Assignment 4

Perhaps it is a part of the traditional American lifestyle, namely being disconnected with the source of what’s on the dining table. Therefore, if one believes that “you are what you eat,” then we truly don’t completely know ourselves. What we as a culture value is the ease at which something is made available; fast food, microwavable meals, food taken out of the freezer and thrown in oven and then ready to eat. In this instance, we are what we eat, or at least in the sense that Americans have gained the reputation of being a work-focused, unnecessarily scheduled people.

Then, are we really what we eat, or is what we eat simply a representation of the kind of culture and societal values that a people holds dear? As a college student, cost is what matter most to me. While the food at the dining halls can range from decent to disgusting, it still indicates a value choice. Namely, the emphasis on other matters outside of food, as the focus of both one’s time and wealth is as indicative of what we choose to eat as the food itself. Therefore, it is not that we do not necessarily give much though to what we consume on a daily basis, but that it is indicative of larger trends that food either serves as a tangible indicator for, or is part of the intricate and complex human life.

Below is a book from the library addressing a similar issue:

Dolfsma, Wilfred, ed. Consuming Symbolic Goods: Identity and Commitment, Values and Economics. New York: Routledge, 2008. Print

4th Blog

Reflecting on the food I consume is a task. I operate on twenty dollars a month, give or take, after rent and on weekends shop at a grocery store I like to call the House of Mom and Dad. I am almost done with school (three months, yes) and will have money after this "transition" period so to think of my food now, when I am in a state of abnormality, is difficult.

To think of sustainability and the future of food when I am already constantly thinking of my own future seems arbitrary. But this sounds like I'm saying: "But I'm too busy thinking of myself--I don't have time to care what goes in it." A rather childish way to look at the world.

However sometimes my childish view of not caring about the food I eat is needed. I am done with my teenage obsessions of yesteryear, of what is really in a McDonald's burger or how do they really treat the food I put into my body. Again, I do not have funds to worry, maybe eventually I will.

In Manifestos of the Future of Food, Jamey Lionette says, "As it stands right now only a privileged few can afford real, clean, and sustainable food; soon even the privileged will have little access to such food." I have yet to see the value in such clamoring for food, I will wash my pesticide ridden apples in hot water before I eat them. I do not want to fear a caste system in America over something as simple (and at one time sparse) as food.

Lionette, Jamey. "A View From Behind the Counter." Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed. Ed. Vandana Shiva. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2007. 109-131

Blood Type Influence

Now, we’re getting to the heart of the matter by looking at these various reasons for why we eat what we eat. I believe at a foundational level we’re all influenced by biology and our blood types. For example, type A’s tend toward vegetarian. For me, my blood type 0 as the main influencer in my eating choices. The food that gives me the most energy is lean meat, veggies and fruit which is typical of a type 0 with an excess of stomach acid and an allergy to wheat. Could it be that our values stem from a genetic predisposition to eat certain foods and abhor others? As I’ve analyzed myself, I remember intensely disliking chicken as a child and refusing to eat it. The fact that it was a bird didn’t bother me, but that chickens were gross birds doing and eating disgusting things, and I couldn’t get past it psychologically. Grass eaters on the other hand are clean and eat what is nature has provided-unless their kept in a feed lot and that’s just plain cruel and inhumane and wrong. My food choices are made keeping the smallest “footprint” possible in my use of our natural resources. I compost, reuse, and put back. I think part of our responsibility is to teach others how to be responsible sharers of this small planet, but the answers are not simplistic. The Peace Corp goes to a Third World country to help improve their living conditions and then later are accused by other Americans of wrecking their culture and being imperialistic. No wonder some tend to take an isolationist world stance-we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t!
I've included a website and a book for you to check out:

D’Adamo, Peter, Catherine Whitney. Eat Right 4 Your Blood Type: The Individualized Diet Solution to Staying Healthy, Living Longer & Achieving Your Ideal Weight. New York: Putnam & Sons. 1996. Print.

