From Greek 'gastḗr' (stomach) + 'nómos' (law) — literally 'laws of the stomach,' modeled on 'astronomy' to dignify food as science.
The art and science of good eating; the study of the relationship between food and culture.
From French gastronomie, popularised by Joseph Berchoux in his poem La Gastronomie (1801), drawing on Greek gastronomia, a compound of gastēr (γαστήρ, stomach, belly, womb) and nomos (νόμος, law, rule, custom). The Greek gastēr derives from PIE *gras- (to devour, eat greedily), found also in Sanskrit grasati (he swallows). The Greek nomos comes from PIE *nem- (to assign, allot, take), which also gives nemesis (the assigning
'Gastronomy' and 'astronomy' are structurally identical words — both end in '-nomy' from Greek 'nómos' (law). Astronomy is 'the laws of the stars'; gastronomy is 'the laws of the stomach.' The parallel was intentional: by modelling the word on 'astronomy,' the coiner elevated eating from a bodily function to a field of study worthy of the same intellectual respect as observing