenhagen and Stockholm. Furthermore, we will
investigate the popularity of various ethnic cuisines in the major non-capital
cities of the Baltics (with a population of over 200,000) located in the coastal
area — St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Gdansk, Szczecin, Rostock, Lübeck and
Kiel — for a more accurate analysis of the culinary situation in the Baltic
Sea region.
All the cities mentioned above have a different standing in the Kearney
rating. the most reputable ranking, developed by the American consultancy
firm A.
T. Kearney. According to this rating (2016), which singled out 125
of the world's most global cities, Berlin held the highest rank of globality: it
ranked 16th among all the capitals and major cities of the Baltic Rim coun-
tries. Moscow was awarded the 18th position, Stockholm — 32nd, Copen-
hagen — 42nd, Warsaw — 55th, and St. Petersburg — 68th position. Other
cities of the Baltic Sea region were not included in the list of the 125 most
international cities. The more global the city is, the greater its role is in the
globalised world, the more it is involved in global communications of vari-
ous kinds, and the higher is its standing in the global culinary space, the
higher is the number of cuisines present in this city.
For the study of the culinary space of the Baltic Rim countries, we took
20 most influential ethnic cuisines in the global culinary space: Italian, Japa-
nese, Chinese, French, American, Indian, Spanish, Thai, Mexican, Korean,
Vietnamese, Greek, Turkish, British, Lebanese, Argentine, Russian, Brazili-
an and Irish cuisines. We supplemented the list of these 20 ethnic cuisines
with a list of ethnic cuisines of those Baltic countries that were not included
in the above list — Polish, Swedish, Danish, and Latvian cuisines. TripAdvi-
sor. ru does not single out restaurants of Finnish, Lithuanian, Estonian cui-
sines, therefore they were not included in our research. Thus, we got a list of
24 ethnic cuisines. Relying on the data from TripAdvisor. ru, we calculated
the number of restaurants representing 24 ethnic cuisines in each of the 9
capitals of the Baltic Rim countries (see Appendix 1) and the total number of
restaurants in them representing all these cuisines (Table 1).
Social Geography
92
Table 1
Cumulative number of specialty restaurants representing
24 ethnic cuisines in 9 capitals of the Baltic Region countries
as of January 24, 2017
Ethnic cuisines The number of restaurants of this cuisine
in 9 capitals of the Baltic Rim countries, pcs.
Italian 3014
Russian 1850
Japanese 1600
American 1088
German 977
Chinese 642
French 702
Swedish 489
Thai 471
Danish 465
Polish 439
Indian 426
Spanish 395
Vietnamese 382
Mexican 306
Turkish 263
Gree
k
211
Latvian 144
Korean 134
Lebanese 126
British 104
Irish 60
Argentinean 56
Brazilian 23
Estimated by the author based on: [7].
As we can see the world's leading cuisines (Italian, Japanese, American,
Chinese, French) dominate the culinary space of the Baltics, and the most
influential cuisines of the countries of this region (Russian, German, Swe-
dish) are slightly weaker. Italian cuisine is the most popular cuisine in the
Baltic Rim countries and over the world. Italy proves its status of the world's
top-ranking culinary superpower in the Baltic Sea region. Unlike the global
culinary space as a whole, American cuisine turns out to be more popular
than Chinese and French cuisines in the Baltics. Chinese cuisine which en-
joys widespread popularity in the world, holds a relatively moderate position
in the Baltic Rim countries. This also holds true for Russia. We should em-
phasize the fact that these prominent positions of local ethnic cuisines in the
Baltics were achieved only due to the influence of these cuisines in their own
countries. Local cuisines of the Baltic Rim countries are popular in their
home countries in the first place.
A. B. Rakhmanov
93
Let us analyze positions of ethnic cuisines in each of the 9 Baltic Rim
countries in more detail, and identify the top five most popular cuisines in
each of these countries (Table 2). We identify positions of various cuisines
according to the share of ethnic restaurants in the total number of restaurants
representing 24 ethnic cuisines.
