Sarah Heermann
5/29/2012
Writ EE2
Final essay
Choose Wisely
The
relationship people have with food is more complex than simply a means to gain
sustenance. Choosing what to eat has evolved from a fight for survival to
standing in front of a kiosk full of choices for a minute and ordering. With so
many products out for our picking, what is it that helps us choose what to eat?
Such a decision doesn’t happen just randomly, we have food values that
influence us. I never stand in front of
food choices and think, “I don’t care at all what I eat; I’ll just order haphazardly
from the menu” since I fear ending up with something I will dislike. I will
always favor some dishes over others. There are always reasons for picking a meal
and where I eat, and I assume it is the same with everyone else. For me, my
cultural and religious backgrounds help define the meals I eat and what those
meals mean to me. And while those foods make me order more predictably my sense
of adventure and curiosity of other cultures pushes me to explore other foods
as well. Food connects people not only to their family and ultimately
themselves, but also to other cultures through exploration of different types
of food and the atmosphere that surrounds where we eat.
The
values I hold are strongly connected to who I believe I am as a person. These
values are shown through my actions, and this includes the choices I make with food.
As with most people I consider a close
relationship with my family and my cultural background a major part of who I
am, therefore I eat foods that are connected to my cultural background to feel
connected to my family. In our first reading for the class, “Home Run” by Roy
Ahn, he discusses how eating Korean food (he was born in Korea and raised in
America by Korean parents) was important to him for strengthening and
reconnecting with his culture. He described it as a self-journey, where he not
only reconnected with his dead parents but rediscovered himself after he had
begun to eat and cook with Korean foods once more.
“Food
reinvigorated my innate sense of Korean-ness. I’m not at all certain about the
synapses that get fired when human beings experience emotions from cooking and
eating the foods of their childhoods. All I can say for sure is that something
sublime happened in that mecca of Korean cuisine—the Rockies—where I
rediscovered my native food heritage.” (Ahn 12-15)
Here the
connection between the inner awareness of oneself, culture, and food is
obvious. I share the same connection with my own ethnic background. My personal
cultural influence on food choices is German. The town I grew up in is a small agricultural town where
roughly 85% are from German ancestry, including my own family. My town’s
average dinner plate consists of potatoes, bread and meat (sausage and bratwursts
in particular). Growing up on these foods makes me automatically gravitate
toward them as a source of comfort and familiarity, and I actually enjoy the
monotony of them. I feel connected to my family as I eat them, and eating these
foods brings back memories of my family and the feeling of belonging and safety
that always accompanies such memories. While eating German food, I can begin to
remember my grandmother’s voice, the smell of dill and roses that always filled
my grandparents’ house, and the creak of the wooden dinning chairs. Small
memories like these seem insignificant at the time, but are some of the fondest
memories I have. Remembering these and my ancestry help me feel more confident
when I feel lost and unsure of myself, something that happened quite often as a
freshman in college. Similar to what Roy Ahn stated in his article, becoming
reconnected with your past and knowing where you came from somehow makes you
understand more of who you are, and in turn what actions you need to take to
remain the same person. I value eating
these traditional German foods as a way to stay reconnected to myself and my
family, and to rekindle fond but fading memories.
Religion also plays a strong part in my
food manifesto, and places bread at the top of desired foods for me. In an
article we read for class the author of
“Eating White”, Nicholson, talks about his mother’s strange eating habit of
consuming all white foods. Nicholson had a theory about his mother’s
attraction. He believes her religion (Catholicism) and the purity symbolism the
catholic religion places on the color white subconsciously attracts her to
“purify” her body. This was an
interesting theory, and when the author described his experience of eating a
communion wafer I realized my own connection to the same type of food. I love
bread, and I use love instead of like for an honest emphasis. Usually the bread
at the beginning of dinner consists of about a third of my whole dinner. When I
dine out with my family they take one piece and split it amongst themselves and
pass the basket to me! And I always remember being this way. It makes me wonder
if all of the images and emphasis of importance on bread I saw and heard during
church services (that my parents brought me to even as a baby) influenced me
into loving bread. Bread is so ingrained into our religion that during the
Lord’s Prayer (something said at church every Sunday and nearly every church
function) we thank God for providing us our “daily bread”, and it is consumed
in communion with high importance. As a child I remember being board during
church services and staring at a stained glass window we always sat by. In its
center was a golden cup of wine, a bunch of grapes and a large loaf of bread.
