How the Food We Eat Reflects our Culture and Identity Essay

Ntozake Shange in her essay, What Is It We in truth Harvestin present? had taught her readers a actually important lesson that is very(prenominal) vital in sagacity superstars refining and cardinals family. It is the simple truth that food is more than food. It was clearly communicated in Ntozake Shanges essay that food is not just an arbitrary or random thing that arises from ones culture or family. selectably, the local anesthetic food of ones culture and family is a reflection of his or her environment and his expressive style of living. The food that we kill is a mirror to what the personality provided to us outside of our houses.At the same time, food is in like manner the mirror of our own creativity and gustatory modality. Whether we prefer sweetness over spiciness, such preferences break through and manifest on how we prepare and how we cook our foods. Summing it up, food is a very important element that we must take a look (and taste) to accept a good grasp or understanding of ones culture or ones family. The essay What Is It We Really Harvestin Here? tail end be regarded as a very important and portentous piece of literature in proving the significance of food in understanding ones culture.In the essay of Shange, she told the story of numerous local delicacies that will bring over us to the point that we are establishing. Take for exercising the Shanges example of sweet potatoes. In the essay, she made a very good style of instructing his readers on how to grow prize sweet potatoes. Growing sweet potatoes carry much dedication, patience and knowledge. As gulln in Shanges instruction on how to grow a sweet potato, it was seen clearly how one must hit hard to be able to produce a good quality potato.In fact, as express in the essay, one must Get your soil pull in at least two weeks before planting. . . (Shange 111) The entire procedure is difficult. As stated again, The easiest thing to do with a sweet potato is to cook it (112). These lines clearly showed that growing sweet potatoes is a tough job. This difficult regularity of growing such crops mirrors the characters of the people or group of people who happened to eat those crops. As growing a potato requires dedication and patience, we can also argue that the people that grow this crops are dedicated and patient.This is our first way of proving the point that we established above that food is viable factor to see in understanding ones culture or ones family. Another notable proof of the relationship of food and culture is the case of the Carolina Rice. As discussed in Shanges essay, sift, more particularly the Carolina rice reached a great demand in the 1700s. Because of this, the slaves who came from West Africa are priced wear out than their other counter parts. This is because of a more complex knowledge and science that is required in growing rice. The slaves who grew from rice countries are priced better.As stated in the essay, Plantation owners were perfectly aware of the superiority of African slaves from rice country (114). Despite the complexity of growing rice, its preparedness is much simpler than its cultivation. Again, this can be related to the simplicity of the lives of the people who adapt this kind of food. Rather than undergoing some complex process of cooking, rice are just manifestly boiled in water (116). Once again, this showed how rice that is very intricate to grow yet very simple to cook mirror its African cultivators who have a rich culture and tradition, yet living a simple life.The way we cook our own food tells a pickle on our preferences and fondness. In the essay, it was written in the later part of it that wedlock Americans does not prefer burnt rice at the behind of the casserole. In fact, they find it scary. However for the people other people, rice, at least the bottom of it are preferred to be burnt. This burning made possible the cooking of very dry rice (116). In my opinion, th ese burnt rice preferences of the glum people remind them the colored of their skins.Sidestepping a bit from the literature to my own experience, being Hispanic also mirrored on my food tastes. My taste for a good food is determined by my background as someone who has a Hispanic descent. Coming from this particular background, I prefer foods that possess a great deal of flavor and variety. As everyday to all Hispanics, we prefer rice meals, chilies, spices and tomatoes. This in respect to our cultivation of these crops and fruits in the earlier times and of course to our rich cultural and historical past.Shange had successfully proved to us the important relationship of food and our cultural and familial identity. As we said in the beginning of this essay, food is not a random and arbitrary thing that just popped in our households. Rather, food is intersection point of our experiences, our appeals, our desires that were smoothened by time. What we grow is who we are. What we buy is who we are. What we eat is who we are. Food is sincerely yours a mirror to our cultures and most importantly, a reflection of our humanity. Works Cited Shange, Ntozake. What Is It We Really Harvestin Here. p. 109-117