Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I will explore memories, emotions, and identities associated with different types of food among people in post-socialist Mongolia.

Paper long abstract:

Memorable food contains information that illuminates the past and gives rich information on people, places, and events. The major relationships between food and memory include memories of foods associated with identity and dietary changes as socially charged markers of epochal shifts (Holtzman, 2006: 364). Nostalgia is "an active insertion of memory in the construction of the present and future" (Hage, 2010: 417), and food is a culturally-constructed, multi-layered subject with social, psychological, and physiological dimensions (Holtzman, 2006: 362). The self-identified memories surely shed light on rapidly expanding ranges of food options in urban Mongolia, and perhaps indicate the diminishing influence of the Soviet period in terms of food choices among residents in urban Mongolia, as well as the increased stimuli of American food available in Ulaanbaatar. Urban residents have greater physical and financial access to ethnic cuisines and wide varieties of Western-style diets, including fast food and processed food, which were newly introduced or became popular in urban Mongolia in recent decades. In this paper, I will explore memories, emotions, and identities associated with different types of food among people in post-socialist Mongolia.