The sun shining through it made the bread light up, and after staring at that
for an hour I was always hungry for bread afterward. Since the majority of my
family went to the same church and shared a Sunday brunch afterword, there was
plenty of bread available to satisfy my craving.
Although German
food has a strong importance to me, growing up in a small town with little food
choices has turned food into an outlet and a tool for cultural exploration. Food
is a way to physically let a culture become a part of your body, and although
you cannot actually get a feel for the entire culture of any group of people by
simply tasting the food, it does seem to describe the food cultures prefer
well. Whether it is the stereotypes of a culture that we associate with a food that
give us a cultural education while eating or the association of that food with
a culture that gives us hints while we eat, we gain cultural knowledge by
simply eating cultural foods. Cultural exploration through food can be exciting,
and tasting unfamiliar foods feels adventurous. One of my favorite restaurants
and a recent discovery of mine is a fantastic place called “Linger” where they
serve dishes from all over the world. The menu itself is broken up into the six
inhabited continents of the world and offers several dish choices from each. I
personally gravitated toward the Asian and African choices, as those are the
most foreign to me and therefore raised my curiosity the most. Even though the atmosphere of the restaurant
was modern American, through eating an Asian spicy duck entrée and an African
lamb dish, I pictured what I believe to be their culture as I ate and feel I
became more knowledgeable. At a minimum, I learned that Asians eat duck and
rice and Africans eat lamb and squash. The new knowledge I gained may be
entirely inaccurate, because not only was the food not purely Asian or African,
but no one who is of that culture was there to inform me about it. However, the
new thoughts and experiences I gained from eating that food have given me one
more memory and experience to draw from when thinking about that culture, and
so in a sense I have gained cultural knowledge. A cultural class at the
Thunderbird school of Global Management in Arizona recently started an ethnic restaurant
as a learning experience for other students. A participant in the project
stated “Your first
contact with culture is not through the language or through business, It’s
usually through food.” ("Knowledge Network: Faculty & Research")
The impact food has on a group of people’s
image can be profound, as seen in Dupuis’s article where he highlights the
negative attitude that most Americans had of eating rice versus meat, when the
real issue against rice was its association with the Chinese during a very strong
anti-immigration movement. (Dupuis 34-44)
The incorrect knowledge or stereotypes one could form from eating ethnic food
uninformed could be harmful or negative, since cultural knowledge through
eating is self-led. Such false assumptions must happen frequently, and one
could argue that most knowledge gained about a culture through food is false,
since so little ethnic food is actually authentic.
Authenticity and
originality as a whole is a strong American value, and this value is carried
over into food as well. I do not like the idea of having the “second best” nor
the cold concern for efficiency over safety and happiness of large corporations
that leads so many workers and animals to suffer, however, I question what
people mean by “authentic” and how they search for it in food. No other place
in the world is a larger melting pot of different cultures than in America, and
since all cultures blended together, hardly any restaurants in America are truly
authentic to one culture. I value new, enjoyable experiences from food, and
this includes new and enjoyable experiences even from large corporate and
unauthentic restaurants. For our field
projects in visiting a restaurant of our choice I went to Brio, a large Italian
food chain restaurant that was placed close to the mall. One of my major interesting
findings was how hard the restaurant tried to appear as authentic and one-of-a-kind.
