| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
From the etimological point of view the word "gastronomy" has not a valid meaning at all since it derives from Greek "gaster" or "gastros" that means stomach and "gnomos", knowledge or law.
A gourmet principal activities are some as tasting, transforming, writing, discovering, linking, understandind, knowing, experiencing and researching foods. Therefore, gastronomy must be understood as an interdisciplinary activity. Under a good observation it will be discovered thatn around the food exist dance, dramatic arts, painting, sculpture, literature, architecture, music, in summary Beautiful Arts. But also there exist physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, geology, agronomy, that is to say, exact and natural sciences. And in addition there is anthropology, history, letters, philosophy, psychology, sociology, on the part of social sciences.
The first formal study of gastronomy is probably Fisiology of taste by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (last years of XIX century). It is different from the ancenstral traditional cooking receipts books as it studies the relations between senses, specially taste, and food.