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The relationship between food and culture
Food culture observation essay
The relationship between food and culture
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Four people sit kneeling around a small table in a small room laden with food. A room where a serious man in a black box holds out a can of something altered and edible, and a young girl perched near her mother clutches a bag of potato chips to her chest as if claiming it as solely her own. This is the scene depicted in a photograph of the Ukita family in Kodaira City, Japan as part of a series taken by Peter Menzel for the book “What the World Eats”. This series of photographs illustrates not only what people eat in different parts of the world, but also how their families, and lives as fellow humans can so closely resemble our own.
The Ukita family is kneeling around a small table in a small room. The extent of the food they’ve purchased over the past week is arranged around this tiny living area. The space is somewhat cramped as they attempt to arrange themselves comfortably, and Mio Ukita, the eldest daughter of the family finds herself squeezed into the far right corner of the room next to a red tray of plastic wrapped cakes. A television no one’s thought to turn off blares brightly in the room as a processed food commercial beams to life and an actor holds out the heralded food item as if sternly urging the audience to simply reach out and take it. The screen is paused at this moment as it’s determined to be the perfect image to make the scene complete, and the Ukita’s youngest daughter, Maya, reaches out for a bag of her favorite potato chips. She clutches the bag to her chest as she maneuvers her way back to perch on a red cushion near her mother. Everyone looks up at something only they can see, and from that spot a bright light flashes, and a photograph is taken (D’Aluisio & Menzel, 2008, p.94).
The first thing we...
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In Fish written by Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul, and John Christensen we find a woman who moved to Seattle from Southern California with her husband her two children. This woman Mary Jane Ramirez had everything going for her she was a happy person who had a happy life her family their relationship couldn't get any better. They both had good jobs, jobs that they enjoyed. Then one day, twelve months after they had moved to Seattle Dan her husband was rushed to the hospital with a burst aneurysm he then died. After that incident everything changed for Mary Jane especially when she took an offer to work on the third floor for First Guarantee Financial.
In her essay “In Praise of Fast Food”, Rachel Laudan discusses the differences between natural and processed foods and which are healthier. She also discussed her personal experiences with the topic. Laudan knows a great deal about this particular debate because she grew up on a farm eating “natural foods” as well as using natural recipes herself. “My culinary style, like so many people’s, was created by those who scorned industrialized food; culinary Luddites” (Laudan 331). She does not, however, completely agree that all natural foods are healthier than processed foods, using history as a large part of her argument. This essay had a very clear motive and made numerous key points about this debate, making it
As healthy lifestyles have come to take over the minds of the general public, people have begun to pay increased attention to the food they eat, which in turn has sparked a renewal in vegetarianism. Vegetarianism is a term used to describe the practice of living on a diet consisting of nuts, grains, fruits, and vegetables, with or without the use of eggs and dairy products. People usually associate vegetarianism with the hippy movement in the 1960’s; however, it was Frances Moore Lappé's iconic book, Diet for a Small Planet, released in 1971 that launched the vegetarian movement. Since 1971 vegetarian cookbooks, restaurants, and food brands have become popular and have enticed the likings of about 7 million Americans. Unfortunately, despite the growing popularity of vegetarianism most people living on a carnivorous diet laugh at the idea of giving up meat. Although omnivores are reluctant to give up their current diets, giving the vegetarian diet a chance even for just a month or two can bring about a number of positive consequences. By adopting a vegetarian diet a person is not only...
The documentary A Place at the Table reveals some very startling facts about food insecurity in the United States. The directors, Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush, relate the stories of three people to present the struggles common to people who are faced with food insecurity. Barbie is a young single mother who struggles to provide for her two young children. Rosie is a young student who has trouble focusing in class because she is hungry. Trmonica is another young student who has health problems, which are worsened by the unhealthy diet that her mother is able to afford. Through the stories of these three people and the testimonies of some experts, the directors present an argument dealing with food
The story “Lamb to the Slaughter” was written by Ronald Dahl. The setting of the story is in the 1950’s at the Maloney household. Patrick Maloney- a detective for their local police station- was married to her wife Mary Maloney. The couple would usually eat out on Thursdays, but when Patrick came home he felt a bit peculiar. Mary asked him what was wrong he ignored her. She asked if they should eat out and he still ignored her. Out of nowhere, Patrick told Mary to sit down. He told her that he was going to get a divorce. Mary was dismayed, astonished. She told him that he could not leave without a proper meal. She went to the freezer and obtained the leg of lamb. She brought it to the table and took the paper off of it. Discreetly, she went behind Patrick, and delivered a painstaking hit. Patrick fell
In Radley Balko’s writing, “What You Eat is Your Business,” his main argument is that the types of food one eats should be each individual’s personal responsibility. The government should be held liable for what one puts into his or her mouth. More specifically, Balko states that the government gets too involved in people’s personal dietary habits to the point where they are controlling everyone. He supports this idea by writing, “President Bush earmarked $200 million in his budget for anti-obesity measures” (Balko 396). In this passage, Balko is suggesting that the government gets too involved in the American people’s food intake. According to Balko, in order to make this situation a private manner, people have to take back their bodies.
