Food, Glorious Food!

This week we talked about the relationship that food has with culture. It is intertwined and unbreakable and we can tell a lot about a person by what they eat, the way that they eat, and the superstitions that they have around food. We talked about food encounters that we had with other cultures. I was one of the only Mexicans at my elementary school and when it came to the age of sleep-overs, I began to notice the differences between my friends and me. Every Sunday morning my family eats menudo. It is a tripe soup that is seasoned and mixed with hominy. It never had occurred to me that people would look at this as strange.

Although our family does not go to church, it is customary for Mexican families to go to church and then flock to the local taqueria to get menudo. Few of my friends ever tried it and most that did were not fans.

I remember in elementary school looking at other kids eating their lunches and noticing the difference between my lunch and my best friend's who was Korean. I always got the cafeteria hot lunch, but my friend's mom packed her lunch daily. She always had intricate tupperware. One was always filled with rice and the others had veggie rolls, seaweed, or meat. She had a Yakult to drink daily. I remember thinking that it was so odd to eat seaweed and refused to try it. (It is now one of my favorite snacks.) You can tell a lot about a person based on what they pack for lunch.