Food tends to be one thing that we consume daily that is taken for granted. In many cultures, the production and consumption of food is a social event involving family, friends, and at times, the community. In our culture however, we often turn food into a solitary event. We drive through a fast food window and eat in our cars and families often eat in shifts while they respond to the demands of our increasingly busy lives. The television and the development of convenience meals (tv dinners, packaged dinners such as Hamburger Helper), for example, have been identified as factors that contributed to the decline of the family meals. Such technological developments (remember our discussion from last week about the repercussions associated with “advances”) altered the way that the production and consumption of food was organized (we could of course, if given the time, identify dozens of technological innovations and changes in society that also affected the social organization of food). Even as daily food rituals were altered and individualized, celebrations (weddings, birthdays) and holidays (e.g., 4th of July barbecues, Christmas dinner) continued to provide the opportunities for the collective production and consumption of food.
Still, even in the midst of broader social trends, food often serves as a catalyst in building and sustaining community. Think about the OCU campus community. When I arrived at OCU I was amazed at the various events that included food. From pizzas in the classroom to a celebratory holiday dinner sponsored by the university, the goal is to promote a sense of belonging and collegiality. In the Report Writing class I taught last fall, food was important in the building of a learning community. Each week, students (including Pam who brought lasagna from her family’s recipe and Carmen who (in class) made salsa), would bring food and we, as a class, would talk about writing while consuming delicious “eats” that reflected our interests and social locations. Students in courses that meet at lunchtime or late afternoons consistently note how food would help sustain them.
Food, as an aspect of material culture, has also played an important role in our course. Think about the foods we have consumed over the last two weeks. Each class session has featured some kind of food, from our two Pam’s providing snacks last Friday to our meals at Red Cup, Grand House and Tom’s Barbeque to the valentine candy that Pam brought last night. Food has served as an icebreaker, a community builder, and as a learning strategy to understand the Chinese and African American cultures. And of course to provide sustenance during our long class sessions.
In regards to food in general, several questions emerge:
1. What meanings and feelings do particular foods produce in ourselves or others?
2. What are the cultural and social meanings that are attached to food?
3. Why is the relationship between the between the production and consumption of food important to understand?
4. And, what are the connections between food, identity and social relations?
The article by Marvalene H. Hughes offers keen insight into each of these questions. I would like each of you to write a couple of paragraphs that center on at least two of the above questions and the importance of food in African American culture (in particular to African American women). Also, please consider (or draw connections) to the food experiences we have shared at the Grand House and Tom’s Barbeque and how they might shed light on our understandings regarding the social aspects of food.
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In regards to food in general, several questions emerge:
1. What meanings and feelings do particular foods produce in ourselves or others?
In our family, all of our gatherings are centered on meals. This is the time that we share stories, events, and observations. Food has always provided a sense of celebration, being included, and cared about. This feeling has also lead to being overweight, stressed and an emotional roller coaster. Why is it cheaper to eat unhealthy foods than healthy foods? When will our society place a larger emphasis on our health and not on the convenience of eating out? The time and money it takes to create a healthy meal is taking away from time that I could be spending with my family. Yet, what we eat is just as important as when we eat and how we eat. “Comfort” food is something I eat when I am unhappy, sad, stressed, depressed or uncomfortable with something. What does this truly mean? Why is food comforting? This varies with each person and can drastically affect the choices we make regarding our eating habits.
2. What are the cultural and social meanings that are attached to food? At this time in our society, it is acceptable to go out to eat as a form of entertainment and socializing. This is one way for others to get to know each other outside the office, our home or the places where we gather. During the work week, several of my colleagues join me for lunch in the cafeteria. We call it laugh therapy. This is an outlet and a place to relax and enjoy each other’s company in a safe and inviting environment. In some cultures, what you eat and when you eat will be determined through traditions and expectations passed on from one generation to the next.