Table 2
Five most popular cuisines in 9 Baltic Rim countries as of January 24, 2017
Countries Top
position
Share,-
%
2
nd
position
Share,-
%
3
rd
position
Share,-
%
4
th
position
Share,-
%
5
th
position
Share,-
%
Russia
(Moscow)
Russian 30,94 Italian 22,39 Japa-
nese
17,72 Ameri-
can
9,33 French 3,69
Germany
(Berlin)
German 24,05 Italian 23,74 Vietna-
mese
7,04 French 4,74 Ameri-
can
4,71
Poland
(Warsaw)
Polish 35,83 Italian 21,19 Japa-
nese
8,77 Ameri-
can
5,53 French 4,17
Finland
(Helsinki)
Italian 19,82 Japa-
nese
12,53 Chinese 11,39 Ameri-
can
9,79 Thai 7,52
Latvia (Riga) Latvian 36,76 Italian 18,65 Ameri-
can
7,57 Japa-
nese
6,49 French 5,95
Estonia
(Tallinn)
Italian 19,57 Japa-
nese
12,81 French 10,32 Ameri-
can
9,96 Russian 9,61
Lithuania
(Vilnius)
Italian 22,86 Ameri-
can
14,29 French 13,06 Japa-
nese
10,2 Chinese 9,39
Denmark (Co-
penhagen)
Danish 35,45 Italian 16,41 Ameri-
can
8,05 French 7,82 Japa-
nese
6,32
Sweden
(Stockholm)
Swedish 34,17 Italian 13,32 Japa-
nese
7,59 Ameri-
can
6,45 Chinese 5,87
Estimated by the author based on: [7].
Table 2 shows our vision of the competition of various ethnic cuisines in
the culinary space of the Baltics. Italian cuisine has 3 first and 6 second posi-
tions, Japanese cuisine has 2 second positions, 3 third positions, 2 fourth po-
sitions and 1 fifth position, American cuisine has 1 second position, 2 third
positions, 5 fourth positions and 1 fifth position, French cuisine has 2 third
positions, 2 fourth positions and 3 fifth positions. Russian cuisine has only 1
first position and 1 fifth position, German cuisine has only 1 first position.
Italian, Japanese and American cuisines outnumber other culinary systems in
terms of leading positions gained in the Baltic Rim countries. Russian and
German cuisines are popular in their home countries; Russian cuisine is also
popular in Estonia, the country having a large Russian-speaking community.
Russian and German cuisines, apart from the cuisines native to the Baltic
Rim countries, have little to no influence in these countries. Thus, they can-
not compete with the world's leading cuisines — Italian, Japanese, Ameri-
can, French, etc. The positions of cuisines of these nations in Finland, Esto-
nia and Lithuania are so weak that they are inferior to foreign cuisines, as
evidenced by the fact that restaurants representing these cuisines were not
even singled out by TripAdvisor. ru as a separate category.
Social Geography
94
The structure of culinary preferences of each country has its own peculi-
arities. For example, Vietnamese cuisine breaks forth into the third position
in Germany, leaving French and American cuisines behind, though it is quite
exotic for Europe. Thai cuisine, which is no less exotic, rises to the fifth po-
sition in Helsinki. It would be logical to assume that the prominent positions
of Vietnamese cuisine in Berlin root back to the cooperation of the GDR and
Vietnam in the era of socialism.
We investigated the influence of the ethnic cuisines of the Baltic Rim
countries both within the region as a whole and outside their mother coun-
tries (Table 3).
Table 3
Ethnic cuisines of the Baltic countries in the culinary space
of the Baltic Sea Region as of January 24, 2017
Ethnic
cuisines
The number
of restaurants
in 9 cities
The number
of restaurants in the
capitals of 8 countries,
except for the country
which is a home
country for a particular
cuisine
The share of specialty
restaurants
in the capitals
of 8 countries, except
for the country which
is a home country for
a particular cuisine, %
Russian 1850 90 4,86
German 977 140 14,33
Swedish 489 12 2,45
Danish 465 7 1,51
Polish 439 18 4,1
Latvian 144 8 5,56
Estimated by the author on: [7].
As we can see, only German cuisine has certain region-wide significance
among all the ethnic cuisines of the Baltic Rim countries, since it has a cer-
tain moderate influence outside Germany. Russian, Swedish, Danish, Polish
and Latvian cuisines, not to mention Finnish, Estonian and Lithuanian cui-
sines, have little to no influence outside their countries. This fact is perfectly
consistent with the fact that Germany is a small culinary power in the global
culinary space, and Russia, Poland and other Baltic countries are ultra-small
culinary powers.
