"Tell me what you eat: I will tell you what you are."
~Brillat-Savarin
What food cultures do you belong to? Most of you are part of the student food culture (pizza, burgers, burritos and beer) and you no doubt belong to some kind of regional food culture as well (e.g. midwestern meat & potatoes). Does your ethnic or religious identity connect you to particular foods or food rituals? Are you a foodie? A vegan? Post your response (at least 300 words) here. And feel free to otherwise introduce yourself to the rest of the class while you're at it.
due 9/8/11
Howdy class,
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, I’ve never truly considered what my “food culture” is. My tasteful desires do cross into many other boundaries, as I’m sure most others do. Were I to place a specific identity, it would have to be based upon my mother’s side of the family. Her grandparents immigrated to the United States from Slovenia, now Yugoslavia, in the early 20th century. With them they brought many foods from their former lands, most notably kielbasa, a type of smoked sausuage, of which my family still eats today at every annual gathering. Stemming off from ancestors into my immediate family, the typical American mentality is prevalent; we all love to go out to eat, any place appetizing, and on holidays meals of mashed potatoes and honey-baked ham are always prepared by my grandmother, aunt and mom. I was fortunate enough to be given a healthy style of eating imposed upon me by my parents. They taught me the importance of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, while condemning and explaining how bad the typical fast food dollar menu was and the splenda filled, dehydrating drinks that accompany them. Not to say I don’t visit McDonald’s every now and then, or enjoy a cold Coca-Cola, but an instillation of being health-minded and its effects can be seen in my grandparents themselves, who followed similar mantras. Both my grandpa and grandma are entering their early 80’s, yet the unknowing eye could mistake them easily for 60. They’re both still sharp as a tack, and still eat the right things. It’s as my old high-school teacher Brian Miller used to quote from Buddha, “To keep the body in good health is a duty... otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.” I’ve followed this idea. A body is the only home to the mind, and in order to gain a clear sense of self and consciousness, a clean home will result in a harmony and understanding of both.
Austin Baas
Hey, everyone. I’m a junior magazine journalism major. English is one of my specializations and I’m definitely looking forward to this class. I had some difficulty thinking about what food cultures I belong to. Besides the student food culture, I agree that I also am part of the midwestern food culture. I enjoy grilling out with my dad on summer nights and having traditional meat and potato-type meals. I also always look forward to the fall when I can drive down to local farmers markets to buy fresh corn on the cob and apples to pair with grocery store bought food. I also would consider myself part of a mainstream chain restaurant culture. I am from Canton, Ohio, where there are a record number of chain restaurants per square mile. Unfortunately, there are few “mom and pop” places to dine in my area. I find myself meeting friends at Panera, snagging the soup salad and breadstick lunch deal at Olive Garden, and spending special occasions at Longhorn Steakhouse quite often, which I feel has shaped my idea of food culture. I am Roman Catholic and generally, my religion shapes my food traditions only around the Lenten season. I fast and can’t eat meat on Fridays during the 40 days before Easter. Ethnically, my Grandma is 100% Italian and I have grown up eating a lot of Italian pastas and dishes like chicken Parmesan and lasagna. I do not consider myself a foodie, but I wish I were. Growing up, my mom was not much of a chef, as her mom was not either. Some people have the philosophy of "live to eat"; I feel that I simply eat to live. Don't get me wrong, though. I enjoy delicious food as much as the next person, I just have not grown up in a house smelling of fresh baked bread and cookies. More like peanut butter and jelly and chicken on the grill. I have many close friends who are Food Network fanatics and love trying out new recipes, so I enjoy going out to eat with them or joining their families for dinner to experience their food traditions. I'd like to expand my horizons despite being known as a picky eater. Within the past five or so years, I have made a sincere effort to break that habit. I’m looking forward, with the help of this class, to gain a greater appreciation for food and possibly become a foodie myself.
ReplyDeleteOlivia Ohlin
Hi, I’m Holly and I’m a caffeine addict.
ReplyDeleteI know the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have a problem, but the thing is, I don’t really want to solve my “problem.” The way I see it, I could be addicted to much worse things. So what if I can barely function before 8 a.m. without having a cup of coffee, or if I could probably feed a small child in a third world country for a year with the money I spend at Starbucks and/or Donkey Coffee and/or Speedway when their iced coffee is 99 cents?
Coffee helps me think. It makes me happy. And it’s so freaking good.
And, honestly, I’m dramatizing it a bit. It’s not like I’m spending $8 on a venti white chocolate mocha with soy milk and an extra shot of espresso every time I go to Stabucks. I prefer plain drinks, maybe a latte every once and a while.
I’d say the girl-on-the-go food culture is where I identify most. I suppose that could be lumped in with the “student lifestyle,” but I stay away from burgers, burritos and pizza if I can.