3. Why is the relationship between the production and consumption of food important to understand? When we prepare our meals at home, we have a better idea what is included in the production and we might be able to monitor our calories, fat content and sodium. More and more restaurants are creating nutritional information for their menu and posting it online. This can be very helpful when you have sodium restrictions and you know that you are going to eat outside the home. Every bite that goes into our mouth has a consequence. We are accountable for our own actions and anything we eat could ultimately affect our well being and future health.
4. And, what are the connections between food, identity and social relations? When my husband and I want to have a night out, it is centered on a nice restaurant. This is our reward for working so hard during the week. If I had a preference, I would rather eat out than cook at home because of the time involved and when cooking for two, you tend to spend more money than if you were cooking for a family. There are so many different eating establishments that you can actually eat something different for every meal and still never go to every place that is available. When I was growing up, eating out was an occasion, a special time and did not happen very often. My parents ordered when we were at a restaurant and most of the time we did not get to select what we were eating. We were just so excited to get to go out for dinner. Debbie Boles
As noted in the article Soul, Black Women, and Food, going back to your "roots" perserving foods that have been handed down through out the generations give meaning, feeling to ourselves and others. I loved it when Marvalene H. Hughes said, "...she takes pride in watching her consumers literally gorge themselves until the fatty tissue forms and finds a permanent resting and growing place. Plumpness is a symbol of the wonderful job which she is performing." When my maternal grandmother cooked, without using recipes, and when dinner was served, how many times would she say, go back and get more!!!! My mother does the same thing and so do I. (Which we know now is not the way to eat but it is a hard habit to break.) Not only does this transcend the Black culture but the culture of women. Women like to see their friends, family, enjoy their food. It is a feeling of satisfaction, of feeding the soul of a person. You may not have much at home, or you may not be able to afford to go out, but you can bring warmth into a home with a warm kitchen, family visiting, people in the kitchen with you while you cook, and bringing a warmth into a persons soul. In the article, Hughes explained what a typical breakfast, lunch and dinner would comprise of for a Black family. The breakfast reminded me of the breakfasts that my maternal grandmother had growing up. She said her father would go to the store, get a little steak and for breakfast the 7 children would have steak and beans for breakfast. That would be their meat for the day and the rest of the day comprised of pinto beans on the stove which they would have for lunch and dinner, along with some cornbread and maybe some fried potatoes. These meals would provide a full stomach but not much variation foodwise. Pinto beans are always served at our family reunions to keep the family tradition alive. These "beans" continue to feed our "soul." The "beans" bring feelings of being together of keeping family traditions alive and of being one, a unit, a family.
What is interesting is the cultural and social meanings implicated with the foods we have looked at, tasted, and talked about. As I was reading Hughes article, I envisioned large church socials, with women wearing their best finery and dignity exuding about them as they peered from under a huge brimmed hat, gently carring their "soul" food; greens, ham hocks, black eyed peas, root foods, fruit, potato salad, sweet potato pies, those foods that they could grow in their gardens... that they produced themselves or were the least expensive items to purchase at the grocery store. Food is the essence of their soul, their heritage, their family. When we ate at Tom's last night, I always knew that ribs were offered at Black barbeque restaurants. This may go back to the "killing of the pig" and using every part of the pig in their meals. But if the "pig," as in Hughes article, is defined to the hog killings that Afrian men performed during their hunting expeditions then where are the pork sandwiches that I so love on the Tom's barbeque menu? Also, at Tom's the potato salad had the consistency of mashed potatos with mustard and seasonings in them instead of the cubed potatoe salad that I am accustomed to. (I wish we could have asked about that and why the cole slaw only had a dollap of mayo on it instead of blended with cole slaw dressing.) Is this the traditional Black way to cook?