Here is the official website for Dr. D’Adam- http://www.dadamo.com/bloodtype_O.htm

Fourth blog

They say you are what you eat, so if that statements true than I am the furthest thing from anything healthy. Not that I never eat healthy, but frequently find myself attached to more meat than anything. I know that not all meat if bad, but I feel it was to evenly consume the amount of vegetables and meat I could be healthier. It is evident that my consumption of meats are way higher than veggies, so I think I could be better off eating more healthy since I am getting older.
Being the picky eater I am makes it hard to eat certain things. For example there are some foods I never eat that are good for you like tomatoes, carrots and a few other things out there I am skeptical about. Even when they are combined with other foods making it hard to even taste them, I still won’t eat it. But the funny thing about that is that if I don’t know they are in a particular food, than I will probably eat it if I don’t notice it, but if I do know even if not visible I wont eat. And I happen to eat a dish of potatoes just today not knowing mushrooms were in there and ate it not even tasting them. So I definitely think when it comes to food I am very selective.
Knowing that I am a picky eater, I feel it kind of defines who I am. Like for example the foods I eat on a regular are mostly just basic nothing too exotic. I do feel that I am pretty different from most people, so me being a picky eater I don’t eat a lot of food most people do. I just feel I am me, and not like too many other people or in other words cut from a different cloth. Now if I was the more flashy type of life style, I am sure I will be into would be more into the exotic and fancy foods. So I definitely believe that there is truth to the saying you are what you eat, because what and how a person eat can explain a lot. For me I tend to eat a lot of fast foods and at the same time I am very impatient person who hate waiting on things. I just always want to be on the go, and I even have a need for speed behind the wheel, so I do like things to do things fast. So for me I do believe that the food I eat, the way I eat and what I eat is definitely defines who I am, somewhat.

Barer-Stein, Thelma. You Eat What You Are: People, Culture and Food Traditions. Ontario, Canada: Firefly Books, 1999.

Assignment 4

As I stated in one of my earlier posts, I am a picky eater. I always have been, and I have a feeling it's something that always will be. To be completely honest, I wish I were less picky. I would love to be able to attend dinner parties and events and have no problem finding something that I like, but that is not the case. Though I am getting better as I get older, I still have huge amounts of expansion to do in terms of my diet to be deemed "not a picky eater".

If I were to take the phrase “you are what you eat” literally, I would be a very small amount of things. Unlike most people with a wide variety of foods in their diet, mine consists of a few items that I truly love to eat. Since I don't eat a ton of different types of food, I am very careful about what I eat and make sure what I am eating is healthy. Although I'm a college student with a small budget, I still make it a point to make sure the things I am putting into my body are for my benefit, rather than taking a toll on me physically.

My all-time favorite food would have to be cheese pizza, which isn't necessarily the healthiest choice but it sure hits the tastebuds well :)

Willett, Walter C. M.D. Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating. Free Press; 1 Edition. June 2005.

Assignment 3

Having to harvest one’s own food would undoubtedly foster a closer relationship and understanding with the things that they eat. Having to put effort directly into obtaining food, whether it be simply taking the time to prepare it, let alone growing or hunting it, that connection and time invested forces the individual to reevaluate the kind of work that goes into preparing what you eat.

In my own family, there are varying degrees of this, from my grandparents who grow a fair portion of their own produce, to my extended family in Wisconsin who hunt as part of that regional culture. Even beyond that, one of my great uncles is also a butcher, and often sends venison back home for the holidays. Being raised here, as an outsider to those cultural elements, it is easy to observe not only an understanding of where their food comes from, but also a certain reverence for it. For example, there is a genuine effort made to kill the animal as quickly as possible as to not make it suffer any more than necessary. In this sense, that connection is definitely beneficial as it instills a true sense of the value of what goes on the table. Even if it makes someone a bit unconfortable with what they’re eating, it’s not like they have any other choice.

