taste

Taste is a sense that most of the world is privileged to have. Often associated with consuming food, taste however is not just an experience with food but with any other aspect of life. Tasting food nonetheless does form many of the experiences that we have in life. Taste is essential in truly enjoying the food that we eat and being able to appreciate the food, the preparation, and the ambiance of the area. Though we taste with our tongue where we are eating plays a big part in how much we actually taste and savor the flavors of what we eat rather than simply inhaling or scarfing down a burger at a fast food joint. Taking the time to enjoy the people that you are eating with, and if not, at least the actual food that you are consuming really plays into the taste that you receive from the food. Arlene Avakin describes her American relatives as not knowing “the taste of their own tongues” because so often in American we speed through our meals not even realizing what we are eating let alone taking time to taste everything. Class, and in some ways race, often determines the taste that people have because of the food that they often eat. Spending lots of time eating at fast food restaurants and eating food out of cardboard boxes people of lower classes tend to lose any of the flavor that is left in foods by rushing through everything that they eat. We are more likely to find people of an upper class status who have a more developed sense of taste because of the time set aside specifically for dining and enjoying the food that is eaten and the people who they are with. When a person is able to appreciate what they are eating they are more likely to have an appreciation for who made the food and who they are eating it with, if anyone, and are more likely to be able to taste all the different flavors. Everyone has their own tastes that they enjoy and appreciate but often these tastes are shaped by the environment around you and what you have had the opportunity to experience.

cuisine

What is cuisine? Such a deep question can be explained as generally as a system of communication or a code as Mary Douglas or Warren Belasco might put it. Cuisine is a system of thinking about and creating food that often has a “theme” or specific patterning to it that is based from the availability of sources as well as the geography and climate of where the food is produced and made. It is necessary that groups have a cuisine because cuisines lead to cultural identities. Many places are too large to have one specific national cuisine but often the different subcultures have commonalities that can join together to form a general food that can appear to be part of an umbrella cuisine that encompasses a larger number of people. The idea is that cuisine is a form of communication that ties many people together even when they are far apart. As time has progressed more and more people have travelled and migrated to new areas but they have all brought with them the food that has made them who they are. This food that travels with people and doesn’t get lost in the move is what makes up the cuisine of the land that they have left but remains a part of the culture that they are still a part of.
In what is currently Mexico, corn was the main staple of the native diet. With this maize the people made various different dishes but one of the main ones was tortillas. When the Europeans came and conquered the people they brought with them wheat flour that was seen as horrid to the natives. The native people continued to make their tortillas with corn flour even when the Europeans had started to incorporate new foods into their diet. Today in the United States when someone says a tortilla a white flour tortilla is often what comes to mind rather than the traditional corn tortillas that came from the south. Does the change in flour mean that these tortillas are not part of the cuisine that originated in the Mexican area or does this just show that cuisine can adapt to what is preferred for new people? Adapting a food to please employers, the main concept of the tortillas was still kept since it obviously had meaning behind it as well as a connection to other people. Every small group of people is going to have its own specific cuisine but there will often be some similarities that hold all the groups together.
The idea of cuisine is to bring similar people together with food at the center. Soul food originally from the American South has changed as it has moved North but the idea is the same and when someone says “soul food” there is a general idea of greens, fried fish and/or barbeque, and maybe some homemade macaroni and cheese. In the end the exact food served may not be the same but the idea comes from the same place and the smell of the food cooking and the community of people ties everything together and familiarity of the gathering binds the cuisine and the people together.

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.