Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Relationship between food and culture
Why food is an important part of the culture
The relationship of food and culture
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Relationship between food and culture
Meal Analysis Essay
Food is one of the underlying factors of our everyday lives. Every animal needs nourishment to survive, but for us humans it can be so much more. It can connect people on many different levels from broad and professional to intimate and personal. Eating releases endorphins in the brain making food a pleasurable and comforting thing. In many cultures, food is also celebratory. In the United States, one is almost guaranteed to see some sort of food at any event. From birthdays to funerals to weddings—food is almost always used as a way to celebrate. In Raymond Carver’s “A Small, Good Thing” Carver uses food throughout the story to reveal the significance it has in everyday life. Carver’s story, along with Caitlin and Nicole’s
…show more content…
The story starts out with a mother going to a bakery to order a birthday cake for her son’s upcoming birthday. Instead of having a birthday party after school that day, Scotty, the son, is rushed to the hospital after he becomes unconscious from being knocked down by a car. The parents, Ann and Howard, are told over and over again that Scotty will be just fine. Throughout the few days that they are waiting for Scotty’s recovery, they strengthen their bond together over this tragic event. All the while, the birthday cake was never picked up. The baker is frustrated that he wasted his time baking this cake, so he repeatedly calls the house. Ann and Howard don’t realize who this mysterious caller is until the end of the story, after being blindsided by Scotty’s sudden untimely death. The couple goes to confront the baker late at night and instead they end up making a connection with him while eating the decadent food the baker provides for …show more content…
Nicole writes that lasagna fills her with excitement and anticipation (Ramsey). Caitlin explicitly writes that beef stew comforts her (Paredes). They both write about how delicious their favorite meals are for them and use expressions like “feeling[s] of warmth” (Paredes) and “a smell that makes your mouth start watering” (Ramsey). Along with the food, they both explain that part of the reason the food is so comforting to them is because it is a family event. Nicole affectionately writes that she gets to “see all the people [she] love[s] at the same place and the same time.” Similarly, Caitlin writes that she and her family “come around the dinner table and laugh, smile and love”
The meal, and more specifically the concept of the family meal, has traditional connotations of comfort and togetherness. As shown in three of Faulkner’s short stories in “The Country”, disruptions in the life of the family are often reinforced in the plot of the story by disruptions in the meal.
In the narrative “Food Is Good” author Anthony Bourdain humorously details the beginning of his journey with food. Bourdain uses lively dialogue with an acerbic style that sets his writing apart from the norm. His story began during his childhood and told of the memories that reverberated into his adulthood, and consequently changed his life forever. Bourdain begins by detailing his first epiphany with food while on a cruise ship traveling to France. His first food experience was with Vichyssoise, a soup served cold.
Neither life nor culture can be sustained without food. On a very basic level, food is fundamentally essential for life, not simply to exist, but also to thrive. A means by which carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, nutrients, and calories are introduced into the body, food is a mechanism of survival. However, on a more abstract level, food is also fundamentally essential for culture by establishing its perimeters and dimensions and in shaping its authenticity and character. Food becomes the carbohydrates and calories that maintain any culture. Food offers a dynamic cross-section of man's tendencies. "Nourishment, a basic biological need," argues anthropologist Sidney Mintz, "becomes something else because we humans transform it symbolically into a system of meaning for much more than itself" (7). By examining food consumption and preparation, much is discoverd regarding the intricacies of culture. The preparation and consumption of food in Puritan society are reflected in Mary Rowlandson's The Sovereignty and Goodness of God. Rowlandson's view of food and admissions of hunger in the infancy of her captivity cast a revealing light upon the roots of her conceptions and ideas about food and, more generally, about her culture's conceptions and ideas about food. As the conflict between her soul and her stomach raged over food, Rowlandson's attitudes toward the Native Americans' preparation and consumption of food reflect the socialization of the Puritans to believe that every meal ...
The movie, The Outsiders, starts with the Curtis parents on their weekly, Saturday evening drive to the baking store to buy some ingredients for their boys’ favorite Sunday morning, breakfast treat: chocolate cake. The Curtis boys love their chocolate cake for Sunday breakfast not only because they love it, but also because they appreciate how hard their parents have to work to save the monies necessary for the morsels that put smiles on their faces!