It adopted as many stereotypical Italian characteristics as possible. Brio, and
all the chains it owns, has menus in Italian offering Italian-like dishes and
playing soft guitar and accordion music in the background. According to a
marketing website, atmosphere adjustments are done on purpose because they
increase sales by giving the customer the impression that this is a fancier and
more unique dining experience than it actually is ("MarketingTeacher.com"). If this is the goal then
why Americanize the food? Americanizing ethnic foods is very popular
among chain restaurants. Just like any large corporation that seeks to gain the
approval of the masses, changing their product to appeal to a more “American”
taste just makes sense especially when considering profits. According to “La
Gazzetta Italiana”, only one-third of supposed Italian food actually comes from
Italy. Freshness and quality after being
shipped is also in question. (Janice
Therese) Of course under these new considerations few people will ever
have “true” Italian food, but even the recipes involved in cooking and methods
of production have differed to appeal to a more American taste. Authentic
Italian food comes in smaller portions, with much simpler ingredients, uses
less cheese and toppings if none at all, and most surprising to me Italians do
not use tomato sauce. They focus on freshness, and make meals from scratch so
waiting a long time for a meal is a major change. (Ledblimp, 2010) However even with these differences, eating
the food in the encouraged atmosphere I felt more connected to the Italian
culture than if I had been in Italy eating McDonald’s. Personally, I enjoy the
Americanized version better than the true Italian food. Because my tastes for
Italian food had been Americanized before actually tasting Italian food, my
preconceived notions and expectations skewed the reality of the food. Many view
this preference toward the “fake” food as pitiful and may even consider me “brainwashed”,
however, I value the food that I enjoy the most. Since I have been raised
American and am used to this “fake” Italian, this is my preference. I do not view any food as better because of
authenticity to the culture, since authenticity of anything can be questioned,
but I value the taste and overall experience it brings. The ambiance of a true
Italian food restaurant is better, but the memories and experience as a whole
seem richer with food that is more tailored to your taste.
I choose food
that connects me to my family and cultural background in order to keep a sense
of who I am and where I come from as well as hold on to precious memories. On
the other hand, I enjoy using food as a way to experience the new and unknown,
and a tool for gaining cultural knowledge and broadening my experiences. On the
same token, I believe there are very few truly culturally honest restaurants
left, especially in America, and question the validity of the cultural knowledge
one does gain from experimenting with cultural foods. Because of this skepticism,
I value food that has meaning behind it and comes with an overall enjoyable
experience verses the honesty and truthfulness of cultural knowledge gained and
authenticity of the food. These values help me chose my meals, and influence
how I eat.
Resources
Ahn, Roy. "Home Run: My Journey Back to Korean
Food."Journal of Food and Culture. 9.4 (2009): 12-15. Print.
. "Situational Influences and Atmospherics."MarketingTeacher.com.
CHICHESTER , 2012. Web. 22 May 2012.
<http://www.marketingteacher.com/lesson-
Janice Therese, M. [Web log message]. Retrieved
from http://www.lagazzettaitaliana.com/italian-food-american-history.aspx
Ledblimp. (2010, August). [Web log message].
Retrieved from
http://www.lifeinitaly.com/forum/threads/11472-Differences-between-Italian-amp-American-style-Italian-food
Nicholson, Geoff. "Eating White." Journal of Food and Culture.
10.1 (12): 21-23. Print.
<http://blackboard.du.edu/bbcswebdav/courses/2009.201230/Eating White -
Nicholson(1).pdf>.
. "Breaking cultural barriers through food." Knowledge Network: Faculty & Research. Thunderbird.org,
2008. Web. 29 May 2012.
<http://knowledgenetwork.thunderbird.edu/research/2008/07/17/breaking-cultural-barriers-through-food/>.
Dupuis, Melanie. "Angels and Vegetables: A Brief History
of Food Advice in America." Gastronomica: The Journal of
Food and Culture. 7.3 (2012): 34-44. Print.
<http://blackboard.du.edu/bbcswebdav/courses/2009.201230/History of Food
Advice - Dupuis.pdf>.
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