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Food and cultural relationship
Cultural influences on food choices
The connection between food and culture
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Food is not just something we eat to survive; it is significant to the make-up of a person’s cultural identity. Preparation of food and special traditions surrounding food can form vivid sensory memories that are cherished throughout life. Memories are important but moving to a new country is difficult for several reasons; especially when you have to adjust to different foods. I interviewed two women who moved from Mexico to the United States at different times in their life; which did affect how easy it was from them to adjust to new foods. I had the opportunity to interview Marisol at the East Side Freedom Library. She moved to the United States over 17 years ago while she was an adult. I also spoke with Stephanie, a friend of mine, who …show more content…
Based on first impression, I got the sense that Marisol is a very warm and personable individual. Her demeaner in the interview made it feel more like a casual conversation than a formal interview; I believe this is reflected in her responses to our interview questions. I will be doing my best to analyze the data I collected in the interview and make assumptions about how her food culture changed after she moved to America. After I interviewed Marisol, I had a great opportunity to interview Stephanie, one of my friends who also moved to the United States from Mexico. Interviewing someone solo can be more nerve-wracking because there is a lot more silence as I am trying to take in what she is saying and think of follow up questions on the spot. Interviewing in a group allows a lot more opportunity to build off each other and ask questions that one person might not have thought of. This interview was conducted over Skype rather than in-person and because she is currently living in Philadelphia. I knew her before the interview so it had a more
At the heart of ¡Que Vivan Los Tamales!: Food and the Making of Mexican Identity, Jeffrey Pilcher attempts to find an answer to whether food plays a part in forming national character with a focus on interpreting Mexican national identity. Pilcher begins by stating, “while people have long recognized the connections between cuisine and identity, the aphorism that you are what you eat has seldom been applied to the study of modern nationalism” (2). Mexican cuisine is one of the most popular in the world, and it is made
In Lavanya Ramanathan’s Washington Post article published in 2015 titled “Why everyone should stop calling immigrant food ‘ethnic’”, she discusses about people’s preconceptions on the type of food that should be labelled ethnic. Ashlie Stevens also touched on a similar topic in her Guardian article published in 2015 titled “Stop thinking and just eat: when ‘food adventuring’ trivializes culture”. She talks about how people assume that just by eating food from a certain culture, they are able relate to the culture as a whole. Both authors acknowledge the importance of appreciating authentic cuisines, but takes different approaches to convince the audience. Both authors establish credibility by using a wide range of substantiated evidences. While,
In the writing “If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?” Geeta Kothari describes the differences in the American and Indian cultures through her unique description of the food differences. As a little Indian-American girl, Kothari curiously wanted to eat what of kids her age ate, tuna salad sandwich, hot dogs, and foods of such nature. Kothari describes her first encounter with a can of tuna fish as it looks “pink and shiny, like an internal organ” (947). As Kothari ages, it becomes clear that she sees American food much the way her parents saw it- “repugnant… meat byproducts… glued together by chemicals and fat” (947). Even though Kothari describes American food as strange, disgusting, and foreign; it was also “infidelity” to eat it (951).
So many things have said about the cultural assimilation, and so many people have struggled to live the new society to prove themselves and work hard to absorb the new life by learning the language and new culture. So many people devoted their lives to assimilate to be part of American society. Cultural assimilation does not only means to survive in the new life, but also people who try to fit in the new society. A society where people are not judged by their class, money, or education, but are determined by race, color, religion, and where they come from. Do we really and profoundly feel what it means to be part of new society? Do we keep following the stereotypes that we have created in our very own minds, which is, if we speak the same language with same exact dialect, and we share common interests from the new culture, we lose our own cultural roots or background? To make a long story short, what is cultural assimilation means? One of the brilliant examples from personal experience is revealing a particular point of view on the matter of the outstanding work of Richard Rodriguez “Hunger of Memory”. Rodriguez shows cultural assimilation in his personal examples, and displays the issue completely by talking about himself as a Mexican-American who tried to survive a new way of life to become something of himself. In this book, Rodriguez tries to idealize not only his way of life when he assimilates, but he includes his feeling of being alienated from his own culture, his background, society, and his family. He believes that his existence in American society made him understand what it is to be a Mexican American, and what it is to be a minority f...
In such a multicultural world, being knowledgeable and understanding of not only your cultural background, but that of others is essential. Building my awareness on cultures different from my own, and how it shapes an individual’s identity, will foster my personal and professional development. Subsequently, I conducted a cultural interview with an individual whose cultural background differed from my own. Several similarities and differences between our cultures were apparent in the interview, specifically in the areas of race, ethnicity, language, values, and worldview.
This research project is focused on how food exists to not only help us survive, but also for helping to create and shape identities, especially the national identity for Mexico. I will approach this topic primarily through a discussion on the formation of Mexican cuisine, but also about how food tells us stories about history, art, tradition, globalization, authenticity, and on gendered food identities, particularly on the role of women and their sense of empowerment through the evolution of Mexican cuisine. Mexico’s ethnic food was a part of their culture, but it became problematic when the Europeans brought with them a variety of new foods and looked at Mexican food as suspicious
In Michael Pollan’s “The End of Cooking” shares the message of what we are losing something important in this day and age because of all our pre-made and processed foods. This can be compared with Kothari’s “If You Are What You Eat, What Am I?” and her argument that food is part of one’s own identity. By using the examples from these two texts you can analyze the state of food and culture in the United States today. All of the processed and pre-made foods are causing people all across America to lose their sense of Culture. We no longer know what it’s like to make one of our cultures specialty dishes from scratch which can help people identify with their culture. This process helped newer generations see what it was like for those before them to cook on a daily basis and could help them identify your sense of culture.
