food and gloablization

Globalization, food labor, gender, and race seem so different but the truth is that they can all be interrelated at times. Centuries ago globalization of food and food labor began when food was spread from Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Not only was food shared among various peoples but along with the food came the ways it was produced and prepared. With farmers, mainly men, producing the main produce and women preparing the food for consumption, there were commonalities across the globe and if not they grew into the customs of the areas. Food is one thing that everyone in the entire world has in common since everyone has to eat, even if the food is different. Even within the same country there will be differences between races and the food that is consumed but how the food gets to the mouth tends to be very similar even between races and countries. Women working in domestic kitchens are common all across the world whereas if men are associated with food it is in a professional setting that is very public and supposedly more demanding. The few times in history that women have been paid for their labor in the kitchen was usually when they working in the homes of very wealthy people and prepared the meals for the family, not in a public setting. The globalization of food has caused not only the foods of different areas to spread but also the dishes and specialties that are associated with each food and with that comes who completes the task. Every culture is different in its own way but since everyone is human we are likely to have some similarities and once we have started to spread out and share ideas more similarities will appear and while everything will still be different there will always be something that links us all together, food and its processes.

cultural cookbooks

Kids Cooking by the editors of Klutz Press may not seem like a very cultural cookbook but what better cookbook to describe the American culture. Kids Cooking isn’t really racially or class biased but this cookbook does an excellent job portraying the identity of children. Very often when children are younger they want to explore in the kitchen and feel like they are “big kids” who are able to help prepare significant parts of meals. The book Through the Kitchen Window tells many stories of young girls who grew up watching their mother or grandmother work in the kitchen and how they were able to help out with the small things that helped to create the bigger food item. Many of the stories in Through the Kitchen Window that include kids in the kitchen are often of immigrant families to the United States rather than families who have a more solid base in the United States so children’s cookbooks like Kids Cooking do a nice job of introducing American children to the kitchen. This is a book that allows parents and their children to work together and to learn from each other the intricacies of the kitchen. Learning how to keep a safe and clean kitchen and how to properly read recipes is one of the first things that this cookbook introduces and for many people who don’t have a kitchen background, this can be quite confusing. Learning how to make scrambled eggs and later muffins is a great way for kids to not only understand how to make the foods but to see how important each individual meal is to the entire American cuisine. Moving on to dancing tuna salad in an ice cream cone and five different ways to cook a potato, kids learn how many different foods are common in our society and they are simple enough that everyone can prepare them. Often cuisine and culture are associated with rigidly defined groups such as Indian, Armenian, or Jewish but there are also many cultural foods that can also be associated with ages of people and the amount of time that people have spent in the kitchen, such as kids or new chefs. Kids Cooking may be one of the simplest cookbooks in print but it makes an excellent point in introducing people in America to the basic homemade staples that are often forgotten and form the basis for our culture.

My madeleine!

When I think of what my madeleine or food that is connected with me, for whatever reason I think of mashed potatoes. I have no idea when I first ate potatoes, most likely when I was a small child since they are mashed, but they have always been a food that I have loved and considered a comfort food. My dad always jokes that I am the meat and potatoes girl while my brother is the veggie boy; I guess that might have been helped along by my love for mashed potatoes.
While potatoes did come from South American natives originally and were brought to Europe by some of the first explorers, potatoes are often associated with Ireland. Since potatoes are not a new food and mashed potatoes have been around for most likely just as long, there isn’t really any way to determine who first had the idea to mash the starch.
Most mashed potato recipes are made with milk and/or butter and sometimes cheese to keep the potatoes moist but I am not a part of the norm and prefer them made with the potato water that they were originally cooked in. Obviously water doesn’t give quite the creamy texture or flavor but that was what I was raised on and so that I the way I take my potatoes! Due to this pickiness of mine I often don’t enjoy potatoes that are made commercially as much as I enjoy ones that are homemade, especially by my family. While I can eat, and sometimes enjoy, mashed potatoes that are made with more ingredients than simply water and seasoning, my one absolute is that they have to be made with “real” potatoes. I will not eat mashed potatoes that are instant and made from flakes; even if the flakes are dried potatoes I find the texture and flavor to be drastically different and not for my palate.
I am fortunate enough to enjoy a food that is well known in the culture that I am a part of and is at least known, if not well, in many other cultures across the world. Though my pickiness may limit me, mashed potatoes are my madeleine, the food that I have had for so long I don’t remember the first time and that when they are good, I thoroughly enjoy!

meat?

As I read through the book My Year of Meats I have been thinking about meat more and more as one might think from the title. My main question is what is meat since so many people seem to have so many different answers. Catholics seem to think that meat is from animals that walk on the ground, not swim. Then there are the people who claim to be vegetarians because they don't eat "red" meat. So what makes up meat? According to Webster's Dictionary meat is: a solid food as distinguished from drink, animal and especially animal flesh considered as food, and the edible part inside a covering (as a shell or a rind). Since a mammal is a warm-blooded vertabrate and a fish is a cold-blooded vertebrate I guess the Catholics who eat fish during their meatless Fridays are correct. Fish however, seems to be the only animal that can legitimately qualify as a meat so people who call themselves vegetarians for not eating "red" meat are big fat liars!
Obviously the scientists who determined what is a mammal and thus a meat have had much more training than I have ever had but I must admit my disagreement with these choices. I personally think that any animal should be considered meat but I must go with the rest of the world and live with people who eat fish when they don't eat "meat."

