Anthropology

Ask someone who their favorite TV personality is now and they might just tell you the name of a celebrity chef. On American and British television today, there are countless cooking shows-and whole cooking channels-with celebrity chef’s showing off their skills and adding their own flair by exhibiting their personality. These shows have gotten less and less about teaching people to cook and more and more about gourmet foods, chef personalities, competitions and entertainment factor.
The news along with those cooking networks have also contributed to the tread that people are paying more attention to what they put into their mouth. Sadly, these two changes have been a long time coming.  It was around the 1940s that cooking shows started on the radio and a little while later that they started on television. However, the tone of the first cooking shows was drastically different from what it is now.

When cooking shows first started, they were designed to demonstrate home cooking and were designed for women. These shows were geared towards their audience and did not highlight the chef. Julia Child changed this slightly with her distinctive personality. She was the first one to really introduce a different cuisine to American palettes due to her fascination with French cooking. Julia took America by storm and as a result, French cuisine was everywhere.

My mom explained to me that when she was growing up, if you were to go to a fancy restaurant, it would be French. The national attitude towards ethnic cuisines was not as varied as it is today. Today if one desires to go to a fancy restaurant, they can choose from a myriad of cuisines from the Indian to Thai. Nevertheless, we still need to keep the international cuisine fad going and growing so that we keep integrating the flavors of the world as well as integrating ourselves.

In addition to learning how to blend the eclectic flavors and spices of the food throughout the world, we must learn how to blend ourselves. This requires learning that cultural norms that each culture has around food.These might include learning to eat with chop sticks when in Asian countries, learning to sit on the floor in Arabic countries or learning to burp after a meal when it is considered polite.

This would not only be a good way to improve our knowledge about different cultures, but likewise, a good way to master how to get along with other cultures, something, which is only accomplished today when one is in a diplomatic family, in a military family, or in an immigrant community.

However, while doing this learning we must moreover, discern what not to do. As one travels through distinctive cultures, there is ample room for error as a gesture or word that might be fine in our culture might mean something different in another. We must be sensitive to what we are not doing or are doing wrong and change it. For example, in America, we tend to refer to all Asiatic cuisines as "Asian food." This is not terribly PC, for we do not say, "European food" but name the country it comes from. Laotian food is as deserving of recognition as Thai food. And then we lump it in two Asian food one thing is for sure; we are not improving international relations.

We are not born with an innate prejudice; It must be learned. Some of the barriers to tasting great food might be a prejudice to the people from the culture it originates from. If we teach our children to favor the food of different cultures may be the children will be more willing to work with other children from other cultures, thus planting the seed to vastly improving international relations. Children are a very good source of conflict resolution. For example, in the attempt to throw a pebble into the deep ocean that is the Israeli Palestine conflict, children were brought from both Israel and Palestine to a basketball camp. In the beginning, relations were tense because the kids were acting on the stereotypes they were taught. However, by the end of the camp, they were all friends.

I realize that this is a strange pairing with food education, but I'm attempting something big here. I believe that and if we get our children to work together with children from other cultures, it might make a slight difference. Just like the boys at that basketball camp That some of the ideas we must keep our minds open for new ideas and have the flexibility to note is our ideas might be proven false. It is crucial in the current climate to improve international relations. Another reason why children are key, is that their flexibility is astounding.

I am willing to say that we are not born with that taste, but we acquire them as adults. That is to say, that just like babies can learn to speak any sound they can additionally become accustom to any palette. And just as the ability to make specific sounds is pruned away as one gets used to their own language, various taste buds might be equally important be pruned off as we get used to a particular cuisine. We must try to keep those taste buds open, for we do not always realize what we are missing. For example, bone marrow is a delicacy in some East Asian countries. However, we Americans will not eat it because it sounds weird, and they are not used to it.

