Alimentary culture (production, cooking, food consumption) is an integral part of ethnic culture. It includes gastronomic rituals, meals, culinary traditions, specialized clothing styles, special shoes, cooking utensils, weapons of food extraction. The culture of food consumption determines national identity. It is the main component of social, ethnic, religious identity, as well as an incentive for the development of artistic culture, a way of maintaining and disseminating national traditions and rituals. Each ethnic group as a carrier of a unique cultural code has a culinary code. This is the food intake code. This code is connected with the historical specifics of the development of people, with the natural living conditions, with the geographical location of the place of residence, with the economic structure and religion. Culinary traditions are the memory of people. They are in direct connection with the human habitat landscape, which determines its gastronomic ritual specificity, cooking methods and rituals of its consumption. The article reveals the essence of the phenomenon of nutritional culture. The article contains research on the functions of alimentary culture. Alimentary culture is an essential element of human functioning. It is an expressive example of the transformation physiological needs into the sphere of cultural codes. Technological and other related, sociocultural changes in human life provoke the emergence of new models “correct” eating behavior. But at the same time, the food codes that determine the traditional culture of the ethnic group as a whole are destroyed. As a powerful factor in cultural globalization, food continues to influence people's mind and action. Attempts to comprehend this phenomenon and its role in people's lives are carried out in studies of various sciences. New and traditional approaches to nutritional culture are studied from the perspective of ethnography, anthropology, sociology. Historical, cultural and philosophical studies of the everyday role of nutritional culture are rcharacterized by lack of demand. The article attempts to comprehend the history of philosophical studies of strategies for understanding nutritional culture, because the most obvious is the study of food traditions by means of cultural studies and philosophy.