Apples!

An apple a day keeps the doctor away. As American as apple pie. Apples are a very familiar part of life whether we eat them or not, we cannot deny that they are well known. Though not originally grown in the United States, apples have been here for quite some time and occasionally it is possible to find some of the apples that were first grown in the US. Some of the oldest apples are known as heritage apples since apples like the gala and granny smith haven’t always been around. It makes sense to think that apples are not man-made products but in reality the king of fruit has had a little help along the way to create new types of apples. Hybrid apples have developed as scientists have combined the bases of various apples such as the Jonathan and the Golden Delicious which combine to create the Jonagold apple. The Jonagold not only combines the flavors and textures of its parent apples but is one of few apples that doesn’t average the size of the apples but rather adds the two together and creates an apple that on average is about 450 grams, more than an average of the two apples combined.
Apples are so well known and appreciated because they are not only available in so many forms but also available almost all year long. Apple juice, cider, pie, and wine are just a few of the common uses of apples in addition to fresh and crisp apples right off the tree. Through refrigeration that actually takes two parts of the apples to be put back in later in the year, apples are able to be kept fresh almost all year round even though the season is only from about August through October.
Apples are part of the food that is consumed everyday by everybody. To understand and appreciate the fruit that is considered the king of all fruits is to understand and appreciate a base of America, the apple seed.

Doing Gender

Though my experience in the food industry is not extremely extensive, I have had some experience in different areas and in different contexts. I guess the first experience I have had would be in my own home which is a bed and breakfast where obviously breakfast is served. In addition I have worked on the dietary staff at a Senior Care Center and in the kitchen at a summer camp, all very different yet similar experiences. At home my mother is the main chef who prepares breakfast for guests and my brother and I help out when we are home and able whereas my father does what he wants and tends to enter the kitchen at the most inopportune times. Working in a retirement home was really my first job outside of my home that involved food preparation, serving, and cleaning up. At this job I soon realized that most of the head chefs were men and the servers were women. Though there are currently a couple men working at serving meals, for the longest time any men who worked in the department rarely saw the outside of the dish room let alone the main dining room, when they got out of the dish room it was to serve meals to the residents who were ailing the most and often unaware of their surroundings. When I started working at summer camp I had the position of the kitchen floater which meant that I was lucky enough to prepare food in the kitchen before meals, keep an eye on the salad bar in the dining hall during meals, and wash the dishes after meals. For the most part the girls worked in the kitchen and the dining hall and the boys worked in the dish room. I was the only girl to work with the dirty dishes which most considered to be the man’s work.
All of these jobs haven’t really shown me a distinction of class within the food industry but they have definitely shown me the difference between genders. The women who are in the food industry are the faces, they get the recognition of being servers but when something goes wrong it is usually their fault for whatever reason. The men then tend to cover the extremes of head chef or dish boy. The men are assigned their roles and run with them while the women are often directed from many different people. The food industry is not necessarily corrupt in its ways but definitely biased in its job opportunities.

A Most Memorable Meal

Using a holiday meal as a most memorable meal seems to be an easy way out of thinking back to other possible meals that are considered normal, every-day meals. This past Christmas however was a meal that I will remember for quite some time for many reasons. This meal was filled with food and family that doesn’t always have the opportunity of coming together. Having almost all of my mother’s family in attendance as well as my father’s mother’s family who all gathered at my house we all totaled 22 people.
My Aunt Rosi from Sicily, Aunt Sara who lives in Switzerland with her three children and my dad’s cousin and his wife who is from Brazil were all at my house for the first time together. Three continents were represented at the three tables that were needed to seat all of the people and so many different types of food were present on our buffet full of overflowing dishes. When my family hosts holiday meals at my home my mother asks everyone to bring a dish for dinner and an appetizer or dessert and she typically makes a meat-based main dish and there is always plenty of food for everyone during the meal and leftovers for at least a day.
This year’s Christmas meal was more eclectic than normal due to the diverse population and the foods that everyone brought. My aunt from Sicily made the lasagna that her mother had taught her to make that has everything except the kitchen sink in it and tastes amazing. From Brazil a marinated chicken was prepared that was absolutely mouthwatering and enjoyed by all. My grandmother traded positions with my mom and brought the main meat dish, a ham. This ham was from the local butcher that has caused me to be very picky about where the meat I eat comes from. Most importantly though was the mustard sauce that accompanied the ham, a sauce that my great-grandmother always made whenever ham was served in her house. More traditional dishes such as mashed potatoes and stuffing were left off the menu and substitutes were new dishes such as a mashed pear and turnip dish that was a recommendation from a culinary magazine and my grandmother’s spiced brussel sprouts. With so many dishes there was such a nice variety with something that made everyone happy.
Dessert was another part of the meal that brought many different types together. One of my grandmothers had made cookies that she hadn’t made since my mother’s childhood which were added to a tray of many different cookies that I had made over the previous week as I discovered my love of baking. Chocolate was also a key staple for dessert but it came in many different forms and flavors. With boxes of chocolates with various fillings, chocolate covered pretzels, and specially flavored chili chocolate brought from Switzerland there was something for everyone who enjoys chocolate.
This past Christmas was a meal that was a time that brought people and food together that probably won’t come together again until I get married which will be quite a while. This was a meal that turned into more of an event that was able to join people together over food, the center for most American conversation.