No.1 Article of Corn Casserole Recipes
In it's simplest definition, a snack is a small part of food meant to hold one over in the middle of meals. In contrast, a meal is typically comprised of multiple items, has higher caloric content and is commonly tied to rituals of time and location.
Historically, snacks were ready from ingredients ordinarily available in the home. This has changed considerably over time with the new norm existing today as pre-made foods that are conveniently packaged and last seemingly forever.
Corn Casserole Recipes
But snack foods are not just treats anymore. They have to come to be part of the larger ingredient mix along with potatoes, carrots or butter. Frito Pie is on the menu alongside the dish of shrimp etouffee. This may not seem leading to the producer as long as products are selling at the store. But it validates a fundamental element of buyer behavior - the end user decides how to use any product he or she purchases. The challenge for the producer is to recognize the innovative ways consumers use their products and facilitate strategies that will help keep the trend going. This means comprehension the fundamental cultural processes that have allowed this transformation to take place and how to capitalize on it in order to grow sales.
Snack Foods and the Changing Culinary Chic
Some reputation to the changing role of snack foods must of procedure be attributed to the inventiveness of snack producers. Restaurateurs and chefs have also been and will continue to be grand influencers. Consumers, rather than turning to maker websites and cook books are finding to the Food Network and local chefs not just for ideas, but also for validation of their culinary choices. Even subculture icons like Lux Interior of The Cramps (a rockabilly/punk fusion band founded in the 1970s) have helped shape the use of snacks in cooking - Mr. Interior had a deep penchant for Doritos Quiche.
To be sure, the snack is the inspiration. We see evidence to support this understanding starting back in the 50's with the introduction of recipe ideas for all from corn flakes to Cheetos. But what accounts for the resurgence of using snacks in cooking in an age dominated by "healthy" foods, "quality" ingredients and of haute cuisine in the home? And what does this mean for a marketer or product development team? The easy is riposte is that by comprehension the deeper issues driving the transformation of how snack foods are used, it is possible to good innovate and drive sales over time. We have identified any areas that deserve special attention.
Snacks as Symbols
Meaning is produced and reproduced within a culture through various practices, phenomena and activities that serve as systems. Rituals related with food laid out a deeply ingrained structure by which meaning is propagated within a culture. In other words, a potato chip is more than food; it is representative of childhood memories, concepts of being a good or bad parent, regional affiliation and other symbolically expensed concepts.
The brand itself is equally symbolically charged. This explains why a generic brand of corn flakes to top your tuna casserole may not be "good enough." Only Kellogg's communicates that the cook cares adequate about the people eating. This also explains, in part, the reluctance of many to buy store-branded products (although other factors come into play as we see, for example, in times of economic crisis).
Flavor is less the issue than the need to generate a dish that fits within the symbolic framework in which it is constructed and consumed. The implication is that it recipe ideas aren't enough. These ideas must be tied to richer symbols. Holder design, shelf positioning, etc. Must all reflect greater symbolic structures and lead to the construction of new and unique traditions that work within the existing framework.
The Invention of Tradition
Traditions exist to support a wide range of ordinarily held ideas, practices and methods used by definite populations. Food joins other elements like music, folklore and clothing to generate culture. Beliefs or customs are taught by one generation to the next and actions are reinforced over time. The preservation of culture, however, becomes much more difficult in a postmodern world.
Through the emergence of tribal subcultures along with the ease and means to recap and cross-pollinate we see many using brands as badges of affiliation. In practice, people are "inventing" tradition by endowing products with rich symbolic meaning. Product, therefore, becomes a means by which people artificially organize a past and validate identity in the present. Mom may have never indubitably made Frito Pie, but it helps the buyer utter a sense of identity to believe that she could have.
Food as Novelty and Play
Finally, using snack foods as ingredients speaks to the very basic need to organize and play. Snack foods used in a way dissimilar from their "intended purpose" is novel. At a psychological level, novelty speaks to four basic principle elements:
Thrill Seeking: the chase of activities and objects that are exciting, unusual and potentially dangerous.
Experience Seeking: the chase of unfamiliar and complicated environmental stimuli, as through cooking.
Disinhibition: Sensation-seeking through engagement with other people; searching for opportunities to lose inhibitions by fascinating in range in food, sex, alcohol, etc.
Boredom Susceptibility: the tendency to be indubitably bored by well-known or repetitive situations or people, or by habit work.
Beyond the sensory benefits of novelty, there is the need to use experimentation as a means of establishing cultural capital. Snack foods have come to be a means by which people not only attain psychological stimulation but also display to friends and loved ones that they are inventive and interesting.
Implications
It may be interesting, but what does it all mean? simply put, it means that whoever can tap into these unconscious motivations, symbols, and practices can increase sales, grow customer loyalty and organize brands that are synonymous with enjoyment. We often explain our products through a self-limiting, narrow focus. comprehension snack foods from the vantage point of "ingredient" opens a new series of delivery systems, product possibilities and messaging strategies.
After all, the customer will always settle how to use your product.
my sources Snack Foods and the Changing Culinary Chic