Food is one of the basic components of societies and cultures. Nowadays, it is also a basic aspect of cultural heritage. The diet represents a field where very diverse approaches and experiences converge, coming from the fields of History, Anthropology, Sociology, Media Studies, Philology, Geography, Nutrition and Dietetics, etc., with specialists who are receiving increasing interest, interweave their own competencies with those of the economists, technicians of food production, nutritionists, dieticians, cooks and gourmets, etc. Food culture emerges, consequently, as an area of interdisciplinary convergence of great importance, capable of offering a global view of a very vast subject matter, which covers the production, distribution and consumption of food to tourism and museology, as well as culinary knowledge and food publicity. In this confluence of interests, theoretical approaches are combined with practical applications, cultural reflections with evaluation of resources.

The demand for cultural education is very high nowadays in all work sectors related to diet and gastronomy. Precisely, the master’s degree in History and Culture of Diet aims to construct this new professionalism and, giving a special attention to human sciences, to train professionals capable of:

• Understanding and explaining food behaviours including past as much as present, as well as the reasons for the changes.

• To analyze, value and promote food and gastronomic heritages.