FOREIGN
PALATE
Honing research skills via passion project
SUMMARY
Background: Passion project to keep UX research skills fresh.
Methods & Tools: Secondary Research, Interviews, Affinity Maps, User Personas, Sketch
Collaborators: Barbra Chin (Synthesis Partner)
Main Goals:
Understand different food cultures and how they compare to American* food culture
Identify if America has unique food culture
Key Insights:
American food culture is identified as McDonald’s
Non-American food cultures are more collectivist
The main purpose of food is social connectivity
Next Steps: Pursue potential expansion of project into a website or blog.
PROJECT BACKGROUND
Our story begins in the middle of a Chicago winter. As a food fanatic, I loved the variety the Chicago food scene had to offer and quickly increased my waistline consuming everything I could. While most people think of Chicago food as deep dish pizza or the Chicago-style hot dog, I was thrilled to find its food scene had so much more to offer. Every neighborhood in Chicago has a special vibe. Just by crossing the street you’ll find yourself in mini-oases of far-off lands like Ethiopia, Mexico, or Poland. You can taco crawl through “La Villita”, buy a package of fresh injera from a corner store, or pick up pierogies from the neighborhood restaurant.
Never had I experienced such a vibrant and unique food city like this one before. Chicago somehow managed to hold its unique identity while also allowing other food cultures to co-exist and thrive. At times there was some fusion of two worlds into one, but mainly the foods from other places remained true to their origin. I was spellbound and eager to learn more about the city’s different food cultures and traditions and their relationship with the American food scene. My craving for qualitative research was sparked and I embarked upon a personal ethnographic journey.
OBJECTIVES
My original intent with this passion project was to fully immerse myself in the food cultures and traditions of other countries. I was curious as to how different food cultures and traditions were able to retain their identity within a foreign context. When I lived abroad, I often found I was unable to eat like I did in the U.S. Everything was different - the times at which people ate, the type of produce and items available in stores, as well as the etiquette and norms for eating. As I became more fully immersed in the country’s food culture and traditions, my experience became all the more deep and rich.
Going into this project, I had a couple motivations…
Personal Objectives:
To learn about American food culture and traditions and how it compares to foreign food cultures and traditions
Maintain my qualitative research skills: Secondary Research, Interviews, Analysis and Synthesis
SECONDARY RESEARCH
I always like to ground my projects with secondary research. I find this helps me better refine my main goals, questions, and eventual talking points in interviews. My deep dive for this project led me down several complexly interconnected paths as shown below…
Information architecture of secondary research. Hierarchy is Food. Level 1 components are space and place. Level 2 sub-component for space is environment. Level 2 sub-components for place are body & soul and culture & traditions. Level 3 specific components for environment are sustainability/conservation, food/water waste, composting and recycling, gardening, agriculture, politics of food and ag, organic/grass fed/free range, extinction of biodiversity. Level 3 specific components for body & soul are beauty constructs, health (individual & societal), eating disorders, demonization/heroism of foods, dietetics, preventable diseases. Level 3 specific components for culture & traditions are family unit, heritage/history, cooking & eating, community.
RESEARCH GOALS
The pros and cons of doing in-depth secondary research is getting lost in an overwhelming amount of information. To bring myself out of the mire, I chose one guiding principle to focus my ethnography around. My “North Star” was based on a quote from Michael Pollan. Pollan states:
“So violent a change in a culture's eating habits is surely the sign of a national eating disorder. Certainly it would never have happened in a culture in possession of deeply rooted traditions surrounding food and eating…”
The phrase “deeply rooted traditions” struck a chord and I decided this was where I wanted to focus my research.
Research Goals:
Does America have a unique food culture and traditions?
How do food cultures and traditions survive in foreign contexts?
My Assumptions:
American food culture is Southern food
Americans don’t have food traditions
Food traditions are stronger in more “traditional” food cultures (like France, Italy, and India) and are able to withstand new cultural influences
USER RESEARCH
Target Audience
In order to do a fair comparison of American food culture and non-American food culture, I decided to interview people who had both lived in the U.S.A. and abroad. Since it takes individuals time to acclimate to new cultures, I added criteria that the participant had to have lived in the U.S.A. for at least two years and in another country for at least two years. This would remove some of the expat lens that exists when you’ve lived in a place for less than a year.
Culture Shock curve. Most people get the hang of things around the two-year mark.