States cooperate and compete in the era of globalization, relying not only
on their economic, political and military might but also on what the Ameri-
can political analyst Joseph Nye called soft power, referring to culture, style
of life, language, etc. Soft power should be considered as a paraphrase of the
concept of legitimate order of Max Weber and the concept of hegemony of
Antonio Gramsci, projected on the emerging global society. Culinary power
should be considered an important component of soft power. Culinary power
significantly increases the soft power of Italy, Japan, China, the United
States, France and a number of other countries. In contrast, neither Russia
A. B. Rakhmanov
95
nor Germany, let alone other Baltic Rim countries, has any significant culi-
nary soft power. Unfortunately, the example of the Baltics demonstrates a
low popularity of Russian cuisine, no matter how wonderful it is in terms of
its gastronomic qualities. Consequently, Russian cuisine does not contribute
to an increase in the soft power of Russia.
Culinary sovereignty of the Baltic region countries
Culinary sovereignty is an essential characteristic of the positioning of
any country in the global culinary space. Culinary sovereignty is a degree of
commitment of the country’s population to the dishes of its ethnic cuisine.
This value can be determined in a rather precise and specific way; it is the
ratio of national cuisine restaurants to the total number of ethnic restaurants
in major cities of a country. We identified four groups of countries with var-
ying degrees of culinary sovereignty: 1) countries having full culinary sover-
eignty, 2) countries having limited culinary sovereignty, 3) culinary ‘semi-
colonies’ and 4) culinary ‘colonies’ [5].
A country has full culinary sovereignty provided its ethnic cuisine is
dominant in its culinary space, being superior in terms of popularity to all
other cuisines combined. It means that more than 50
% of restaurants in ma-
jor cities of the country are restaurants of the country’s national cuisine. Res-
idents of this country should be ‘radical’ culinary patriots (nationalists).
Based on our findings, Turkey, China, Italy, Greece, South Korea, Spain,
Japan, Hungary, and France are complete culinary sovereignties.
A country has limited culinary sovereignty if its ethnic cuisine is rela-
tively dominant in its culinary space over the cuisines of all other countries,
but at the same time cuisines of all other countries combined are superior to
this ethnic cuisine in terms of popularity. In this case, ethnic restaurants
make up less than 50
% and more than 30
% of the total number of restau-
rants in major cities of the country. For example, Austria, Indonesia, Thai-
land, Lebanon, and Poland have limited culinary sovereignty, and residents
of these countries can be defined as moderate culinary nationalists.
The country should be considered a culinary semi-colony if its ethnic
cuisine is more popular than the cuisine of any other country, but its domi-
nance is insignificant. In this case, the number of ethnic restaurants repre-
senting the cuisine of this country is less than 30
% but more than the num-
ber of restaurants representing any foreign cuisine. According to our data,
the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Australia are culinary semi-
colonies. Residents of culinary semi-colonies can be defined as moderate
culinary cosmopolites.
A country can be considered a culinary colony, i.
e. a country which does
not have even a small degree of culinary sovereignty if its ethnic cuisine in
its own culinary space is inferior in popularity to the cuisine of another coun-
try or even several countries. Canada is a vivid example of a culinary colony,
as in Italian, Japanese and Chinese cuisines are much more popular than Ca-
Social Geography
96
nadian cuisine. Residents of culinary colonies should be defined as radical
culinary cosmopolites. Since we have introduced the concept of culinary
colonies and semi-colonies, we should also consider culinary metropolises.
A culinary metropolis is a country whose ethnic cuisine is dominant in the
territory of another country. For example, Italy and India are examples of
culinary metropolises for the United Kingdom.
Let us calculate the degree of culinary sovereignty of 9 Baltic Rim coun-
tries based on the data obtained above relating to the number of ethnic res-
taurants representing various cuisines in the capitals of these countries (Ta-
ble 4). The countries are ranked according to the degree of culinary sover-
eignty in descending order.
