Consumers’ familiarity level shapes motives and contexts for preparing and consuming dishes

Consumers' familiarity with foods influences their expectations and experiences upon consumption. Familiarity has mostly been assessed using perceived familiarity when studying single foods. However, foods are often combined to create dishes, complex compositions eaten at various mealtimes. Hence, this paper aimed to study if and how the level of consumers' dish familiarity shapes their motives and preferred contexts for home cooking and consuming three dishes: one traditional dish, one adopted ethnic dish, and one mainly unavailable and unknown ethnic dish. First, we describe the operationalization of familiarity into the qualitative "consumer's dish familiarity index" (CDFI) used to determine participants' familiarity level to the dishes. CDFI includes four indicators (perceived availability, consumer's knowledge, preparation, and consumption). In-depth interviews (n = 27) were conducted with Dutch and Chilean women, as the countries have contrasting levels of immigration and globalization, which are expected to shape their inhabitants' familiarity level with ethnic dishes. Most experienced consumers (high familiarity) mentioned more dishes and individual-related motives to prepare and consume a traditional or an adopted ethnic dish. Social- and individual-related motives were salient when a dish was unknown and/or not previously consumed. Consumers' familiarity level also guided their preferred social context and location when consuming the dishes. A dish barely available will likely be first consumed in a restaurant to try a new dish that is perceived as appetizing to eat. Results showed that convenience, wanting to eat comfort foods, and showing affection to others are important motivators to facilitate the adoption of dishes to be home cooked. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: This paper provides a novel approach to assess consumer familiarity to dishes. The qualitative consumer's dish familiarity index (CDFI) can be used in future investigations to assess and classify consumers into different dish familiarity levels by using four indicators. The outcomes of this study suggest consumers' familiarity level could serve as a reference for designing and/or improving (ethnic) foods and creating marketing campaigns to introduce them into (foreign) countries.