Continuity Under Transformation: Observing Cultural Continuity Through Food Practices in Nepal

This working paper presents an ongoing research program examining how cultural continuity remains recognizable through food practices in Nepal despite continuous transformation. Based on more than twenty years of fieldwork and culinary practice across Nepal, the project explores continuity, variation, shared recognition, and sensory formation through long-term observation and the FIELD TO TABLE framework. The document introduces the Braid Model as a working observational framework and outlines future case-based studies including fermented chili achar, kukhura ko masu, sekuwa, fermented foods, momo, spice usage, and dal bhat in diasporic contexts. Rather than presenting a completed theory, this publication functions as an open and evolving research framework intended to support ongoing fieldwork, comparative observation, and future case-based studies on food practices and cultural continuity in Nepal. This English version was developed from a previously published Japanese research program document and underwent substantial conceptual and structural revision for international academic circulation.