Table 4
Culinary sovereignty of the Baltic Sea region countries as of January 24, 2017
Country
The total number
of specialty
restaurants
representing
24 ethnic cuisines
The number
of specialty
restaurants
representing
the cuisine
of a country
The share
of specialty
restaurants
representing
the cuisine
of a country, %
Latvia (Riga) 370 136 36.76
Poland (Warsaw) 1,175 421 35.83
Denmark (Copenhagen) 1,292 458 35.45
Sweden (Stockholm) 1,396 477 34.17
Russia (Moscow) 5,689 1,760 30.94
Germany (Berlin) 3,480 837 24.05
Finland (Helsinki) 439 0 0
Estonia (Tallinn) 281 0 0
Lithuania (Vilnius) 245 0 0
Estimated by the author based on: [7].
As we can see, Latvia, Poland, Denmark and Sweden have the greatest
culinary sovereignty among all the Baltic Rim countries. Russia has a slight-
ly lower position compared to these countries according to this criterion.
These five countries are countries having limited culinary sovereignty, and,
according to our classification, their residents are moderate culinary nation-
alists. Germany, despite a definite influence of its cuisine outside the coun-
try, is a culinary semi-colony, and Italy is a culinary metropolis. The Ger-
mans are moderate culinary cosmopolites. Finland, Lithuania and Estonia
turn out to be pronounced culinary colonies, whose ethnic cuisines are losing
popularity. Hence their residents can be regarded as radical culinary cos-
mopolites. Italy and Japan are culinary metropolises for Finland and Estonia,
while Italy and the United States is a culinary metropolis for Lithuania.
A. B. Rakhmanov
97
It is worthy of note that the non-metropolitan Baltic cities of Germany
and Poland differ from the capitals of their respective countries; they have a
greater focus on their ethnic cuisines and, accordingly, greater culinary na-
tionalism (Appendix 2). In Rostock, 46.15
% of the total number of ethnic
restaurants representing 24 ethnic cuisines are German, in Lübeck — 38.32,
in Kiel — 32.22
%. Culinary nationalism in Rostok is almost twice as strong
as that of Berlin. In Gdansk, the share of Polish specialty restaurants among
the specialty restaurants representing 24 ethnic cuisines is 51.65
%, and in
Szczecin — 40
%. These two cities are Poland’s greatest culinary national-
ists. In Gdansk, the commitment of residents to Polish cuisine is not only
stronger than that in Warsaw but also has a degree of radical culinary nation-
alism.
The ratio of culinary preferences of the capitals and other cities in Ger-
many, Russia and Poland is different. According to our data, large German
cities (Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, etc.) are similar to Berlin in their culi-
nary preferences. Berlin is a typical example of the culinary space of Ger-
many.
This tendency also holds true for Russia: Moscow's culinary preferences
correspond to the culinary preferences of Russian million-strong cities and
cities with a population of 0.5 to 1 million people [6]. Thus, the capital
serves as an indicator in this case. St. Petersburg is an exception to the rule:
when compared to Moscow and all-Russia, the commitment to Russian cui-
sine is much stronger here. In St. Petersburg, the share of Russian cuisine
restaurants in the total number of restaurants representing 24 ethnic cuisines
is 45.46
%, in Kaliningrad — 28.77
%. Thus, culinary nationalism is much
more noticeable in Saint Petersburg than in Moscow. Kaliningraders show a
conservative culinary cosmopolitanism: the share of Russian cuisine restau-
rants in Kaliningrad is approximately 30
%, but their number is noticeably
smaller than the number of Italian and Japanese restaurants. In Kaliningrad,
the degree of commitment to the Russian cuisine is close to those of Moscow
and all-Russia indicators. It is only slightly lower. It is worthy of note that
the natives of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad show a similar struc-
ture of culinary preference: Russian, Italian, Japanese and American cuisines
(in decreasing order) are the most popular cuisines in all the three cities.
The situation is different in Poland: there is a tangible contradiction be-
tween the culinary preference of Warsaw and that of other cities. Residents
of Gdansk, Szczecin, Krakow, Lodz and other large and medium-size Polish
cities, are more pronounced culinary nationalists than those living in War-
saw. Thus, Culinary habits of Warsaw are not an indicator of the culinary
space of Poland.
Back to the explanation of the peculiarities of the culinary space of
the Baltic region. How can the identified peculiarities of the culinary space
of the Baltic Sea region be explained? Why are ethnic cuisines from other
regions of the world more popular in the Baltic Sea region than local ones?
