The role food plays in our everyday lives is highly influential in a number of ways. As a group, we plan to explore the ways in which the food we consume and interact with forms how we identify ourselves within our society. This food and identity relationship is formed by four major topics which we plan to further explore: food in the context of location, food and female gender roles, education, and its role in an individual's heritage.
Food itself, as well as our interactions with food, are deeply connected to where the food came from, where it went, and even where it will end up. Based much around personal experience and observation, this section of the blog will attempt to express how one’s physical location has immense implications in regards to perceptions of food, availability/accessibility, significance of local and slow food movements, and relations to globalization. Through examination of the greater Burlington, VT area, cuisine can aid in simultaneously forming a sense of identity/expression and a new understanding of culture within the American Industrial Agriculture system. Local food movements, increasingly popular in this region, form a sort of counterculture within the larger umbrella of the typical American foodway. Representative of this counterculture is the juxtaposition of family owned restaurants, i.e. the local ones (many of which are seen in Burlington), against massive fast food chains like McDonald’s, “the most visible manifestation of economic and cultural globalization” (Kiple 278). Each of these ideas will be discussed in more depth in following posts.
The next subtopic involves the concept of gender and how the relationship to food will be explored further. Gender, meaning male and female or masculine and feminine, take on different roles depending on the society one is trying to understand. No matter where in the world, gender defines one’s relationship to and with food. More specifically, many women’s relationship with food is defined by societal norms and expectations. Rural women often have less access to food and resources, defining them as less powerful than men. Often times agricultural work is defined as being a man’s job. Even daily food practices in our local community of Burlington, VT creates gender roles and societal expectations of how women should and do identify with food.The exploration of these gender roles in our community and what the western society as a whole defines as acceptable in terms of women and food will be further explored throughout this blog.
Next, we explore how one's educational identity plays a large role in relationships formed with food. People who are less-educated are usually part of a poorer community with less access to good foods. In order for these communities to flourish, their educational systems need to be reformed. If schools were to teach practical skills such as gardening and nutrition, more people would be able to provide for the community. Education does not only affect the knowledge of what to eat, it also influences the practices that are used to bring food to the table. Education is a powerful tool that should be better utilized throughout the rural poor parts of the world. Without education people are left to their own judgment when it comes to feeding themselves and their families. This educational gap is even seen in Burlington and Winooski Vermont where refugee students are coming to school without snacks or nutritious lunches and are left to eat what becomes available whether they like it or not. People with higher education levels can afford to eat better and know how to meet their nutritional needs, while the rest of the world lacks the knowledge on how to grow or maintain food sources.
Lastly, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines heritage as, “The traditions, achievements, beliefs, etc., that are part of the history of a group or nation.” (Heritage, 2015) When considering aspects of tradition of a group or culture, food is often one of the first to come to mind. For example, we commonly associate pasta and pizza with Italians, curry and naan with Indians and gyros and baklava with Greeks. (Foodbycountry.com, 2015) Food is deeply embedded in cultural tradition and food and heritage can almost be used synonymously. Additionally, migration patterns across the globe have shaped, diversified and blended nations creating fusions and distinctions of traditional cuisine that have been modernized to keep up with trends of globalization.
Works Cited
• Foodbycountry.com, 2015 Food in Every Country. http://www.foodbycountry.com, accessed October 10, 2015.
• Heritage 2015 Merriam-Webster. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heritage, accessed October 10, 2015.
• Kiple, Kenneth F. A Movable Feast: Ten Millennia of Food Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print.
• Nanok, T. (2005, August 30). Welcome to Eldis - Eldis. Retrieved October 10, 2015.
• "Why Gender." Gender: . Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Web. 13 Oct. 2015. <http://www.fao.org/gender/gender-home/gender-why/why-gender/en/>.
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