Credit: Minnesota Annual Conference
A funny chart outlining the culture shock expats experience in China. The more time expats are exposed to China the less expert they feel on China
Credit: China Foreign Affairs University
RECRUITMENT
Since this was a passion project, recruitment consisted of me reaching out to my friends. I took a total of two weeks to recruit and schedule interviews.
The Final Numbers:
Nine participants
1 Brazilian
1 Puerto Rican
2 French
5 Americans
1 Chinese-born American
Gender breakdown: 1 female / 8 male
Age Range: 21-28
Countries lived in: Brazil, China, England, France, Japan, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Romania, Spain, South Korea, United States of America
INTERVIEWS
Interviews were conducted over the phone with intensive note taking. Fortunately, I’m a speedy typer and was able to document almost verbatim responses.
This was my first time conducting phone interviews and I found it slightly more difficult than doing in-person interviews. Since I had personal relationships with my participants, I assumed the interviews would be comfortable and the conversation would flow naturally. This was not the case. Being unable to see a person’s facial reactions or body movements and, vice versa, with the person being unable to see you jotting notes or being intentionally silent to give them space to respond, proved more difficult than originally expected. However, I quickly adapted and the interview process was successful.
Sample of questions:
What is the purpose of food in your opinion?
What is the purpose of food in x culture?
Can you describe x traditional food culture and or traditions?
What are your perceptions of American food culture?
Quotes that caught my attention:
“When I eat food that’s native of the place...I feel I become a part of that culture in that moment.”
“I think that it’s inclusive. That’s great that it’s not one identity. It’s a smorgasbord of different identities.” (In response to American food culture)
“I had dinner with American friends and it’s not that I didn’t enjoy it...eating fruits at the same time as pasta, it’s just weird to me.”
“For me it’s the creation process...for me food is all about creating.”
ANALYSIS
Affinity Mapping
Nine interviews later, I had a lot of data to go through. I used affinity mapping to 1) discover trends and patterns and 2) filter out data which was not as relevant to the research questions.
Affinity Mapping: Round 2
I spent a week with the newly organized sets of data. As I reviewed and sat with them, I became dissatisfied with the groupings. There were too many individual groups and some of them were mainly representing only one or two participants’ responses. I also felt that some of the groupings weren’t expressing the nuance of the insights. I decided to do a second mapping session to take the analysis a step further.
SYNTHESIS
After the second mapping session, I took another week to immerse myself in the data. At the end of the week, I felt confident the nuances in the data were coming through in their new groupings and moved on to synthesis.
Synthesizing data in a vacuum will yield poorer and less interesting insights, in my personal opinion. Before I began crafting insights, I wanted another pair of eyes on the data to see things I might have missed. I invited a friend of mine who teaches qualitative analysis to “Dine and Synthesize” with me. (Special thanks to Barbra Chin for spending a Saturday night geeking out over this data set with me.)
Including a second perspective was a game changer in viewing the data in new and interesting ways.
I grouped the insights into four main categories: Identity, Food Norms, Health, and Purpose of Food.
INSIGHTS
Identity Insights
#1: Americans lack a food identity
Both American and non-American participants said that America did not have a strong food culture or identity. America is a young country and hasn’t had as long to develop its own food culture. America is very inclusive of other cultures and their cuisines and allows multiple identities to co-exist, potentially preventing a strongly unique American food identity.
“I feel that American food is still finding its identity.”
#2: American food is McDonald’s
When asked about their perceptions of American food, all participants equated American food with McDonald’s, pizza, and/or hamburgers. Seven out of the nine interviewed specifically stated that American food is perceived as McDonald’s. In most cases, McDonald’s had a negative connotation. It was the representation of unnatural and fast food. However, Eastern countries (China, Japan, Korea) view McDonald’s as semi-gourmet. It is treated in a positive light and serves as a main activity where people go to hang out and spend their evening.
“American food culture is eating at McDonald’s.”
“I feel like we all associate American food culture with McDonald’s but it’s more than just that.”
#3: American food culture is innovative
Majority of participants believe American food is innovative and has a lot of variety. American food culture influences fusions and new interpretations of other cultures’ cuisines. It allows other cuisines to co-exist in a unique melting pot, while also allowing for food to re-invent itself and evolve into interesting new combinations.
“One of the cool things about American food culture is its constantly changing and evolving and brings in stuff from all over the world.”
“I think we’ve done a lot with the burger and pizza over the past 100 years.”
