Connecting With Our Food

These two readings were quite different on the surface.  Once I began to read into their depth, however, connections and similarities arose.  Food has been a huge part of humans lives forever.  Not only is it necessary for survival but also it stimulates brain neurons, making us happy.  Knowing how irritated I’ve become when I haven’t eaten for a period of time, I can’t imagine what it is like for those that have little amounts of food for days or a week at a time.  Food isn’t just about survival.  In Cate’s piece on prison spreads she talks about the nutritional value of prison food.  It provides the daily amount of intake and is nutritionally balanced.  That said, Cate describes that, “From the inmates’ point of view, their food comes from a largely invisible source. Spread, on the other hand, reflects personal taste and individual access to resources. As such, it is an inmate’s product of choice, not under the control of any authority” (20).  Food for humans isn’t about getting as much as possible into your stomach in the shortest period of time as a dog does.  Instead we spend time creating our food, using ranges of flavors and processes, and connecting with our food before eating it.  Eating foods imprints memories on us and eating them again in the future brings us back to our connections with communities, places, people and feelings.  O’Donnell describes in her piece on Shenzhen, “Zhang Tao failed to understand that when his mother ordered cornbread, she was reminded of the meals she had forgone both in rural Shandong in the early 1970s and, a decade later, in Shenzhen—moments when she had sacrificed her physical well-being for the benefit of her country” (36).  Humans will always be tied in closely with the foods they eat.  Different cultures and places have specific dishes they are known for.  These are developed by the people and communities that live there.