We also saw the cultural and social meaning of food found at the Grandhouse. The dim sum meal was all about sharing, enjoying, visiting, bonding, discussing, gathering, socializing, and discovering what comprises a traditional Chinese meal. We did have the dumplings which we learned from Ju-Chuan Arrow is a traditional Chinese New Year dish, but I don't believe the Grandhouse was necessarily serving them only in rememberance of the Chinese New Year, but as a traditional dish that the Chinese eat. When I talk to our Chinese students about the Chinese restaurants and the foods that are served there each one of them have told me that there are more sauces served on the foods in Chinese restaurants because the restaurants think that is what the non Chinese want to eat. (Does this stem from the gravy that we put over chicken fry steak, potatoes, sauces over steaks, dips for chips, etc.?) Is this the way Americans depict our eating traditions to other cultures... that we only eat something if we can dip it or it is slathered with a sauce?
No matter what, food is a time for gathering together for feeding your soul, your sense of belonging, and maybe your stomach.
What is available to you and what you tend to eat help one to understand why a culture eats certain foods. Climates, soil, seeds, area to grow in, all factor in what people eat. Past generations and their economy dictated what their families ate. As Hughes said Blacks ate root foods such at turnips, mustard greens, collard greens, sweet potatoes, those foods that were there for them, grew where they lived and were cheap foods to cultivate since many blacks did not have much money at the time.
I find it interesting that "Black soul food" is now a big business. You can find canned greens in the grocery store with a smiling Black woman in a chef's hat on the label luring you to her for you to purchase her canned greens for consumption.
Barbeque restaurants run by Blacks have been visited by people on the travel station or the food network station but what I have noticed is the TV Food Network are comprosed of cooking shows that are filled with white, good looking men and women as the star host of the show? I haven't seen a show hosted by a Black person. Is this an identity issue? Is the TV station afraid that there will only be cooking shows about barbeque and that Blacks connot cook anything else? Is this a label? "This is food for thought!"
Answering the first question posed about what food produce in us; memories is the first and foremost for myself. I'm sure that after my parents are gone and many Christmas's have come and gone that i will begin to miss my mom's fruit salad that she only makes on xmas. I hate this fruit salad, i think it looks gross adn smells gross. But after years of not seeign or smelling it i will being to miss it because it is something that i tie to memories of mom and xmas.
1. Food my favorite subject. Probably because of how I was raised. Food and it's meaning and feelings produce several thoughts for me. Besides being nutrious it is representative of who we are. Relating to families, cultures and individualism. In the reading Julie gave us from Marvalene H. Hughes she talks about the "roots of plants and how they represent the "state of being grounded in the state of stabilization" (272). Food not only represents a culture in a community but individual cultures within families. Ashley brought up what Keith said last night at the resturant. How he said if we wanted to experience African American culture we need to eat greens, blackeyed peas etc. Ashley and I both talked later that we both grew up with that and did not think of it as primarily "black" culture. So the foods we eat, the way we consume them and the socialization they bring depends on each person individually. For me, gatherings and cooking are very much a part of who I am. It says alot about me and what is important to me.
2. Cultural and social meanings attached to food. I was interested in the reading where Ms. Huges talks about not measuring ingredients but talks in terms of pinches, dash of, or a handful or a sack of - as terms of measuring. I remember that as a child (growing up poor) and tend to cook that way myself. Some of my receipes are hard to explain or give to someone because I just know how I cook it not so much the exact steps. Hmmm....are we not all creatures of habit and live how we were raised. She also refers to the fact that black women, their talents of how they cook is representive of who they were. Taking leftovers and making something out of what the whites left over is representive of their creative ability. Is cooking not an art form? Are these amazing black women an art form? When I think of them or picture them in their own kitchens or the kitchens of whom they worked for I picture a beautiful picture and work of art.
3. When I think of this question of the relationship of consumption and production I think of the first of the article where Ms. Hughes refers to soul food as "...symbolic tools that may be used by Black Americans in our search for roots..." (272). Why they cooked, how they cooked and what they used are symbolic of the struggles they have always faced, oppression. How they cooked for whites was different in how they cooked in their own homes. We already established they used "leftovers" as their staples in their own homes. They took what they could and made it wonderful for their families. A testimony to their nurturing abilities as a role definition assigned to them throughout history. The "intent of sharing" (277) is in connection of celebrations. Representative of the culture and economics.
