Browsing by Author "Hannonen, Linda"

The purpose of this research was to find out how Finnish food traditions are portrayed in home economics textbooks. The theoretical framework of the study was based on traditional foods, Finnish food culture and Finnish traditional foods. The theory acted as a frame of reference for the research questions through which the textbooks were researched. The textbooks were researched to find out what is told about Finnish traditional foods and which foods are seen as traditional. The research material composed of six different home economics textbooks from three different publishers. All the books were published in the 21st century. The research was a qualitative textbook research and the research method used was theorybased content analysis. According to the research task and research questions, the analysis focused on the parts of the textbooks that covered either traditional food recipes or had content about Finnish traditional foods and food culture. According to the results the traditional food content of the home economics textbooks was coherent with the theoretical framework. In the textbooks traditional foods were defined as foods that are passed on from generation to generation. Some foods were brought out as Finnish traditional foods, such as seasonal foods, for example christmas casseroles, and different province-specific pastries. There was variety in the way traditional foods were portayed and highlighted in the books. All in all the emphasis on traditional foods was low in the home economics textbooks and their occurence was scarce.