#4: People raised in old food cultures strongly identify with their food
There is a strong sense of identity amongst those who grew up in cultures with centuries-long food cultures and traditions. In this study, the old food cultures represented are China, France, Japan, and Korea. People from these cultures believe their food is the best food in the world and prefer their food to other cuisines. Each of these food cultures imbue a strong sense of pride in how their food is made. Regional dishes are important in these cultures - each city or town has a speciality food item or dish which distinguishes it from other cities or towns in the same country. This further solidifies an additional layer of identity for these people.
“It’s how we’ve always eaten and we’re not going to change it.”
“We are a really old country, I think that’s where the regions come from. It’s linked with history and it has just stayed in the culture… Each region or city has a specialty. If you tell me a city, Marseilles - bouillabaisse, Brittany is galettes or crepes.”
“For Chinese, their food is closely tied to their religious and philosophical and medical perspectives.”
Food Norms Insights
#5: It is important to eat with other people, in non-American food cultures
Majority of participants said it was important to eat meals with either family members, coworkers, or friends. It is common for families to eat at least one meal of the day together.
“Then, big lunches, with the whole family, ‘cause we have an hour break for lunch and usually we go home and eat with our families.”
“In Japan's nuclear family, if you're a man you eat lunch with your coworkers, a little bit of breakfast with your wife before you go to work, and dinner you go out to drinks after work with your colleagues and buy your boss drinks and eat bar food, and come home and eat whatever your wife made.”
#6: Meals are served family-style, in non-American food cultures
It is uncommon, and borderline offensive, to cook and serve individual plates at meals. Majority of food cultures have a norm of serving large, shareable plates from which the entire group eats.
“Generally everyone always cooks family style, no one eats not family style, and generally pretty established tradition if you make two to three to four dishes.”
“It wasn’t okay making individual portions.”
#7: Meals can last a long time in many food cultures
Aside from special occasions or outings with friends, the average mealtime can last longer than an hour in many food cultures. The length of time often depends on who is participating in the meal, but is usually no shorter than an hour. It is important to have a dedicated time blocked out for meals.
“The fact you have tea at 4 PM is something life revolves around, but also comes to define how you live as a Brit.”
“A regular Sunday family meal can be two hours or four to five hours.”
Health Insights
Purpose Insights
#8: Americans are perceived as unhealthy and fat
Participants had a lot to share on why they thought Americans were unhealthy and fat. The main reasons stemmed from Americans being highly disconnected from their food. Because of their disconnection, Americans eat too large of portion size, eat too frequently, only eat fast food, don’t eat vegetables, have food that is too salty and too sweet, and don’t understand food properties and nutrition.
“American food is a paradox - everyone talks about health but eat all day long.”
“I think Americans are focused on being healthy and eating healthy, but are obese.”
#9: Being healthy is to understand and connect with food
Being healthy in non-American cultures means that a person is knowledgeable about nutrition and properties of food, as well as understands what their personal body needs to gain from food. Food is less-processed and natural foods are the preference.
“Je suis nourri - a need, daily life I just have to nourish myself, feed myself... When I think about food I think about ‘you’ - it’s so a part of ‘you’.”
“It is well known what certain foods will do to you and for you, so if you’re feeling a certain pain, your average person will spit off a list of things of what you should and shouldn’t eat. It’s educated and socialized into everybody.”
#10: Gardening and farming connect people to food
Many cultures stay connected to food by gardening or having access to a farm. They are familiar with the rawest, most natural form of the food they eat. People understand how the landscape and environment affect the quality of food and are proud of the food their land produces. Eating food from their gardens is a way people stay in-tune with their food and land.
“I think it’s good to see dirt and worms on fruit - but Americans don’t think it’s clean.”
“A lot of people in Puerto Rico, they like to have some type of land and they have own stuff and farm on it - that’s a very typical thing ‘I live in the city but I do have some land and I farm. ’ There’s the city and the rural part, the campo, and people, ‘Oh, we go to the campo. Oh, we go to the land.’ and just get pumpkins and all this stuff that’s all around there, just eat the stuff that’s farmed around.”
#11: The main purpose of food is social
All participants believe that the main purpose of food, aside from keeping people alive, is to create social bonds. Food is used as the reason for people to come together and spend time connecting with others. Food plays an important role in forming community. Mealtime is treated as a time to be with family, friends, or others in your social circles. In Eastern food cultures (China, Japan, Korea), food is used as a mechanism to preserve your “face value”, or personal image, by impressing your social circles when you go out to eat.
