My Experiences with Food Writing
My only experiences with reading about food thus far have been through following recipes in cookbooks and through reading restaurant reviews and restaurant descriptions in publications such as Chicago Magazine, Time Out Chicago, Food and Wine Magazine, and on websites such as Yelp, Dining Chicago, Epicurious, and Metromix. These various searches have fed my curiosity about various topics from anywhere between the best Mexican food in Chicago to the best ice cream in America.
As far as writing about food is concerned, I have held multiple online discussions/disputes over Chicago pizza versus New York pizza, and Chicago hot dogs versus New York hot dogs. In some of my creative writing, I have occasionally discussed particular foods or restaurants. One of my earliest memories was a story I wrote that was based on my junior high English teacher. She was haughty and a little too well-dressed for someone on a teacher’s salary. In the story, I described her as the type of person who was so prim and proper that she even ate McDonald’s French fries with a fork. Generally when I mention food in my writing, it is usually a descriptor for a character’s personality or it involves a particular setting.
The Role of Food in My Life
Food plays various roles in my life. For example, I do not really think about food when I first wake up. I only think about grabbing a glass of juice or a Diet Coke. When I am working all day, food becomes merely a necessity. I need to put something in my system to get through the day. I don’t want to eat junk food for lunch, but sometimes I have limited time to stop somewhere to pick up something to eat. When I do bring my own food to school or to work, I usually bring snacks like baby carrots and grapes, but I combat such health-conscious decisions with a bag of M&Ms. Otherwise food plays a significant role in my home life. I currently live at home, and when my mom prepares a meal, she spends a good portion of the day cooking. During holidays the entire week is centered around food prep.
To me food is important during holidays because my mom’s meals bring people together. Unfortunately I’m the one who gets stuck on cleanup duty simply because I live here. Food is important during the day when it becomes important to put nutrients into my system to get through the day. Otherwise food is just something that is always around. It is in front of me at home, it is on billboards, in commercials, on every downtown street, all along the main streets of the suburbs, and that is why food is unavoidable. It is all around us at all times whether we think about it or not. This is one aspect of how food becomes complex.
Food is complex in the respect that there are so many choices. Food offers endless possibilities because there are so many different types of food to choose from. However, it really gets quite complex when I am invited to most ethnic restaurants or when I am invited to someone else’s house for dinner. This is because I like what I like, and my tastes are extremely limited. I do not eat any type of seafood, cream sauces, cream dressings, cream soups, cream cheese unless it is mixed into a recipe like cheesecake, condiments other than ketchup, most red meats, dark meat chicken, meat sauces, most ethnic foods, meat substitutes, pork sandwiches, pork chops, pulled pork, or plain pork (only ribs, ham, or bacon), cucumbers, pickles, ground turkey, or ground chicken. I only eat chicken pot pies if they are made with yellow sauce (not the disgusting creamy white sauce that some are made with). So basically the list would be much shorter if I share what I do eat: white meat chicken, turkey, pizza, soups made from broth, cereal, salads with vinaigrette-based dressings, ground sirloin or ground round (but no ground chuck), steak or meat as long as there is no fat on it, ribs, baked ham, bacon, kosher hot dogs only, most vegetables, and most sweets (especially chocolate). I feel food is more complex for a person like me who is ultra-picky because I limit myself. For people who can find anything to eat anywhere they go, I think food is much simpler. My nephew can eat burgers 365 days of the week, so he doesn’t have to think about what he’s going to order at most restaurants.
Another way that food is complex today is society’s constant need for diets such as Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig. I rarely go through a day without seeing Jennifer Hudson’s commercial for Weight Watchers. Then magazines like People advertise Jennifer Hudson’s weight loss, so it is a constant reminder that society prefers thin people.
How the Role of Food Has Changed Over the Course of My Life
When I was a kid, the Good Humor truck would drive down the street (not the one pictured here. I’m not that old. I just found this picture entertaining). My brothers and I would buy ice cream bars all summer. I didn’t have to think about gaining too much weight or eating too much because I was an underweight kid. But now my brother makes a comment every time he is around me and sees me eating any type of candy, ice cream, baked goods, fries, or even drinking frappuccinos. He is very weight conscious, so he instills his own values on everyone around him. As far as I am concerned, if I have one frappuccino a month, I am not going to put on 10 pounds. If I sat around eating a pint of ice cream in one sitting, then I would have a problem. Where having junk food around the house during my childhood made no difference, it makes a big difference now. I have to eat these types of foods in moderation now that I am older. My body and my metabolism have changed significantly since my childhood.
What Does Food Say About Us?
One example on judgments people make about food is based on my brother’s perceptions of what I eat. Two weeks ago I picked up hot dogs for lunch. My brother wanted a Greek salad, my nephew and my mom had hot dogs and fries, and I had a chili dog and fries. My brother sent me an e-mail later that day stressing how much he is worried over my weight because I eat things like chili dogs and fries. That was the first chili dog I have eaten in about six months. Yet he bases his knowledge on my eating habits by the foods I eat during his visits.
To answer the question about what the food I eat says about me if I was being psychoanalyzed, then I would be closed-minded, set in my ways, childlike, afraid to take risks, and highly predictable. To answer the question in another way, food does shape peoples’ perceptions of others through the choices people make in reference to their weight. If a thin person is eating vegetable stir fry, then others will automatically assume that the thin person always eats healthy foods while they will assume that an obese person eats vast amounts of junk food and fast food.
Other assumptions deal with food and class. For example, there is a stigma that people who eat the types of foods from state fairs (i.e. corn dogs, funnel cakes, and elephant ears) are mostly small town people and trailer trash. In turn, caviar and pate are served at more sophisticated, upper class social gatherings. Wine is considered along the lines of upper class beverages while beer is seen as lower class. Hardee’s is considered the fast food restaurant of Nowheresville, U.S.A. while Applebee’s is seen as the franchise restaurant cuisine of suburbia.
How Food Can Bring People Together and How Food Can Alienate Us from Others
My experience with food bringing people together is through my mom’s cooking. Not only does everyone in my family know that there is never a bad meal at my mom’s house, but they also know that she will cook enough food for twice the amount of people who show up. There is never a shortage of food in our house, especially around the holidays. Usually our holidays center around the meals my mom cooks because she makes her meals into works of art, whether she is cooking for Christmas or Passover (we are Jewish, but my family also celebrates Christmas). In addition to family meals, my mom and I bake Christmas cookies together every year. It is one of the few mother and daughter activities we do together, so it is really meaningful to me.
On the opposite end of the food spectrum, food can sometimes separate and alienate us due to various factors. One of my best friends was a vegan until a year ago. Whenever we would eat at the Chicago Diner (a restaurant on the North side that mostly caters to vegans), my choices were very limited. I felt slightly awkward in there because the one dish I liked in there was not very filling. Some of her friends (and even her boyfriend) did not want to eat at the Chicago Diner with her, and I was one of the few people who went there with her. Also she felt alienated at most family gatherings because her mom always tried to get her to eat meat. Her mom had no idea how to cook for a vegan, so she would make a bunch of vegetables for her. My friend would have to show up with her own tofurky and vegan pumpkin pie. Also she would have to choose restaurants carefully because there are places that do not offer enough choices for vegans.
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