Eating different cuisines and trying new dishes at a variety of restaurants is an important hobby in Ashley’s life. In the future, Ashley hopes to go into the field of marketing or advertising, and hopefully specialize in food. But no matter what job she pursues, she hopes to have her own children (she is hoping for two) and a joyful family. The first thing she teaches her kids will be to always try new things and be accepting to the unknown. That is the one thing she regrets from her childhood. Not being more open-minded and unwilling to step out of her comfort zone. But despite this, her childhood has shaped who she is today. By pushing away vegetables and having a constant craving for macaroni and cheese, the cheesy pasta dish is now the single dish that can cheer her up when she feels defeated or disappointed. It is the comfort food that will remain a part of her life. Throughout Ashley’s life, she has always wondered why certain foods triggered certain emotions. Why does macaroni and cheese make me feel so cheerful? And why is it that this dish is what I rely on when sad? Her curiosity for the deeper meaning of food has grown throughout the years, but what has risen to a new level is her true passion
In the Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan talks about 4 different models that we consume, purchase, and add it to our daily lives. Michael Pollan travels to different locations around the United States, where he mentions his models which are fast food, industrial organic, beyond organic, and hunting. I believe that the 3 important models that we need to feed the population are fast food, industrial organic, and beyond organic. Fast food is one of the most important models in this society because people nowadays, eat fast food everyday and it is hurting us in the long run. We need to stick to beyond organic or industrial organic food because it is good for our well being. Ever since the government and corporations took over on what we eat, we have lost our culture. In the introduction of the Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan states that we have lost our culture:
Food Inc. addresses many political issues during the film to draw in the audience. Issues such as: the environment, education, workers’ rights, health care, climate change, energy control, to name a few. Director Robert Kenner exposes secrets about the foods society eats, where the food has come from and the processes the food went through. It is these issues that are used as politics of affect in both an extreme visual representation and a strong audio representation that has the biggest impact on the audience and their connection to what they are being told. This paper aims to discuss the film Food Inc. and the propaganda message for positive change, as well as, the differences between seeing food and deciding...
The professors who composed Psychological Science explain that, “For [Sigmund] Freud, the powerful forces that drive behavior were often in conflict. A key aspect of his thinking was that we are typically unaware of those forces or their conflicts” (Gazzinga et al. 570). To Freud, conflicts in the mind consisted of the never ending battle between the ego, id, and superego. The “id” is the mechanism that drives humans to seek pleasure and avoid pain. The superego is a person’s conscience and morality principle. The “ego” is the mediator between the superego and id. In fact, Freud developed a theory based on analyzing these unconscious struggles which he called the psychoanalytic, sometimes psychodynamic, theory. He recorded peoples’ words and actions to describe their unconscious desires, wishes, fears, and hidden memories. The psychoanalytic theory was later translated into literature as a kind of criticism. This criticism can be applied to any type of literature including dramas. The drama “Naked Lunch” by Michael Hollinger is a good representative of the dramas in which the reader can perceive the unconscious conflicts between the characters through the use of dialogue and non-verbal cues. The reader senses the desires, fears, thoughts, and underlying mechanisms at work behind the conversation and in turn is able to come to a greater understanding of how a person’s word and non-verbal actions describe the person’s subconscious mind.
Her video installation of Semiotics of the Kitchen 1975, reflects a female subject within a parody of cooking shows that address the implications of a traditional role. Semiotics of the Kitchen, a sort of bizarrely witty six-minute black-and-white video from December 1974 (dated 1975), was one part of a large body of work in several media that she could take on the questions of women, society, and art through the medium of food and the culture of food preparation and consumption. The video is a real of anger and aggravation produced through a loud and rowdy demonstration of some hand tools in the traditional kitchen. This performance reinforces and present our sense of individuality and identify the place of what a traditional place
In her book Semiotics and Communication: Signs, Codes, Cultures, Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz describes the wide use of food as signs, and also as social codes. The reason foods are so useful as signs and social codes is because they are separable, easily adaptive to new environments, and it is not difficult to cook, or eat for that matter. Food is a major part of our daily lives, Not only for survival, but it plays a substantial social role in our lives. We will look deeper into the semiotics of food, how food is used as identity markers, and also the role that foods play in social change in our lives. First let us start with the semiotics of food.
with growth. Protein are found in animals, products like red meat, fish, cheese, milk, and eggs.
There are several images that were shown in this small collection. The goal of the images is to portray how different families eat around the world. The first thing I noticed is the amount of food in each picture. The family in the United States had the most amount of food in their picture while Mali had the least. This shows that the American family probably consumed the most in one week because they had the most food available. However, upon further inspection, the food depicted in the family in the Unites States was mostly packaged food. Therefore, they may just have more food because it has the capacity to remain stored for a longer time than non-packaged foods. The other 3 families had little to no packaged foods which show that the
Seafood has been an important part of the human diet since the first hunter-gatherers realized they could use fish, shellfish, and other aquatic animals as a food source. Now, almost 10,000 years later, seafood comprises a major part of animal protein consumption all over the world (Huss et al. 2000). In fact, global seafood consumption has been on the rise within the last two decades. The number of consumed seafood products rose from 140 million tons in 2007, to 145 million tons in 2009 (White 2011). This increase in consumption can be contributed to the many health benefits that have been attributed to the consumption of seafood.