While hunting may be negatively viewed by a good portion of people, in order to consume meat as humans have done since the immemorial, killing is inherently necessary. What is not necessary however, is to perform that act in a fashion as humane as possible. Perhaps this is my own bias, but I see nothing wrong with hunting in a non-subsistence situation, so long as the animal is killed quickly and with as little pain as possible, and the meat is put to good use. That said, the lengths that the author went to in the assigned reading seemed to be slightly unnecessary in its extravagance.

Here are two works that deal with hunting in the Summit database:

Waterman, Charles F. Hunting in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973.

Print.

Laney, Dawn. Hunting: Opposing Viewpoints. Detroit: Thompson/Gale, 2008. Print.

3rd blog

I do not know if I can answer the question of whether harvesting food gives me a stronger connection to the food I eat. I never tended a garden and I have never shot an animal and eaten it. My father recently planted a tomato bush and it produces some delicious cherry tomatoes but to be honest I have tasted better in a store bought package.

Reading the Urban Deerslayer made me think of how the hunter's viewed their relationship to the deer they were killing. When I eat an animal, first of all, I do not want to be up close and personal with said animal. I would not want to gut my food, and skin my food, and butcher my food. And I have never felt, if I saw a deer eating at my father's garden, the need to seek revenge on the animal and kill him and eat him. When you put this humanistic quality on the animal, this need to seek revenge or the thought that the deer may have known it was your garden, it comes off sounding cannibalistic.

I choose to be an oblivious eater and know this may be wrong. I am not eating an animal because they are overpopulating my community or they are ruining my property. If were to put this kind of emotion in to the act of eating them I would not want to eat meat and the animal would become more than food.

Millstone, Erik and Tim Lang. The Atlas of Food. Berkley Univerisity of California, 2008

Patti, Charles H. The Food Book. New York: Fleet, 1973

A Hunter Gather Point of View

Scavenging has a seriously negative connation for me with the suggestion of extreme poverty. Gleaning is looking over a harvested field and picking up the small fruit or vegetable that got missed by the machinery, scavenging suggests a coyote eating the already dead animal which made reading Rinella’s Scavenger’s Guide difficult to get into. I grew up hunting and fishing and like Rinella, I cringed when he said he enjoyed” killing his own food.” You don’t kill, you hunt. You kill a varmint or a pest. It’s all in the word usage isn’t it? I was learning Spanish and my friends’ sister made up a cassette tape that I could play during a road trip I was taking. What she did was talk about “body parts” instead of” parts of the body. I found fear over taking me as I listened to the tape so I tossed it out the window! –I felt like I was listening to a crime scene description.
It’s in growing our own food that makes us aware of the symbiotic relationship between human beings and the land. There is a “country” proverb: “don’t s….in your own pond” We’ve probably all heard some variation of that bit of wisdom. Those who plant gardens don’t want to eat food grown in chemicals, just as fishermen don’t want our water ways to be polluted so their fish is safe to eat. And who better than a hunter understands the need for culling done by bears and wolves when they eat the sick and weak deer and elk. The population of deer is too big to support itself and so you see diseased, sickly, weak animals that need to have food brought in to them because the predators are removed from the area. Hunters and fishermen understand the need for a healthy ecology.

Gollner, Adam. The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession. New York: Scribner, 2008. Print.

Prose, Francine. Gluttony. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Print.

