There were samples of ethnic food given out at Costco today. I applaud the entrepreneurs.
What was presented was a combination of Azerbaijani and Afghanistani foods, presented by supposed Afghani men using products made in Los Angeles. What a way to win over the stomachs of the US!
Seriously, the food was very good while the presentation was very ‘native.’ I wish them much luck, however, in introducing food into the WW that’s eaten without a knife and fork.
Does this belong in Mundane Babble? I hope not.
One way of understanding other cultures is through food. The US has no real, individual, culture because we’re a melting pot of cultures. Are we ready to take on more than hummus and try some really different foods?
Nahh… I only go for true all American food; spaghetti sandwiches with ketchup and mustard, a little extra oatmeal in the spaghetti sauce to make up for the under cooked rice noodles or spinach, a little cayenne and chili pepper for zest. No need for all that foreign crap.
But to the OP. We humans are picky til we try. I have turned down food because of ingredients and poor knowledge of where the recipe originated only to try it later in utter ignorance then find out what I ate. I could not deny that I enjoyed it at that point.
Getting past our pre-judging instincts is tough. Ignorance helps this kneejerk block into accepting. It would be nice to figure out how to apply this and get around false barriers.
To get back to the OP, are we ready to learn about other cultures–are we willing to learn about other cultures? Is using ethnic food a way of breaking down cultural barriers?
We all live in the same world. Is food a way of learning other cultures? I think, if globalization ends up being economically feasible, we’ll all end up a couple of hundred years from now (we should last so long) being pretty much homogenized. Don’t you think?–so?
How else could a one-world government be created?
Conspiracy theorists and Bilderbergers are invited to respond. And I am being serious.
Hmm, thought I did address the op. You have to find a way to stop the kneejerk reactions of squeamishness. For instance real veal is not allowed to be sold in the US. Most people here find out they are eating aborted calf would get sick. Baby animals are eaten through out the world, not so much in mainstream USA. Food does break down barriers as we can see in the countless ethnic restaurants. Look at Sushi bars. I wont eat it but my kid will. We are accepting Japanese culture now where once we were enemies.
Sorry, kris, my OP was an introduction to my second post. But what you’ve said is very true. People have accepted–and enjoyed–sushi. People eat seaweed, as well. It’s very good and provides a lot of vitamins and elements that people need.
But there’s a culture in food. So I’m asking if, in accepting the food, we’re not also accepting the culture?
A lot of people eat food scooped up on a piece of bread–or even scooped up in their fingers. We all did, back in time, before cutlery was invented.
I think this is what I’m trying to get at. We all need food. That food is going to differ depending on where we live in the world. How the food is prepared and eaten is also going to differ, depending on where we live. But doesn’t that all boil down to one thing?
We are all the same! We are all one people! The entire world is populated by Homo Sapian sapian, all of whom need to eat.
That is our Culture the results of the mixing of differant cultures in a short amount of tiem in conjuction with American Patriotism.
This along with our countries vast size and youthfullness, combined with recent (generally) growth of entertainment industis and consumerism have left identifying American Culture difficult for those not born into it and even for those who were.
I like to try new food.
However, I still am judgemental towards various races and cultures.
When someone knows how to make good food, I respect it, but also I don’t want them to turn around and be an asshole.
White man’s food is from the first colonial food styles. It is what ever you can get from the farm.
Omelettes, pie, steak, mashed potatoes with gravy, those are top notch classics.
Later white man’s food got effected by synthetic flavors and the market. So things like chocolate were added to our foods list.
I had a class about the anthropology of food, and one of the big assignments was to write about a meal-based celebration that was had cultural significance to our family.
The professor, who was from Mexico and talked about Mexican food and Mexican holidays often, expressly forbid us to use Easter, Christmas, or Thanksgiving, because if she ‘allowed those, that’s all anybody would do’.
I asked around, and pretty much everybody in the class (including me) did the same thing- we lied. We took the fact that we were half irish or half german or our grandparents visited Scotland once, and looked up on the internet to see what people in these places eat, and made up a bullshit story around it. I’m fifth generation Aroostook County, so I made up some shit about the depression and my grandparent’s oxtail soup.
Anyway, point being, the U.S. does have a food culture, a really obvious one, some folks just don’t want to hear about it- and they don’t want to hear about it so HARD that some apparently have forgotten it exists.