It has been a constant struggle for humans to overcome the innate tendency to stick with what we are comfortable with because we base our world view around an "us versus them" mentality. We have the feeling that it is safe in our comfort zone and with our in-group. This feeling of security entices us to trust anybody "like us" and an enemy within anyone or anything that is foreign or

distinctive.This is one reason why people shy away from trying ethnic cuisines. They fear that the food might be too unusual-they couldn't like it. For example, my dad constantly tells me "the shrimp story." It is a story of how his grandfather would not eat shrimp for almost his entire life because he thought it slimy, and that it looked weird. When he was about 65, he tried it again (with the utmost contempt for the person who tricked him, I'm sure) and loved it! He could have been enjoying what became one of his favorite foods all his life, but avoided it because he thought it unpleasant in appearance. Even though this is a food that is part of many popular dishes in the US, this could easily be a story of foodstuffs originating from ethnic cuisines. I am not immune (she says embarrassed). I was introduced to Unagi by Evan. Being my boyfriend at the time, I thought it a lover's duty to try it. It is my favorite type to sushi. Our family friend says that you must try something at least three times before deciding you don't like it. It is called the "Mrs. Brown rule."

There are many different reactions to change, and many people embrace new foods whenever possible. In anthropology, as well as cultural psychology, we see four main reactions to placement into other cultures, known as acculturation.

One of the most widely known terms of this four-pronged model is assimilation-which means someone fully immerses themselves in the culture while rejecting their own culture. This is what we want to avoid, and what globalization is threatening to do to all of us, creating a homogenized global culture. Our goal should be to live in an international culture, not a universal one. This would also be a strange food situation in which people would reject the food they grew up with.

Separation is seen when an individual holds on to their own culture. For example, My mom told me that when we were living in Indonesia, the locals were a bit cautious at first to have Americans around. They were used to the spouses of Texan oil men, a majority of whom could not care one iota about the rich culture of Indonesia. They did not care to assimilate, but rather took the cautionary approach of staying within their comfort zone, with their inner group.

We also exhibit these tendencies in immigrant communities. These can be seen many places, but because Eilis Island was the American Immigration place, these neighborhoods have historically been found in have been in New York City. The neighborhood is surrounded by the new "host" country, but the member within the community is surrounded by the familiar sights and sounds of the "old" country.

Integration occurs when we both accept the host culture as part of us and keep some of our own customs. This is usually what we see in the "melting pot" of Americas. Say your best friend is from China. He or she will go to American schools, wear American clothes, etc.... However, they might occasionally speak Chinese at home, observe Chinese traditions their household, and celebrate Chinese holidays.

Marginalization occurs when we reject both cultures.

Integration is the best way to go. We must always be open to experiencing new things. Though culinary education that includes ethnic foods, we will teach our kids to be more comfortable with other cultures.

Festivals

Throughout history, food has been an integral part of both feasts and festivals. From ancient into modern times, food has played at a central role in the festivities anytime people get together. Celebrations have centered around foodstuffs in the form of consumption and in the form of offering for the gods. In ancient Rome, a goat would be offered as a sacrifice to appease the gods. The mortals would drink wine in celebration of Bacchus. Not only would this be a celebration of Bacchus, but wine was considered the proper libation to liberate the minds of men. However, it was believed that one must dilute it with water, for it was considered barbaric if one drank it unadulterated.

The amount of food one was able to procure has always been primary indication of wealth. Whether it was in the ancient times, where food was actual currency or in Victorian times when the ability to have a huge feast says how much money you have. This concept that access to food= wealth also spills over into certain culture's concepts of beauty. In many cultures, a pulp, curvaceous figure is much more attractive than a thin one because it indicates someone is well-off and not malnourished.

(today with fast food it is very different. Eating fast food in America will make you fat, but it means the opposite of what it has meant for centuries. This is one of the reasons why fast food is pure crap)

Britain and elsewhere what kind of food available to you indicates your class. ....it is really funny how foods cross classes over time. For instance, lobster used to be prison food, but now it is one of the most prized and expensive foods you can buy.