Blog 3

I think that harvesting your own food could actually give you a stronger connection with the food you hunt because it will bring you back memories. Like for exactly there would be other memories from that day other than actually hunting. It could be a memory of certain scenery or going somewhere memorable to hunt. When you just go to stores to buy your meats I think it will be different because you don’t where the meat actually come from. When you hunt you know where exactly it comes from and also get the opportunity to get the meat without being processed through anyone else.
Although I wouldn’t say that killing your own food is a bad thing, but I would prefer to just buy mine at the store because I don’t know anything about hunting. I also wouldn’t know how to clean the meat properly, so I would just rather buy it. I wouldn’t say hunting is a good or bad thing to do because some people just have to do what they have to do. All cultures are different and there are cultures where they prefer to hunt and cook their own meat. Lower developed countries also seem to have villages and areas where they hunt and kill their own meats and feed to their families. Markets like we have in our country may not be accessible to other countries, meaning in some places they just can’t go buy their meats and food like we can. So it would be totally understandable if people put in those citations kill animals in order to survival. They just can’t starve themselves or their families, so they just doing what’s necessary to survive.

Royal College of Nursing (Great Britain). Nursing Standard. Great Britian: Middx Harrow, 1987.
Bettinger, Pete. Key issues and future directions of mechanized harvesting : discussions and guidance from working groups. Corvallis: Oregone Sate, 1993.

Let's just say “picky” is an understatement

I grew up in a family where we sat down at the table five nights a week to eat dinner together. Now in most families, if you didn't like the food your mom made for dinner that night you didn't eat. At least, that's how the majority of my friends families worked. In my family, things were a little different. Let's just say I was a bit spoiled growing up. If I didn't like the food my mom made, she would go out of her way to make me a meal that she knew I would like. Typically that would be one of 3 different food groups; pizza, chicken nuggets, or the good ol' PB&J. This may or may not have something to do with me, now at 21 years of age, being one of the pickiest eaters I've ever heard of.
Since I grew up here in the United States I have become used to these “normal” foods I eat every day. However, what seems normal to me, might seem completely strange to someone on the other side of the world. We think of foods that are “gross” like described in the article we were assigned to read, but to other cultures and other groups of people, those foods are the norm. It's all a matter of what you've grown up with and what you've been exposed to.

Sargenti, Sara. “Top Seven Deadly Foods: Gross or Tasty?” ABCNews. 19 Oct. 2009.

2nd Blog

A couple years ago I worked in a deli and amongst all the craveable dishes that the deli produced: fried fajitas, fried burritos, fried jalapeno poppers, fried cheese sticks, fried--I think you get the idea, nothing spiked more midnight, or at least, late night cravings than fried chicken livers or fried chicken gizzards. We did not make these fried items daily so if one particular customer did not see fried gizzards and liver, he would make me go back into the freezer, fry up a bag of them, and bring them back to him soaking of grease straight out of the paper bag.

I tried these chicken gizzards and livers one day to see why they sparked such a craving in a my customers and I was immediately dumbfounded. What was wrong with these people? The minute I bit into the fried liver I was hit with an overwhelming taste of iron and grease, and I liked some liver, liverwurst at least. I spit that out and tried a gizzard and could not even get through chewing one gizzard. First because of the texture it was like chewing on an erasure that tasted like liver soaked in grease and batter.

Chicken is a long time staple in American cuisine and for most Americans the phrase "it tastes like chicken" sparks comfort in an uncomfortable meal. Also a long time staple with some Americans seems to be fried food. However the unusualness of this part of the chicken did not spark comfort in me and I think that the fact that it was covered in batter and fried made it even more unappetizing. Fried gizzards and liver are ultimately the grossest thing I've ever eaten.

Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All American Meal. Boston: Houghton

Those psycho barriers are strong

Compared to the eating escapades some adventurous souls I’m really boring. The grossest thing I’ve ever taken a bite of was cow’s liver, breaded in some kind of sauce. Believe me, I did not know what it was or I would never have tasted it. I’m not sure why my stomach rebels at the thought of eating some foods. It’s not like I wasn’t exposed to different animal parts: I saw my grandma cooking a pigs head and feet and using the meat. I helped with the cutting and wrapping of our beef and I knew what our home made sausage was encased in! That being said, my siblings and I did not eat any food product made of the innards of the beef cows, pigs, or chickens although my folks did. Growing up on a farm, they used the whole animal and it wasn’t strange, it was considered good stewardship. It was the same with vegetables, you don’t toss the turnip greens, and you got two meals from the plant.