Having live inside the US for most of my life, and outside for approximately 2.5 years, I’ve changed my mind about US food culture. I would have agreed with Lizbeth before, that the US has no distinct food culture. I most certainly don’t any more. It’s not quite as easy to characterize it, I would say, as it is to characterize certain other cultural cuisine styles, because it is quite a ‘melting pot’ and there’s a lot of variety within it because of that, but having lived abroad, I’ve come to recognize that people in the US have quite a distinct palate. It’s not easy to pin down or describe, as I said, but it’s there.
Lizbeth, accepting food is more expression of tolerance than acceptance. If we sent US citizens to live in Japan, live by the customs, ethics and morality of the Japanese people would they be able to accept it? I would say it might or most likely depend upon age. Younger people would be far more open then older. You could reverse that and the same would be said for Japanese brought here. Young will adapt, older will most likely not. Tolerate will be what older people do, not accept. Food leads to tolerance that leads to the younger being able to accept.
So what is that food culture, Ucci? Does it spring from what was available to the first colonists, only? Or did the first colonists adapt what was available in the New World with the tastes they’d brought with them from the Old World? In other words, did the first colonists cook a turkey the way they’d cook hens in England or did they learn the way to cook a turkey the Native American way? American food is an adaptation of what’s available, isn’t it? And it’s very regional, still, because we’re still a young country.
I’ve also spent a lot of time living in Germany. When we went back a couple of years ago, my mouth was watering for the food I remembered. Guess what?–a Frankfurter wurst tastes like a hot dog–that mainstay of back yard bbqs–the ‘all-American’ treat that goes with the ‘all-American’ game–baseball! The hamburger is possibly more American–although some date ground meat back to Ancient Egypt. The Mongols also contributed to it, since they, it’s said, put raw meat under their saddles as they galloped into battle. By the time the battle was over, the meat had been pounded and softened enough to eat–raw–hence steak tartare that comes from Russia.
So food is only a part of the cultures of the world and the US has no real food culture completely our own. Food in the US is an adaptation of foods from around the world.
Please recognize that I’m trying to answer more than Ucci’s post here. My reply may become a melting pot, as a result.
And food is only a part of culture. Would/could food, then, be used as a way of infiltrating the US?
Obscenely large portions of meat (by other countries standards) served at family gatherings, usually revolving around holidays. Barbecue, soul food, all mixed with locally grown vegetables and produce. The interesting thing about American food culture is that it tends to be more about when you eat than what- as far as the ‘what’ is concerned, the huge portions of meat are the uniquely American aspect of the whole thing because of the massive amount of land space we have to devote to it. But while a person could, possibly, discuss American food culture without bringing up beef, pork, or chicken, (though I doubt it) you can’t discuss it without bringing up Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas, birthdays, or increasingly, major sporting events.
So, why are you making this question much, much MUCH more complicated than it would be if you were asking the same question of any other country? A countries food culture is what, when, and why they eat that sets their habits apart from other cultures. What’s the big deal?
…what the hell would it take to make a food ‘completely of our own’ by that standard? You want us to fly to an alien planet and capture some creature nobody else in the world has even eaten before, and grill it up? You really think nobody thought of using tomatoes to make a sauce before the Italians did it? What, ground beef isn’t authentic U.S. food? I guess by extension tacos aren’t authentic Mexican food either…it’s just Mongol meat and Jewish unleavened bread after all.
So this is a lost and losable thread. That’s fine. I was trying to link food with culture–kind of like “A man’s heart is through his stomach.”
In trying to do so, I was asking if we can accept food without accepting culture. We adapt that food; we adapt the cultures it represents. But we don’t accept the people the food represents.
Why not?
There’s obviously more than food within a culture. But food can tell people a lot about ethnic culture, if people know how to read it.
That’s right lizbeth - you know I love that that ethnic food. especially when I’m hung over. You know it has no bearing on whether I give a crap about the culture or not, - but as long as I can hit up that Chinese buffet for all it’s got, you know I’m a happy camper. Maybe when I sober up I can appreciate that 7 dollar cuisine - but don’t necessarily bet your house on it.
I’ve never been to a world fair, but I did eat baba ganoush as a dip with black bean and garlic taco chips tonight. How’s that for an American combination!?
But all of this misses the point I was trying to make. Does food from the Levant–Afghanistan–Israel–Mexico–Brazil–change our culture? Does it make us more willing to acceptother cultures? Are we, as US people, willing to admit that we’re a world culture? Are we willing to admit that, as a new country, we’re a true melting pot of other cultures?
LOL