Why are some Baltic cuisines in this region more popular than others? Be-
Social Geography
98
fore answering these questions, we will outline a number of theoretical con-
siderations concerning the fundamentals of the existing ranking of ethnic
cuisines in the global culinary space.
All cuisines use a combination of ingredients creating certain flavour ef-
fects; the human body perceives these signals and translates them into the
need for these ingredients since they are vital for its normal functioning un-
der certain geographic and socioeconomic conditions. Following the analysis
of the ranking of culinary powers, we can argue that there are four prerequi-
sites for an ethnic cuisine to reach higher positions in the global culinary
space. Firstly, the territory of the country should be rather big (more than
100 thousand sq. km.). Secondly, the population of the country should be
large enough (at least 10 million people at the beginning of the 21st century).
Thirdly, the country's geographic and climatic conditions should be varied
and favourable: a warm, mild, and fairly damp climate, fertile soils, abun-
dance of plants and animals, and access to a warm sea. The access to warm
seas does not only create a warm climate; it also means an abundance of fish
and seafood. Maritime transport and communication facilitate an exchange
of culinary traditions and achievements. Fourthly, the existence of societies
with a high level of estate-class societies and class societies with a suffi-
ciently high level of social disparity for a long period (for many centuries or
even 1—3 millennia) in the country's territory. All aforementioned prerequi-
sites have determined the genesis of the great cuisines of Italy, Japan, China
and France, as well as highly influential cuisines of India, Turkey, Thailand,
Korea, and Vietnam.
Countries with a rather harsh climate, relatively poor flora and fauna, or
countries not having access to a warm sea usually fail to establish cuisines that
could hold prominent positions in the global culinary space. The United King-
dom, Germany, Russia and Poland are typical examples of such countries.
However, fertile climate and natural resources alone are not enough for
the formation of great culinary traditions, for the creation of a diverse, so-
phisticated, refined and rich ethnic cuisine. Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philip-
pines, as well as the nations of Central and South Africa could not create
ethnic cuisines that would hold any prominent positions in the global culi-
nary space despite their highly rich natural resources. A varied and refined
cuisine cannot emerge if it does not rely on a sufficiently advanced produc-
tion process that determines the long existence of estate-class society in a
given territory, presuming impressive traditions of using significant amount
of surplus product in kind and in cash to create high-quality and diverse up-
market commodities, including food amenities for the privileged strata —
monarchs with their courts, feudal aristocracy, and at a later time — for the
bourgeoisie. Since antiquity or since the first millennium of the Common
Era, there existed societies with privileges resident in a class and estate in
countries that are deemed to be culinary superpowers and great culinary
powers (except for the United States). The advanced class and estate ine-
quality has conditioned the culinary inequality in these societies — a sophis-
A. B. Rakhmanov
99
ticated cuisine for the higher orders, and a primitive cuisine for the lower
orders. Distinguished ethnic cuisines that have gained great influence in the
global culinary space originate mainly on the basis of the cuisine of privi-
leged classes and estates. In subsequent eras, with the growth of the produc-
tive forces and the total wealth of society, the diets and food of the privi-
leged strata have gradually become affordable to a wider population. Conse-
quently, what we call ethnic cuisines originated mainly on the basis of the
diet of privileged classes and estates.
The United States represents a particularly interesting case, as their culi-
nary traditions have been established relatively recently — in the second half
of the XIX and XX centuries. In my opinion, the fact that the United States
succeeded in becoming a great culinary power is associated with the fact that
this country has been the most developed, mighty and wealthy capitalist
country in the world since the turn of the XIX—XX centuries. American so-
ciety is a typical capitalist society, with its capitalist attitude to everything,
including food and nutrition. This fact gave rise to the rise of American cui-
sine and American fast food industry which became the embodiment of the
capitalistic spirit in culinary art, some kind of culinary Protestantism if we
recall the Protestant ethic concept of Max Weber. In American culinary art,
cooking and eating processes are consistent with the imperatives of fast and
effective satiation, uniformity, commonality, rationality (calculability), con-
trollability, i.
e. what the American sociologist George Ritzer called “McDo-
naldization.” American culinary art is congenial to American architecture —
the same grandeur, utilitarianism and functionality can be seen in it. Since
the contemporary world is mainly travelling the path of capitalistic devel-
opment, it is quite natural that American cuisine is popular on all continents.
