Branding Immigrant Food Ethnic, By Lavanya Ramanathan

People may have different views about foods depending on their cultural background. Providing range of familiar foods can help make individual feel at home, safe and welcomed.

Food can partially shape a person's cultural identity. Geeta Kothari explores the cultural nuances between American and Indian food in the essay, “If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?” She expresses this through the symbolism of food, growing up and living between two different cultures. Kothari begins her story as a nine-year-old child curiously wanting to eat the same foods as American children: tuna salad sandwiches and hot dogs. She does not have the guidance from her mother regarding American food and culture. Kothari’s mom curbs the curiosity by reluctantly letting her daughter indulge in a can of tuna fish. Kothari describes the open can of tuna fish as “pink and shiny, like an internal organ” and she wondered if it was botulism (947). The way

To begin, I found what she spoke about for a majority of the article was unrelatable. “It’s no longer a foreign concept to lunch at a banh mi carryout and then settle in for a dinner of Filipino sisig and end a night at a gelato shop, splitting an affogato.” No one I know is going out of there way to “lunch at banh mi” or to “settle in for a dinner of Filipino sisig”. I am sure she could have used more relatable examples so her audience could better relate. That being said I can guarantee I am not her target audience, with this in mind I cannot speak on behalf of her audience. Then again if she would like to expand her target audience to a larger crowd she should speak about more relatable foods that still support her main

She subtly suggests that cultural identity can be lost, if not guarded and ritualized. Indeed, this story could even be read as a cautionary tale for Arab Americans heading the wrong way. Food as a marker of Arab or Arab American identity is an unmistakable theme in new world food literature. Its central aim is to proudly claim and assert Arabness.

Chapter six talks about the influences of northern and southern ethnic groups on American foods and foods habits. The introduction of these foods and its contact with other culture’s food is what is considered to be the characteristics of the American diet. The author also shed light on where certain immigrants were coming from providing evidence that most of the northern Europe countries were countries of the Great Britain, Ireland, and France. The southern European countries, on the other hand, included Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Kittler et al. Provide compelling evidence to support their argument though food preparation may differ in the countries, the ingredients and influences tend to be the same. For instances in Great Britain and Ireland

Ruth Tam's article, "How It Feels When White People Shame Your Culture's Food- Then Make It Trendy" (2015) effectively demonstrates the extent to which how immigrants feel when their traditional foods become the scorn of white people through telling personal narratives, and using of primary sources as evidence.

Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food by Jeffery M. Pilcher, a Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, provides rather than a history of Mexican cuisine instead a changing of people’s culinary choices by investigating how people’s minds change over the course of decades in the presence of marketing strategies both domestic and international and changing consumer outlooks and tastes regarding foreign cuisine. Pilcher does this by using a seemingly

Indeed, Pollan’s views appear to be convincing since the different cultures in America offering a large variety of traditional food dishes causes a problem in food choices. As a consequence, Pollan mentioned, the mindset of American’s about, “what should we eat for dinner?” is caused by the food options in America being very diverse and not limited.

Our cornea cannot help but glimpse at the flashing lights on all the rides we used to go on as a kid. Our noses go wild at the smell of savory, salty, and vinegar drizzled French fries. How can you forget, if you can imagine it, then most likely you can have it fried. One of the thirty different food options that the Ohio State Fair has is a Stromboli. This turnover is filled with all kinds of Italian meats and cheeses. This shows that despite being a huge diverse culinary mess of people each culture has its own food, music and dance that make it different then the next but also shows that different cultures can come together in

This essay seeks to critically evaluate Delaney's (2010: 259) assertion that "food categories also correlate with social categories." In order to evaluate this claim, it is therefore necessary to explain what it means. In addition, the evaluation of this claim, in an anthropological context, needs be conducted through the research method of an ethnography of a meal. My argument will use the ethnographic experience of a Shabbat meal with David Horowitz's family to assess this assertion and whether it could be applied and verified through the interactions which occurred around food at this meal.

Sleep, sex, and food are the three most important aspect of a human life. Each of them represents resting, reproducing, and surviving – essential elements that form the foundation of human culture and society. The status of these elements always represents the social stature and cultural ideology, of the desire or dislike of people. Some standards are universal, while some are uniquely formed through generations of different cultural traditions. Food in this case might be the most simple and yet the hardest ideology of desire for anthropologists to catch. Its meaning is never as plain as a recipe of a cooking book, but always attached with the cultural and psychological ideology that is connected with individual and cultural identities.

In an article written by Amy S. Choi entitled, “What Americans can Learn From Other Food Cultures,” Choi discusses food in ways that pertain to ones culture. Today, our younger generation has become less thankful for simple, traditional foods and more wanting of foods prepared in less traditional ways, almost as if, “the more outlandish the better.” Choi mentioned in her article that, “those slightly younger have been the beneficiaries of the restaurant culture exploding in Shanghai” (Choi, Amy. “What Americans Can Learn From Other Food Cultures.” Ideastedcom. 18 Dec. 2014. Web. 17 June 2015) being from America I agree with her statement. Food in many cultures has become a status symbol; I believe that dining in expensive restaurants that serve

America have a variety of food with no staple food to eat with every meal, unlike in Vietnam where the food is more exotic, but very easily to get sick of. Both countries daily meals consist of cooked goods, vegetables, and a variety of foods. Daily routine for eating is the same for both countries consisting of breakfast, lunch and dinner. But where there are similarities, there are differences such as the food cultures. Both the countries have difference regions, so of course each region vary on what they eat, and what they have access to. In America, the southern region’s foods are different than the cooked foods in other regions. In the same way, the foods that the southern region

People in the United States of America have different taste in food. Americans are used to a different way of preparing, flavoring, dressing and accepting any ethnic food. For example, in order to accept any ethnic food, it should be modified and has an “American touching and editing”. Exactly in the same way how Middle Eastern food is being treated here in the United States. In the Middle East there is nothing called fast food, so fast food is not considered as a part of any Arabic culture. Therefore, Middle Eastern food takes a lot of time to be cooked and served. However, in the United States Middle Eastern food is being treated as a fast food, which make it not authentic at all.

This paper will discuss the multifaceted relationships among food, and culture. I will be looking at the relationships people have with food, and explore how this relationship reveals information about them. Their food choices of individuals and groups, can reveal their ideals, likes and dislikes. Food choices tell the stories of where people have travelled and who they have met along the way.