... Nestle’s quote, Bittman makes his editorial plea to ethos, by proposing proof that a woman of reliable mental power of this issue come to an agreement with Bittman's thesis statement. Bittman also develops pathos in this article because he grabs a widely held matter that to many individuals is elaborate with: "...giving them the gift of appreciating the pleasures of nourishing one another and enjoying that nourishment together.” (Mark Bittman) Bittman gives the reader the actions to think about the last time they had a family dinner and further imposes how these family dinners are altogether important for family time. Therefore, Bittman did a magnificent job in pointing into the morals of his targeted audience and developing a critical point of view about fast food to his intended audience leaving them with a thought on less fast food and more home prepared meals.
In the beginning the food imagery shows Charlie’s unrealistic sense of control and inflated notion of self. Charlie takes great comfort at home as a child, he has the freedom to manage his own life and observe others from a distance. Life at home is “a piece of cake” for Charlie. His description of life as “a piece of cake” (195) shows the softness and leniency of his surroundings. Charlie feels satisfied at home he creates a routine, a recipe...
MaxField Mary. “Food as Thought Resisting Moralization of Eating”. They Say I Say with Readings 3rd. Eds. Gerald Graff,Cathy Birkenstein and Russel Durst. New York: W.W Norton and Company, Inc, 2016 442-447 Print.
On the first day of school, finding a spot to sit is often the biggest obstacle one can encounter. You cannot sit with just anyone. It has to be with someone we know, and if not, we ask for their permission because we are technically intruding on their meal. It might seem silly, but it is true. Food is a part of life; essential, and we cannot share a meal with just anyone. Alfred Hitchcock illustrates the intimacy that a meal brings to the plot within his films Rope and The Man Who Knew Too Much. Thomas C. Foster in “Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion.” claims that meals are forms of communion that function as catalysts in a storyline to expose relationships among people. He argues that a “mundane, overused, fairly boring situation” of a meal must have an additional motive for the author, because the meal by itself is simply a meal.
...orld, wondering what aweful thing might be lurking unseen around the corner. In “A Small, Good Thing,” Carver shows how strong Americans can be, how it is part of their nature to find a way to begin again and continue the story, which is the most beautiful kind of ending. This is what good literary fiction should do: bring a mirror up to your face so that you see who you are with clarity, without losing sight of the world beyond you.
As the stories unfold, new symbols are discovered and new lessons are learned. The Joy Luck Club has opened new doors and inspired many with substantial influences in the areas of cuisine, art, and popular culture. Food’s role is pivotal in The Joy Luck Club, every mother has a broad repertoire of traditional dishes, and every family gathering has plenty of delicious cookery. In Joelen Tan’s case, the mouth-watering recipes have inspired her “Read, Watch & Eat event”, at which she and her “friends shared Chinese-inspired dishes”(J. Tan).
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 short story, "A Small, Good Thing" by Raymond Carver tells of two American parents dealing with their son's hospitalization and death as the result of a hit-and-run car accident. The insensitive actions of their local baker add to their anger and confusion, yet by the end of the story, leave them with a sense of optimism and strength. With such content, Carver runs the risk of coming across as sentimental; however, this is not the case, and the anguish of the parents and their shock at the situation is expressed with dignity and understatement. It is a story with a broad appeal: the simple prose makes it accessible to a wide audience, while the complex themes and issues make it appealing to the educated reader. Written in Carver's characteristically minimalist style, the story poignantly evokes not only the trauma of the death of a child, but also the breakdown of communication and empathy in society. The plain and direct narrative style suits the content, conveying the lack of communication that is central to the narrative - between the parents, between the hospital staff, and with the baker. Critically, it is generally considered one of Carver's strongest short stories. It is a tale of isolation and of grief, but also of hope, and, with its fluid, pared-down style, clearly demonstrates why Carver is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the late 20th century.
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.
Food has been a great part of how he has grown up. He was always interested in how food was prepared. He wanted to learn, even if his mother didn’t want him to be there. “I would enter the kitchen quietly and stand behind her, my chin lodging upon the point of the hip. Peering through...
This statement by Druckman portrays the belief that women cook for the emotional experience while men cook for the technical experience. Research conducted by Marjorie DeVault (1991) suggests wives and mothers cook as a way to show their love to their family. Similarly, research by Cairns, Johnston, and Baumann (2010) discusses women’s emotional responses to cooking for their family and friends. Both studies highlight the emotion and nurture women feel as they cook for others. The studies’ discussion about the nurturing aspect of cooking demonstrates the traditional feminine belief that women cook in order to nurture their families as discussed by Friedan (1963) and Hochschild