Many cultures have their own food that they eat. People eat cultural food when they celebrate something.
Thai Food Culture by Manlika Casey
When one wants to look or to lean about a culture, the first thing he/she does is to find out what kind of food they have or eat or even how they eat it. The image of people eating, or just images of food gives an idea of the culture. When one looks at photos of people eating, they can see the happiness and the joy in their eyes. If the food looks disgusting in the photo people would not order it or go to eat it. It is because of photos that different cultural food from different countries can be found in one city. There are certain kind of food that are originated from multiple places, but looking at their photos person can tell where they are originated from. From looking at a photo of food you could guess what culture it belongs to, even if you have never seen it before.
Here you can see some cultures with their food;
http://www.homelessnation.org/en/node/7412
I agree with you about food being a big part of cultures. Some countries do have unique dishes, which make people want to go there and see/try them for themselves. Even though they have images of people eating, showing the different kind of dishes, which we can sort of guess what country they’re from by looking at the food, and also by looking at the people and surrounding in the pictures, I don’t think you mentioned the different methods used by these photographs to show their food. Did they use it to promote food? Or just because they simply see it as art? Anyhow, good point on the food=culture.
Yes indeed, food does represent one culture. Whether one moves and settles in a new country, with a completely new culture, what’s going to identify you is the food from where you come from. I have live this personally and see others from other cultures living with this too. We may try to adopt ourselves with the food of a foreign country, yet, at the end of the day, what’s going to be in our table is our comfort food. By taking a closer look at the images of food by various cultures, of the link you provided, we can conclude that cultures cannot live without water or bananas. But, for the Chad: The Aboubakar Family of Breidjing Camp, in comparison to the other cultures, it broke my heart to see the limited food supply that they have for one week. We can also say that some culture can survive with a little bit of food, while others may not.