“Food can also create camaraderie, family creates bonding.”
“The purpose is to talk. In France, ‘Oh, let’s go tonight and grab something to eat.’ That’s all we’re going to do. Going together, eat, speak, spend time together.”
“Guanxi, mianzi (literally means face), so the idea is going out to eat with friends, especially new friends, it ties into guanxi, you are going out to eat and both parties want to impress the other side.”
#12: Food is a pleasure
Almost all the participants stated that one of food’s main purposes is to bring pleasure to a person. Food enhances the quality of life by creating a fun activity people participate in together. It also creates an experience where the textures and tastes of food satisfy the senses. It is an experience people enjoy and associate with fond memories.
“Food can enhance life.”
“I think the purpose of food is to gladden the heart, enliven the senses, fill the belly, and find love.”
“For French people, it’s really a pleasure. Et tre bon vivant - connoisseur of the good things in life, but bon vivant, it means you like the good ‘liver’ - someone that likes to enjoy life and live it, someone that likes to drink good wine and eat refined food… someone who lives by carpe diem, it’s one of the things he likes to enjoy.”
#13: Food is creativity
Food is more than just the items on a plate. Food is an active, living art-form. It promotes discovery and improvisation. The process of creating food invites people to re-invent something old or create an entirely new thing.
“It’s a method or mechanism for adventure.”
“It’s discovering new tastes and new things. It’s the creation process that there is about it. For me, art is you create something, so if it’s like you create something, you’re trying to make it beautiful and people when they look at it, it looks nice. Music, it sounds nice, and it’s the same for food, it’s very related to taste. It’s all about creating.”
#14: Food is a gift people share
Sharing food is an important way people are able to show love to others. Whether in the form of a cooked meal or a bushel of extra produce, sharing is an important purpose of many food cultures. People give their very best and are proud to do so.
“I have this neighbor, he will go to his land in Naranjito… and he will grab oranges, pineapples… and whenever there is a lot of produce, he will leave a big bushel in front of your door, ‘Oh, I have so much I want to give you some’.”
“When someone is having a hard time, I whip up a batch of cookies and bring it to them.”
PERSONAS
With so many insights, I felt a need to add a more summarized and digestible synthesis of the data, which is why I created the below four personas. The below personas were all based strictly on the data.
NEXT STEPS
Based on the participants’ responses in the interviews, I learned that understanding the food culture of another place helped people acclimate faster. My friend and I brainstormed using the data to create a blog or website to help people moving to a different country navigate the new food culture. This could be an interesting extension of this passion project in the future. Before jumping into designing a solution, I always like to remind myself of the following principle:
“When we get our understanding of humanity wrong, we get everything wrong.”
- Christian Madsbjerg
Have people said this is a want or a need in their lives? What already exists in the world that is similar to this? What are the potential risks or unintended harm that this could cause? If we don’t take the time to understand the humans around us, we end up creating more problems than solutions.
As Mike Monteiro so eloquently puts it,
“You are responsible for what you put into the world. When we ignorantly produce work that harms others because we didn’t consider the full ramifications of that work, we are doubly guilty.”
-Mike Monteiro
Even though this is a personal project, I feel a deep sense of responsibility to make sure that 1) humans are at the center of everything I do and 2) I ask the hard questions up front and think through the outcomes and consequences of my work.
With all of that said, I still want to attempt at creating a website or blog about food norms. Here’s how I’d go about expanding my project…
Next Steps
Do a comparative and competitive analysis to better understand what resources and tools are already available for the expat audience.
If all the boxes check (there’s a need, an opportunity, time/resources) then I would…Create a survey and send it out to expat Facebook groups, Meetups, etc. to understand what kind of content would be most helpful; and
Conduct more interviews and a card sort
REFLECTIONS
This work was exactly what I needed to barrel through a cold Chicago winter and, more importantly, reconnect to and refine my user research skills. It had been a year since I last worked on an ethnography and I was nervous I would lose the sharpened edge of my skills set.
It was a blast putting together user personas and learning Sketch. Having an excuse to put a lot of time and effort into something I’m so passionate about (food culture) was great fun and something I’d like to continue doing in the future.
If there’s anything above I did well or could improve upon, please reach out via email below! I welcome feedback.