In view of the foregoing, we'll try to outline the definition of special as-
pects of the culinary space of 9 Baltic Rim countries. All that has been said
above explains why the local ethnic cuisines in the culinary space of the Bal-
tics are notably inferior to the leading world cuisines — Italian, Japanese,
Chinese, French, American, etc. Some of the Baltic Rim countries have a
small territory (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark), many Baltic Rim
countries have a small population (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, Fin-
land), and this, by all means, was a serious obstacle to the development of
their ethnic cuisines. All Baltic Rim countries are characterized by a rather
harsh climate, access to the cold sea (or several seas in the case of Russia
and Germany), a relatively monotonous nature which clearly lacks abun-
dance. The cuisines of the Baltic Rim countries were based on relatively
modest and monotonous natural blessings that could not compete with the
abundance and diversity of nature of Italy, Japan, China, France, the USA,
India, Vietnam, Thailand, and a number of other countries. This fact alone
condemned the cuisines of all 9 Baltic countries to failure in competition
with the cuisines of countries with a more fertile climate. It is little wonder
that the most successful cuisine of this region in terms of the global influ-
ence, namely German cuisine, according to our investigation, is ranked only
14th among other cuisines of the world.
Social Geography
100
We saw that German, Russian, Polish and Swedish cuisines are more in-
fluential in the culinary space of the Baltic Sea region— at least in their
home respective countries — than Finnish, Estonian and Lithuanian cuisines.
The last three cuisines have such a weak influence even in their home coun-
tries that TripAdvisor. ru does not single them out as a separate category.
The experts of the site distinguished the Latvian cuisine, but its popularity
outside Latvia is insignificant, though it is somewhat higher than the popu-
larity of the Danish cuisine. Danish cuisine is notedly more influential in
Denmark than Latvian cuisine in Latvia (458 Danish specialty restaurants in
Copenhagen against 136 Latvian specialty restaurants in Riga, with a similar
number of residents in both capitals).
Remarkably low positions of Finnish, Lithuanian and Estonian cuisines,
even in their home countries, can be explained by the first three prerequisites
mentioned above, and also to certain aspects of the social and historical de-
velopment of these countries. We identified it as the fourth prerequisite for
the formation of ethnic cuisines. In the Eastern Baltics estate owners and
other social classes emerged relatively late — no sooner than in the second
millennium AD. What is even more important is that for most of their histo-
ry Finns, Estonians, and Latvians lived in the states established by other
peoples. They did not have or did not really have their own royal courts and
nobility — the environment that gives rise to haute cuisine. Finland was part
of Sweden for a long time, while the privileged class in Finland was com-
posed of Swedish nobles, and after subsequent annexation to the Russian
empire in 1809 was supplemented by Russian aristocrats. The privileged
classes in the territories of future Estonia and Latvia were mainly composed
of Germans, and subsequently, they were also supplemented by the Russian
nobility and the bourgeoisie. Swedish, German and Russian aristocrats
looked toward their ethnic cuisines, as well as cuisines of Western Europe.
This is largely responsible for the fact that Finnish, Estonian and Latvian
cuisines were the cuisines of peasants and fishermen, i.
e. rather unsophisti-
cated, monotonous and modest in terms of nutrient content and gustatory
sensations. This social and culinary basis could not give rise to sophisticated,
rich and refined cuisines such as Italian, French or Chinese.
Lithuanians and Lithuanian cuisine represent a special case. Lithuania
had its own state and its own nobility in the past, but since 1569 the Grand
Duchy of Lithuania existed in a union with Poland, having established the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In this state, the Lithuanian nobility
turned out to be the younger associate of the more numerous and wealthy
Polish nobility. Hence there was polonisation in general, and culinary polo-
nisation in particular. Polonised Lithuanian nobility preferred Polish and
Western European cuisine. This also led to the fact that Lithuanian cuisine
developed as a mostly rustic cuisine.
Russia, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Poland had sovereign courts
and aristocracies, and later bourgeois classes; it facilitated the emergence of
rather influential (in their territories) Russian, German, Swedish, Danish and
A. B. Rakhmanov
101
Polish cuisines. Apparently, the weaker positions of the Danish cuisine (see
Table 3) are primarily due to the small territory and the population of this
country.