The subject of this paper is Liz, a 52-year old, 1.5 generation female immigrant from Hong Kong. What this means is that she immigrated to the United States when she was a child, around 7-years old (Feliciano Lec. 1/4/2016). As a child of a family that consists of five siblings and two parents that did not speak any English prior to immigrating, the focus of this paper will be on the legal processes that the family went through to become legal immigrants and the various factors that aided in her path towards assimilation.
A cultural assessment interview is very important when taking care of patients or their families who may be from a different culture than the nurse’s. In order to be able to better take care of a patient, we first need to know their own interpretation of disease and illness within their cultural context, values, and beliefs. Since I am Indian and my culture is a mix of the Indian cultural beliefs and my religion Islam, I was looking forward to this interview so that I am able to learn more about different cultures using my assessment.
Cultural competence has to do with one’s culture. Culture affects among other factors, how children are raised, how families communicate, what is considered normal or abnormal, ways of coping with issues, the way we dress, when and where we seek medical treatment, and so forth. I should know because I come from a very cultural home where it is considered bad to talk to a male doctor about anything gynecological.
A sudden change in one’s surroundings can result in culture shock. Culture shock refers to the anxiety and surprise a person feels when he or she is discontented with an unfamiliar setting. The majority of practices or customs are different from what a person is used to. One may experience withdrawal, homesickness, or a desire for old friends. For example, when a person goes to live in a different place with unfamiliar surroundings, they may experience culture shock. Sometimes it is the result of losing their identity. In the article “The Phases of Culture Shock”, Pamela J. Brink and Judith Saunders describe four phases of culture shock. They are: Honeymoon Phase, Disenchantment Phase, Beginning Resolution Phase, and Effective Function Phase. These phases denote some of the stages that exemplify culture shock. The four phases are illustrated in the articles “New Immigrants: Portraits in Passage” by Thomas Bentz, “Immigrant America: A Portrait” by Alejandro Portes and Ruben G. Rumbaut, “When I Was Puerto Rican” by Esmeralda Santiago, “Today’s Immigrants, Their Stories” by Thomas Kessner and Betty Boyd Caroli, and lastly, “The New Americans: Immigrant Life in Southern California” by Ulli Steltzer, and are about the experiences of some immigrants. This essay will examine the four phases of culture shock and classify the experiences of these immigrants by the different phases of culture shock identified.
Food and eating are two key social and cultural identity indicators that bring people of the same culture closer together. Food and eating are viewed as cultural and social symbols, and deviating from these norms may be harmful to an outsider’s ability to fit in (Crouch & O’Neill, 2000, pp. 182-183; Cornejo Happel, 2012, pp. 175-176). For example, Buddy drinks Coca-Cola directly from the bottle, instead of asking for a glass, which is seen as inappropriate by the family (Berg et al., 2003, 44:01). When Buddy joins Walter’s family for dinner, Buddy asks for maple syrup to put on his meal; the family is taken aback because, in their culture, it is atypical for maple syrup to be put onto spaghetti (44:16). This is normal for Buddy and those of the Elf culture, who believe that “the four main food groups [are] candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup” (44:40). This is seen as strange and repulsive to Americans who, albeit consume sugary foods, try to consume a more balanced diet. Food norms are important to follow in order to fit into a new culture. Even where shared foods across cultures exist, there are often norms around how and when to consume these foods (Cornejo Happel, 2012, pp. 175-176). Instead of bonding over shared food products like maple syrup or Coca-Cola, Buddy alienates himself from his family by the ways in which he consumes these foods. Through adaptation and acculturation, one’s food preferences may change and thus one’s identity may shift (Ishak, Zahari & Othman, 2013, pp. 439-440). If Buddy were to adapt to the local food customs, he may find it easier to fit in with his family and those around
Food is traditionally considered as a simple means of subsistence but has developed to become filled with cultural, psychological, religious, and emotional significance. Consequently, food is currently used as a means of defining shared identities and symbolizes religious and group customs. In the early 17th and 18th centuries, this mere means of subsistence was considered as a class maker but developed to become a symbol of national identity in the 19th centuries. In the United States, food has been influenced by various cultures such as Native American, Latin America, and Asian cultures. Consequently, Americans have constantly Americanized the foods of different cultures to become American foods. The process on how Americans have Americanized different cultures’ foods and reasons for the Americanization is an important topic of discussion.
Participating in any cross-cultural event can be interesting, challenging, and a bit overwhelming. It can leave a person with mixed emotions, some positive and some negative. I believe the outcome of the overall experience relies upon the individual's ability to adjust to situations and to be sensitive to cultural difference. We must understand that these differences are what makes our cultures unique. This paper will provide a detailed write up of the cultural interaction I experienced during a recent tour of Niagara Falls, New York City, and Washington D.C. I will draw upon the concepts learned in this course, and annotate any successes or failures while building my CQ capacity.
Have you ever thought of that recipe that just keeps getting passed down and it just keeps getting better as years go by. As a latina food is probably one of the most important and richest part of my culture. If you don’t eat abuelita (grandma) will hear the growling of your stomach from blocks away and make you eat plates of her cooked food. Growing up in a Mexican culture my mother would cook everyday but eating all together as a family meant everything the room would never be silent and crowded. My aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins and my family would all get together for our plate of mole to start the night good.