Rather than being influenced by our cultures food, we were more influenced by my mom’s intense hatred for food, being anorexic when she married my dad. She hated food and I think that attitude carried over to her children when we were in her womb. We all have our own food intense likes and dislikes tending to gravitate toward to rice, vegetables and vegetable protein or and the “normal” beef, pork, chicken, and turkey products that one would see in a typical grocery store here in Whatcom county.

There is a psychological barrier that I have to get through to eat something like kidneys or duck tongue. Just writing about it, my stomach is feeling nauseous-so how does one get past that? I have not got a clue as to how Alan Richmond, the author and food taster for this article, “Waiter There’s a Cloven Hoof on My Plate”, was able to eat what he did.
http://www.uglyfood.com/ There is a truly awful picture on this website. If you’re an animal lover-beware. There is a list of countries where you can find the most amazing recipes for living creatures.

Since I am very selective of what I eat I rarely ever eat food that I have a bad feeling about. Like I seem to have trouble eating foods with horrible smells because I always assume that it will be nasty, but there are a few exceptions with foods that have bad smell. The grossest food I think I have ever eaten was peas when I was in kindergarten. I say this was grossest food because it actually made me throw up and since a kid I just hated the smell, so when I was forced to eat I ended up throwing it up. Now till this day I still refuse to eat them and probably will never eat them again because I kind of feel scarred. So even though peas might not even taste that bad, I just have always disliked the smell and since it caused me to throw up it’s a big no no .
In certain cultures its okay to eat animal pets like cats and dogs, like in Asia there is nothing wrong with it, but in America it is seen to be gross and a big don’t! I am normally not the judgmental type but I do find eating either a dog or cat a little disgusting. Also eating raw foods in my culture is considered a don’t and me personally prefer my meats cooked, but it’s not also the case in other cultures. For me it’s not only with meats but I hate eating any foods that is cold or not cooked, unless it not meant to be heated. But in other cultures people do it, but I honestly say I am a very picky eater. I also live with two roommates who are Mexican and Asian so I seem to learn a lot bout both their cultures. Like they eat certain things I would never eat but there are also things in there culture that are extremely good, so it is a good thing that I am more open now with different cultures now compared to my younger years
Frater, Jamie. "Top 10 Disgusting Foods". Listverse . 09/11/2007 .
"Grossest Food You’ve Ever Eaten". BuzzFeed. 03/10/10 .

Assignment 2

Being a more careful person, I have not experienced what most people would consider to be “gross” food. In my hometown, I was exposed to a decent amount of Korean food in high school, but it was often brought by my fellow students to share, and thus chosen accordingly. Because of this Americanization, or at least adaptation in certain circumstances to American culture, all of the food was in line with what the rest of the student body was used to. However, this did not turn out to be the case when I brought my Japanese roommate back to my hometown last year. In trying to find a more traditional Japanese meal, we ended up at a small place named “Koharu”, that was in an area of town that I knew quite well, but had never noticed before. While having some Japanese food before, there were certain dishes that I was accustomed to. That said, what my roommate ordered was something that I had never noticed before, namely sushi containing salmon eggs, as well as other raw seafood. Even though I was used to a certain extent of seafood, the idea that it was served raw seemed to me to be inherently unsafe to eat.

It can be argued along these lines that the judgment of whether or not a particular kind of food is edible is purely situational. Namely, we are accustomed to a particular diet in this region for several important reasons; the resources available (one example would be salmon) and the outside influences that are either accepted or rejected by the general society, or simply one facet of it. In the Pacific Northwest, this can most easily be identified as the abundant influence of Asian cuisine, which can be seen both as an integrated element of our society, or as its own separate entity. Still, reflecting on such differentiations is difficult, and can be seen as something akin to comparing apples and oranges. Because of this, to some extent it can be seen as psychological as the situational nature of “edibility” undoubtedly influences an individual’s perception of food. Whether it evolved out of the need for survival, or simply cultural elements, it is true that different eating habits evolved from equally different conditions, and thus can provide the precedent for different levels of acceptance or avoidance outside their hearth, or place of origin, in today’s increasingly globalized world.