Our explanation of the ranking of ethnic cuisines in the culinary space of
the Baltics is purely tentative and is an invitation to reflect upon the problem
rather than find a final solution. There are many phenomena that need to be
explained in this field. For example, the fact that Latvian cuisine turned out
to be more influential in Latvia and even beyond its borders compered to
Finnish, Estonian and Lithuanian cuisines, is to be studied. Further research
is required into peculiar features of the Baltic culinary space, the position of
the Baltic Rim countries in the global culinary space as well as factors that
have conditioned the evolution of the ethnic cuisines of the countries of the
region.
Appendix 1
Number оf restaurants of 24 ethnic cuisines in 9 capitals
of the Baltic Region countries as of January 24, 2017
Ethnic
cuisines
Moscow
Helsinki
Tallinn
Riga
Vilnius
Warsaw
Berlin
Stockholm
Copenhagen
Russian 1760 9 27 18 7 4 24 0 1
Italian 1274 87 55 69 56 249 826 186 212
Japanese 1008 55 36 24 25 103 161 106 82
Chinese 206 50 24 15 23 39 149 82 54
American 531 43 28 28 35 65 164 90 104
French 210 23 29 22 32 49 165 71 101
German 103 4 7 2 4 6 837 10 4
Mexican 98 26 9 10 10 24 86 20 23
Spanish 80 31 9 5 16 36 117 58 43
Thai 59 33 15 7 8 41 163 77 68
Indian 57 20 20 8 7 42 147 76 49
Vietnamese 51 14 4 0 3 23 245 17 25
Korean 47 5 1 3 3 11 42 15 7
Greek 47 7 0 4 2 9 99 31 12
British 44 3 4 5 2 6 15 17 8
Irish 31 1 2 4 0 2 10 6 4
Turkish 29 17 6 8 1 23 140 20 19
Lebanese 26 7 1 0 2 16 40 23 11
Argentinean 11 0 2 1 1 4 29 5 3
Brazilian 7 3 1 0 1 1 7 1 2
Swedish 4 1 0 1 1 1 2 477 2
Danish 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 458
Latvian 2 0 1 136 4 0 1 0 0
Polish 1 0 0 0 2 421 11 4 0
All 5689 439 281 370 245 1175 3480 1396 1292
Estimated by the author based on: [7].
Social Geography
102
Appendix 2
Number оf restaurants of 24 ethnic cuisines in non-capital cities
of the Baltic Region countries as of January 24, 2017
Ethnic
cuisines
Saint
Petersburg
Kaliningrad
Lübeck
Kiel
Rostock
Gdańsk
Szczecin
Italian 568 57 22 16 14 42 37
Japanese 560 47 1 3 1 11 5
Chinese 187 3 12 12 6 8 4
French 103 4 3 4 1 9 6
American 247 13 4 3 6 20 9
Indian 31 2 2 3 3 3 4
Spanish 36 1 3 2 3 6 3
Thai 35 1 2 4 3 9 1
Mexican 45 3 3 5 2 6 2
Korean 16 0 0 1 0 1 0
Vietnamese 16 1 2 2 0 2 0
Gree
k
26 1 7 3 3 3 2
Turkish 38 2 2 0 0 6 5
British 21 5 0 0 0 0 0
German 60 10 41 29 36 1 1
Lebanese 2 0 0 0 0 1 0
Argentinean 1 0 1 1 0 1 0
Russian 1684 61 0 0 0 3 1
Brazilian 0 0 01000
Irish 26 1 1 0 0 0 1
Polish 0 0 1 0 0 141 54
Swedish 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
Danish 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Latvian 1 0 00000
All 3704 212 107 90 78 273 135
Estimated by the author based on: [7].
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The author
Dr. Azat B. Rakhmanov, Associate Professor, Department of History and
Theory of Sociology, Faculty of Sociology, Lomonosov Moscow State Uni-
versity, Russia.
E-mail: azrakhmanov@mail.ru
To cite this article:
Rakhmanov, A.
B. 2017, Countries of the Baltic Region in the Global Culinary
Space, Balt. reg., Vol. 9, no. 2, p. 88—103. doi: 10.5922/2079-8555-2017-2-7.
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