If I had to choose another food genre, I’d say “relative health nut.” I’m not a vegan, but I don’t like red meat. I eat like a rabbit – that is to say, I love vegetables and fruit and nuts. Hummus is also a must. If I could live on coffee, dark chocolate, hummus and pita chips, I’d totally do it.
Any religious influence on my eating lifestyle is non-existent. As far as ethnicity goes, my dad’s side of the family is Italian, but I’m not a huge pasta fan. I find a lot of Italian food to be too heavy, although having a genuine cappuccino on the streets of Rome is definitely on my bucket list. (See? Addicted.) Growing up, my mother did a lot of the cooking, but my skills sort of stop at chocolate chip cookies and grilled cheese.
Maybe this class will expose me to some recipes/food cultures that I’ll want to check out.
At the very least, I’ll compile a list of food blogs/readings I can peruse though in the mornings … while drinking coffee, of course. ---
Hello everyone,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Felicia. I hail from Dayton, Ohio. I am a junior Communications major. I am also working on the Writing Certificate as my area of focus because it is my dream to one day be the next J.K. Rowling. I've been working on the same novel since for about eight years now, and I know I still have another 20 years to go before it'll be perfect. But trust me, I'll be bigger than Twilight and Harry Potter combined. I'll do it, you just wait.
I guess I can say that I belong to my own unique sort of food culture. Growing up, neither of my parents had any time to really cook any meals for my sister and I, so most nights we either ordered Chinese or made spaghetti. And as the pickiest kid ever to walk the earth, finding something I liked besides pizza was quite the task for my mother. It wasn't until about 5 or 6 years ago when I really started to involve myself with cooking. At first, I think I was inspired by the show "Ace of Cakes." I just made cookies and cakes and gradually over the years I started teaching myself how to make food other than PB&J and pasta. This past summer, while living in Athens and being extremely bored, I decided to really start teaching myself to cook. I purchased about a dozen cookbooks and began to scour the internet for new recipes to try. Just the other day I made beef raviolis 100% from scratch, including the pasta and filling. I was very proud of myself for making such an awesome dish that I even started a food blog (which unfortunately I ran out of time to write in, so I'm hoping through this class I will be able to keep up with it!).
I guess I could say that even though my parents rarely cooked, I was inspired by the food we ordered. Every Thursday, we would order Chinese food and watch the reality TV show Survivor. I attribute these meals to my love of ethnic cooking, such as the orange chicken I made the other night. We also frequently ordered Indian and Thai food, mostly because my sister was born and raised in Nepal. The love of these dishes inspires me to cook with curries, cumin, coriander, and other Asian spices, which I think is rather unique because most people don't mess with those unless they are Asian (and my sister is, so close enough right?) On my own I have developed the love for Italian cooking, mostly because I'm a carboholic, so basically anything with breading or pasta is in my arena. Like I said before, I made ravioli from scratch, so Italian food is kinda my thing too.
Finally I think the greatest impact to my culinary career is the fact that my mother and sister are both vegan vegetarians. And I am anything but. Just imagine all your childhood snacks like Chex Mix or Fruit Roll-Ups being replaced with their shitty organic counterparts. I mean, don't get me wrong, go green! Go organic! I'm all for the craze because it's healthier and supports local markets. At the same time, when you're twelve, the last thing you want to be eating is organic mac and cheese and those weird organic flavorless bread-pretzels. In a way, this force feeding of organic vegan food literally made me have to learn how to cook for myself, otherwise salads and gluten-free cookies would have been my life. And I'm NOT about to have that!
Felicia Berger
Hello strangers.
ReplyDeleteMy name is Todd Kunkler and I’m a sophomore in the School Of Art, majoring in sculpture. On the spot, I suppose I would consider my food culture to be that of the typical frugal lower-middle-class family. As a child with two parents holding three jobs between themselves and lacking even a modicum of either talent or interest when it came to cooking, I was raised to understand that there were two variations of the evening meal: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or grisly pork chops and instant mashed potatoes. For a number of years, I considered Olive Garden to be the pinnacle of fine dining and assumed that eating at a Red Lobster was a once in a lifetime event.
As I got older and was given more command of meal planning, I attempted to add spice to our menu by spreading out a box of macaroni and cheese with canned tuna and baked beans, or serving sliced franks with horseradish and mustard on day-old, “Manager’s Special” raisin Engish muffins. I developed an affinity for hearty comfort foods that provided leftovers for days and relished learning about Depression-era classics from my grandmother. Despite the lack of access to anything more authentically ethnic than a Taco Bell and a Chinese buffet in my community, I love the food of other cultures as well and always look forward to trying something new. Since coming to college, I’ve been delving into diner culture and I’m always on the lookout for quaint, independent restaurants with personality.