While not necessarily dealing with the issue of “gross” foods, this article about regional Indian cuisine helps illustrate the situational nature of what we consider to be edible:

Yee, Amy. “Tastes of India, by New Delhi Taxi.” The New York Times 11 April 2010. Web. 11 April 2010.

Assignment 1

One of the most interesting elements of American culture is the nature of both integrating incoming peoples as well as observing those characteristics that withstand the melting pot, those that remain unique to that group of society. While this can be seen more obviously in with recent immigration, these differentiations still exist today albeit in a far more covert sense. This is the case for my family, which has strong roots in Wisconsin and the Midwest, which allows for us to still maintain some remnants of our German and Scandinavian heritage along with that of a more classical sense of Americana.

That said, while one might try to escape from the stereotypical understanding of the food most often associated this area of the country (as it is associated more with the region rather than its European roots), it has ironically remained true in this particular case. Namely, what can be humorously referred to as the “holy trinity” of Wisconsin dining; brats, beer and cheese, have remained the staples of most family get-togethers that I can personally remember. The roots of these can be traced back to the dominantly northern European settlement in the area, and the fact that these communities remained relatively culturally distinct for a fair amount of time. To mention a more local example of this, Mt. Angel, Oregon will suffice, as it still shows obvious signs of its beginnings as a Bavarian settlement. That said, it should be noted that even though the iconic foods can be easily associated with their origins, they remain more as a regional characteristic and thus something more indicative of America rather than of northern Europe.

That said, bratwurst and most of the finer cheeses (often sent from our relatives back in Wisconsin) are reserved for specific family events, such as birthdays, but more often for times like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Even though these influences are more apparent in those circumstances, there are still areas where this is visible, mainly in amount of cheese we use for everyday meals, as a means of perhaps compensating for the differences between what is most often provided and our own family tastes. Because of the fact that this is so close to the rest of American “food culture”, it seems a slight regional curiosity rather than distinct in its own right. That said, this is probably the only notable aspect of my family’s cultural eating habits, and thus in this case warranted slight examination.

Although I couldn’t find anything specifically about Wisconsin cheeses in the library, here are a couple more general sources:

United States Department of Agriculture. Cheeses of the World. New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1972. Print.

Warren, D.Sc, C.H., G. F. Warren, PhD. Dairy Farming. New York: Macmillan Company. 1919. Print.

Food

Food

Both my parents worked five days a week, sometimes for ten hour days, sometimes more. We were a family that lived off convenience food. My mother says every time we pull into a McDonalds and every time I order a simple double cheeseburger from the dollar menu, “I swear I wish your father never introduced you to those.” She tells me the story of when she rushed home from her job at red lobster during a lunch break and found my dad had taken off lunch as well. She was expecting to see the babysitter with carrots and peanut butter sandwiches and there I am with a quarter pounder bigger than my head (she’s exaggerating) ketchup smeared all over my mouth, and I’m happy as can be.

I really do not have any cultural influence when it comes to food other than my American upbringing right here in the Pacific Northwest. You can say that is a very bad thing or you can say that it is a very good thing. I enjoy sushi, but it’s California rolls which I am constantly corrected it is not sushi, and sea food, and Mexican food, and I watch Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel but beyond this I really have not branched out too far with my food except for grossing out a couple of friends by eating fried gizzards once.