4. Food identity and social relations. I believe the identity of "soul food" is reflective in what they cook. Leftovers, economically affordable for their culture. Social relations, is the fact that besides nuorishment it was relective of three meals a day which attributed to the fact that it may have been the only time they were able to share "family time". Since it was expected that black women would always work outside the home and support the family economics it was also a time they could show their love of their family and valuable time they shared with their loved ones.
1. What meanings and feelings do particular foods produce in ourselves or others?
I think that food can give a history of all cultures. In the reading it stated that the African American women cooking in the kitchen gave them pride, and made them feel good to know that they are fulfilling the stomachs of thier loved ones. I love learning about other cultures because I love trying all of there differents types of food. I have ate Chinese/Asian food before, but I always stay with the same things sweet and sour chicken or pork with white rice. Eating at the Grand House for lunch was a great way for me to try something new.
Eating at the Red cup was wonderful, it reminded me of a small sandwich shop in Chico, CA that I ate at before. Like a College hang out, simalar to a starbucks or panana bread, but better. It was really more conforatble.
I loved Tom's and it made me feel more like home, because when I have gathering at my house are meals would consist of the same types of food.
2. What are the cultural and social meanings that are attached to food?
When people talk about "soulfood" I think of southern black cooking. Just because of the types of foods that are cooked usually by African American people. When you go to a cookout with African American people most of the time you will find fried chicken, ribs, sausage links, mac and cheese, potatoe salad, baked beans, and cornbread, and some type of cobblar or sweet potatoe pie or peacan pie. Most people may think that when white people have a barbeque it may consist of Steak, chicken, hamburger and hotdogs, pasta salad, potatoe salad, chips.
You can see the difference in what types of food will be prepared depending on what type of person told you about the BBQ.
3. Why is the relationship between the between the production and consumption of food important to understand?
The more food we produce the more food we will consum. The African American families usually had more people so they couldn't afford to go out to eat they would stay home and cook. As most caucasion families are involved in extra curicular activities they were to busy or it was just easier to go out to eat. So they would not have left overs or seconds.
4. And, what are the connections between food, identity and social relations?
Now we all feel more conforatable eating together bacause it tends to break the tention and people open up more to one another. What you eat can really show another person either where you come from or who you really are. We are a part of what we eat so this truelly can be our idenity. Without food I think most of us would feel lost and not know what to do with our selves.
1. What meanings and feelings do particular foods produce in ourselves or others?
Everyone has heard of comfort foods. Their usually fatty chocolates or greasy fried chicken. These to me are the strongest food feeling producers. On the complete opposite side there are foods that denote a "bread and water" (pun also intended) connotation. Ordering chicken instead of beef, or getting a salad instead of enchiladas. While these are the paths that I usually do not want take, I almost always feel better when I do.
4. What are the connections between food, identity and social relations?
What I really found interesting in the article was when it said that a big body represents health and prosperity to a black women. I thought that is wasn't so much an excuse, but more of a better way of identifying with the culture. Also the almost ritualistic event of the hog killing interested me. The socail aspect reminded me of the environment at Tom's Barbeque. Some of the people that came in might have not been accepted in a sit down dinning establishment up town. However at Tom's the guy chatted with them cause they were part of his community. They all had their parts.
I didn't hear Keith say to eat greens but when my husband and I were in Nigara Falls we went to a 100 year old Italian restaurant called Michael's. It has been owned by the same family for 100 years. The soup on the menu was beans and greens. It was the best soup I have ever had. I asked what was in it and they said to get on their website because they mail it all over the world. Wow! I have tried to recreate it and home and blah!!!!!It isn't the same as Michael's. But you are right, so many of the foods in the Hughes article have been food staples for others. I don't know why you only think of greens being eaten by Blacks. I never thought of greens and beans being associated with Italians...only spaghetti, lasagna, pizza and your usual Italian fare. This food fare has probably been Americanized for the general public and the Italian restaurants know what sells.