To round out this passage: I do not discriminate against unhealthy food. I do not drink coffee. I make love to coffee. I will never buy a latte. I eat apple pie with a slice of cheese. My lasagna is better than yours. I believe that a hot dog is the cornerstone of a great meal and will argue about the proper ratio of cole slaw to chili on a bun (1:2). Guy Fieri is my prophet, and when the time comes, I shall make a second pilgrimage to Hillbilly Hotdogs in Huntington and take communion at an altar of suspicious meats, spicy mustards and fried Spam.
Todd Kunkler
Hey, all- my name is Nikki, I’m a sophomore journalism major, and I know nothing about food.
ReplyDeletePretty much, I can classify it into two categories: “food that tastes good” and “food that tastes bad.” Specific, right? But I don't know how to cook, so I can't discern high-quality ingredients from mediocre ones. I just know what my taste buds tell me.
I come from Canton, Ohio- the same town Olivia said she’s from, actually. (Weird!) She’s right that for the impressive amount of restaurants packed into the city’s limits, very few establishments harbor any originality. A handful will pop up on occasion with a unique theme, but they rarely last long in the big business, food-chain-or-bust atmosphere. I just find myself grabbing soup at Panera or half-off appetizers at Applebees more often than not. Now that I've experienced some world traveling I can see how sad this is, but I just never grew up to know any distinction between a 5-star restaurant and a 3-star one. If it tastes good, I will eat it. Simple as that.
Now that I"m at school, my food pyramid is about one quarter bagel bites, one quarter Easy Mac, and one half stale frozen dinners. The dining halls get thrown in there somewhere, too, and even I know that's less than fine dining. If this isn't college culture, I don't know what is.
My dad’s heritage is Czechoslovakian, so sometimes our holiday dinners on his side of the family are different from the good ol’ turkey and mashed potatoes. Grandma cooks homemade pasta called haluski and cabbage rolls that we call “pigs in a blanket,” and nobody can cook the meals as well as she can.
That’s about as far as my culture goes, though. My mom is a Western European mutt of German, English, and heaven knows what else; so on her side, no culture is too prominent. We grill cheeseburgers and hotdogs. We order pizza. We bake cookies. We are American.
A bit of me falls into the stereotypical female food culture because I am obsessed with chocolate, or all desserts for that matter- I want my cake, and I want to eat it too. I can’t buy anything sweet at school because it will somehow vanish from my fridge within 12 hours, guaranteed. I get this from my mom- when I was younger, I actually didn’t like chocolate at all. But since my mom loved it so much, I thought that I had to love it as well… and the rest is history.
But while that feminine taste may apply to me, I’m not much of a salad eater or calorie counter like many women. My junior year of high school I ate nothing but grilled chicken, vegetables, and potatoes for about two months, but I grew so tired of the bland flavors that I still have to force salad onto my plate to this day. I prefer a medium-rare steak oozing with juice and smothered in A1 sauce, personally.
Or Shively grab-n-go, I guess.
My blog title (East Coast Bias Food Blog) might suggest I have an unwavering devotion to east coast fare, limiting my pallet to only the foods put before me for the past 18 years. I’ve come to realize I’m a victim of circumstance. Growing up in a big Italian family I’ve learned that food is often used as a means of showing affection, bringing the family together and most importantly arguing over who has the best recipe.
ReplyDeleteSince we live only twenty minutes from the mecca of Italian cuisine (Arthur Ave. in the Bronx, not Little Italy in Manhattan) any Italian cook in the family has the advantage of using the best ingredients in the area. Realizing that I was leaving for college in less then a week, my family used this tactical food advantage to give me the kind of lavish send off that would make the last supper look like a Happy Meal.
Their attack on my taste buds started off small. I opened my fridge to find clear container of bocconcini. As I dropped the second piece into my mouth I was told more Arthur Ave. delights were in route. No sooner did my grandmother show up to our door with fresh homemade tomato sauce and ravioli. Just when I thought the evening couldn’t get any better, my Dad showed me the tender hand-breaded veal cutlets that would be consumed just hours before we were scheduled to depart for Ohio.
I hate to admit it, but their plan worked. I missed New York before I even left. Leaving the east coast became a daunting task knowing I would have to leave most of my favorite Italian delicacies behind.
Thankfully I found some hope in Athens. One night my roommate and I ran into GoodFella’s pizza on Court Street. Like the ignorant New Yorker I am, I was convinced I couldn’t enjoy a pizza outside of the New York tri-state area. However, I reluctantly tried Goodfella’s and was instantly reminded of home. The soft dough coupled with the perfect amount of cheese and tomato sauce made me realize that good food can be found anywhere.
Before I head back east I hope to learn this region’s food culture and maybe even bring back a mid-western recipe to compete with my big Italian family.