I do enjoy oysters; this was my grandmother’s influence. At the age of six she took me out to a restaurant and asked me to try one, not thinking I’d like them, and I did very much. It impressed her. I also know that my grandmother was Jewish, so maybe this will spike the unusualness of my food culture, but beyond this simple fact we never immersed ourselves in any of her culture’s kosher customs. To be honest, I really did not spend too much time with her, and I do not think she followed her religion to the letter.

Overall, my food history is a pretty simple one, I am always a fan of trying new foods but my favorites tend to be the “classics,” whatever that the classics are.

Jakle, John A. Fast Food: Roadside Restaurants in the Automobile Age. Baltimore, Md: John Hopkins UP 1999

Drucker, Malka, and Eve Chwast. Grandma's Latkes. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1992

Paul Jones culture

Growing up in my early childhood years I was mostly raised with a southern culture. This was due to majority of my family being from the state of Texas, mostly from the cities of Austin and Houston. With family form the South the food that I was accustomed to and still to this day is soul food. Food such as fried chicken, greens, corn bread, yams, and baked macaroni and cheese are some of the dishes that be at family dinners. On every holiday especially Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter are holidays were there are big family dinners. Also with being mixed with black and white I was exposed to the American Culture. Majority of my family is African American so that’s what I was basically limited to and must say there were a lot different myths and superstitious things that I hand to deal with. For example sweeping someone’s foot is said to be back in the Southern culture. My mom would also tell me to never cross a pole and if I did to go back and walk by it.
Now that I am older I do seem to eat certain foods that I didn’t when I was younger. For example I never really liked vegetables as a kid and differently wasn’t that open with eating food from other cultures. This was because everything I ate was mostly what I was fed but now I am able to go out more and even make my own food. So now I am not just limited to just a certain culture, I am open to try certain things from a lot of different cultures in fact. Like I have tried Somalian food, Indian food and many different Asian foods. Although there are still foods I won’t eat, I definitely feel that I have grown from my younger years and have discovered that there are a lot of other good cultures out there I can relate to.
Encyclopedia of Southern culture, Charles Reagan Wilson;University of North Carolina Press, c1989.

Food and culture in America : a nutrition handbook ,Pamela Goyan Kittler, Kathryn P. Sucher; West/Wadsworth, c1998.

As I considered the types of food that I was given as a child, one predominates: country cooking from a mix of cultures in Europe: Dutch, Swedish, English, and German. Our diet consisted of lots of meat and potatoes, pickled fruit and vegetables and fruit pies. Growing up on a farm where my dad and grandpa grew potatoes, wheat, and hay, ran 100 head of dairy cows, and raised beef cows, pigs and chickens. We lived off what we raised, the fruit trees and gardens. You can see where this is going-we ate meat and potatoes with lots of milk, cheese, and ice cream. In addition to these "basics", we got from my mom's Swedish heritage Swedish meatballs and the most delicate of pastries made by dipping a device likea branding iron used to identify your herd, into a batter that was placed into hot oil. The result was deep fried cookie that was dusted with powdered sugar. I think the people that serve "elephant ears" at our local fairs must be Swedish! On the other side of the family, my Dutch grandma made doughnut balls cooked in hot oil and again dusted in powdered sugar or cinnamon and sugar. We loved all that sugar and fat!

One of the chores was the annual butchering. We went to a cousins place where we cut and wrapped the beef (I don't like to say cows). There are six of us kids in the family and out of the six, one is a vegan, one is a vegetarian, one eats only packaged foods, one prefers poultry, and two eat beef on a regular basis. For the vegan and vegetarian, it's a moral issue. For me, like one of the people in this weeks video, its the smell of cooking beef that makes me naseous. In fact, when I cook for the family, I eat the salad and they eat the entre. However, when I do eat meat I get the most amazing energy and alertness so I go through this mind - body conflict.

Singer, Peter. The way we eat: why our food choices matter. Emmaus PA: Rodale, 2006.
Print.

"The sociology of food and eating: essays on the sociological signifigance of food." Food Habits
Encyclopedias. 2003. Print.