Pam
First of all, I would like to say that I am a very unusual college student. Every weekend, I cook a big pot of collard and/or mustard greens with ham hocks as well as at least one cornbread cake. They take a long time to cook, but I was brought up on them and they keep me mentally at home even though I am rarely in Georgia anymore. One big pot and 2 cornbread cakes generally last me through the week. I also love to include black-eyed peas, potato salad, and sweet potatoes. I would include cooked turnip roots and greens if I could, but can't find those as easily around here. This technique of cooking mass amounts of food on the weekends to provide, quick, fulfilling, homemade meals during the week was started by my grandmother around the time I was born. (She would only have to cook the meat for each meal. Vegetables just had to be heated--this is probably because it takes a good 2 hours to cook down a pot of collard greens.) I have adopted this wonderful idea because I love my Southern food, because I am a college student who cannot afford to eat out every meal, and because I do not eat fast food or any food of questionable substance for that matter. I do not count calories or fat, I judge by quality. For me, this relates to the issue of production and consumption because mass production based on convenience, while it satisfies the public in our growing discontentedly busy society, we tend to sacrifice quality for convenience. To me, quality food usually implies that it has not been over-processed and that it performs its function of fueling while being pleasing to eat. (we would not put molasses in our car and expect it to run...why would we put crap in our bodies and expect them to run?)
Anyway, my great revelation in pondering the food issue was that the foods that I use to identify myself as a misplaced Southerner are considered "Black" foods or "soul" foods by most people. For instance, these include grits, "greens", okra, sweet potatoes, turnip roots, ham hocks, hog jowl, fried chicken, etc. To my Deep South Georgia community, however, they are foods that we identify with ourselves as Southerners, not Blacks specifically--though we include Blacks in this community of "Southerners" with similar eating habits. I did not realize that these traditional Southern foods come from African culture and tradition. This does make very much sense in that black women were the cooks in private homes during the plantation days even through the 1970's. In this way, Southern culture in general has absorbed and even identifies itself with parts of African culture. This is an incredibly important idea considering the problems of racism and prejudice in the Deep South. The same (or very nearly the same) food culture is claimed by two separately identifying subcultures (white and black). Considering this similarity in such an important part of a culture or subculture, I would like to assert that beyond skin color, blacks and whites of small-town Georgia are more alike as people than they are willing to admit. African influence has gone a long way. I never realized that many of the foods that I grew up eating actually came from Africa (such as okra). When the man at Tom's Barbecue last night said that we needed to get some corn bread and collard greens if we really want to experience African American culture, my first reaction was, "Those aren't just African American, those are Southern in general." I didn't think about the origin of this idea, though. For years and years, the cooks of the South have been African American women. They spread their culture in such a way that it is now claimed by another subculture of Southern whites who do not always recognize its origin.
Both of my parents were raised by black women who were hired by their families to cook, clean, and take care of the children. They were raised by the stereotypical plump, mothering, caring yet strict black woman. My parents have so much love and respect for these women who raised them, but I now see the limitations that these black women had within their stereotype. These women had children at home who were missing out on their wonderful mothering while they were busy raising my parents. I have never before seen this in such a way, but it is a vital idea to recognize.
Personally, I cook "soul" food each and every week to go home. To me, food helps identify me with my Southern roots as I am sure that it does for many people of other cultures who are much further from home. To offer an idea in response to Debbie's question, "Why is food comforting?", I find that food brings a sense memory that can revive a time when things seemed better than they might be at this time. People change, but food doesn't have to--not unless you let it. Like the Black women mentioned in the article, I find fulfillment in fattening my brother, my only relative within a thousand miles. I don't find the kitchen limiting, but a link to my home and family as it used to be when we all had a lot less worry and pressure.
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