Man, those Johns are Hoppin!

Today in class, our group worked on preparing a southern dish called Hoppin' Johns. It is a one-pot dish made with black-eyed peas, onions, garlic, and vegetable broth. Having no ancestry in the south and actually not knowing that many people from the south either, this dish was completely new to me; as was the other dish we made in class, collard greens. Now both of these are southern dishes but to be honest, I’ve always associated them with slavery and actually I believe that is how they got their start. I did a little research and according to epicurious.com “throughout the South this humble dish of ‘peas’ and rice is eaten on New Year's Day for good luck, with a plate of [collard] greens, cooked with a hog jowl and plenty of corn bread to sop up the pot likker.”

I was pretty fun to cook today in the kitchen; I can just imagine how it would be down south. Our group would taste the Hoppin’ Johns every now and then to see how they were doing and if we needed to ass anything. The funny thing is that none of us had ever had them before so we really only were adding things that would make them good to us and probably not keeping with the southern tradition of it all. It was funny because we would ask each other what it needed as if we actually knew but in the end, they actually turned out pretty good (could have used a little spice, but that’s ok…sorry Annie).

(Portfolio) Racist food

Food definitely has a race, a gender, an ethnicity, and a class; well maybe not so much a gender, but the other three for sure. I also believe that food has a specific region as well. There are stereotypes that exist for food with regards to race and there are certainly so-called ethnic foods. As for food and class, there are foods which only the upper class can afford and vice-versa for the lower classes. There is soul food, Asian food, Indian food, and even white food.

The Rouse/Hoskins article touched on “soul food” but I think their ideas can be expanded to talk about all food. All food has been given a race, an ethnicity, a class, and by default of where it comes from, a region. Rice is Asian and spans all classes. Collard greens are southern and started as a lower class food, but have since moved to be a more middle class dish. Curry is Indian, corn is central American, the list goes on.

I feel like there are even foods that I relate to better than others because of where I grew up and what food I grew up with. I love spicy foods, especially Mexican food, and I think that has a little to do with growing up in Denver. I would imagine if I grew up in Seattle, I would feel the same way about Thai or Vietnamese. Food is regional and the region also gives it it’s race, it’s ethnicity, and it’s class.

(Portfolio) The future of food is not looking so good

What is the future of food? I asked my girlfriend this same question and her answer was full meals in pill form. To her, it would be more efficient because you could pack a whole day’s worth of nutrition into one little pill. Meals would take only a minute or two and we’d be full after just a single pill. The sad part is that I actually believe there is some truth in what she says. The film, The Future of Food discusses the dependence of humans on a limited number of global food corporations and the increased risk of ecological disasters resulting from the reduction of biological diversity (something I actually talked about in a Environmental Anthropology class I took a while back) due to the promotion of corporate sponsored monoculture farming.

In our current food crisis, we will not survive a famine caused by a lack of diversity in our crops. Even if we are able to protect the crops against such a disaster, our soil cannot last much longer because of our intensive agricultural lifestyle. Eventually someone has to step in with a solution or our food crisis is going to get even worse. I fear one solution might be “pilled” food. To a pharmaceutical, it would be cheap to produce because they already have to facilities to do it. This a grim end to food but if we keep going to way we are, is there really any other way?

Food and memory

I’ve always had different memories associated with different foods but none more strongly with McDonalds Hotcakes. Now I know you’re saying to yourself, “McDonalds, really?” but bear with me. So I swam all through high school and we had morning practice 3 times a week. To make it to the 5:15am practice, I had to get up at 4:15am (which actually turned out to be more like 4:45am) which usually let me little time for breakfast. I usually managed to down a bowl of cheerios and some milk and juice but that was really only enough to get me through practice. So after practice most of us varsity guys would go down to McDonalds and get breakfast (probably not the most healthy thing in the world but with 9 practices a week, it didn’t really matter what we ate). Sometimes we’d eat down there but most of the time we would bring it back to the school and eat it in the cafeteria at the big round tables. This was always the best part of the swimming season (I mean besides state and nationals) because I think it added to the camaraderie of the team.

I’ve been to McDonalds a few times since high school and even just the smell of the hotcakes is enough to remind me of the great times I had during my four years of high school swimming. But that’s the thing, it’s just a memory. I’ve sat down with the same group of guys and had the same breakfast but it was never the same; they didn’t taste the same and the whole experience just wasn’t the same. McDonalds hotcakes are my breast of Aphrodite. Although they have never disappeared or really changed at all, my buddies and I have all changed and it’s just not the same; it doesn’t make me feel like I’m back in high school, dead tired after a killer practice.

I'll give it 3 stars

Tampopo… now that was an interesting movie. I just pulled up IMDB and discovered that Gun was actually played by a young Ken Watanabe (most of you would know him from playing Lord Katsumoto in The Last Samurai). Tampopo was actually one of his first movies so it’s interesting to see where people started out and where they have come.

The movie was definitely an acquired taste. There were some parts I liked (like the hobo scene) but there were some parts I could have passed on (the egg scene for one). But at its core, I would say the movie is about the sensual, even erotic nature of food, and the lengths to which people will go to strive for ideal relationships with the food we eat and the people we meet.

I was watching the hobo scene thinking I’ve seen something like this before and it just struck me where, on a Futurama episode. There is a scene with hobos that is based on the hobo scene from Tampopo, where of course hobos with a love of food come together to share their culinary discoveries under the guidance of a master of ramen. I wish we could have seen the end of the movie but I guess I’ll have to wait until it comes in on my Netflix.

Obento for you, Obento for me

I enjoyed the obento exchange today; I actually thought it was a lot of fun. There were definitely some interesting ingredients we had at our disposal. The rice and seaweed were pretty normal to me since I eat a lot of sushi and I really enjoyed the salmon flakes, they gave a nice flavor to the rice, but I found that the fish tube things were definitely a little weird; not only taste but the texture as well. There were two other things I found to be a little weird, one was red and one was yellow. I don’t really remember what they were called but they both had an interesting taste. My favorite part was definitely the pepper. It had a little bit of a kick to it which I’ll admit surprised me, but I thought it was pretty good.

Image Credit: Ann Anagnost

Actually making an obento box was a good experience because it opened up a whole new door for me. Now I’m not saying that I’ll be making these from now on and taking them to class with me (not enough food plus too much time to make it) but it is definitely interesting to see what a mother has to go through in the morning to make her kids’ lunches. To these little Japanese kids, it is just a lunch but to me, it is an art form. It just amazes me the way everything is put together and organized.

Obento, oh really?

Food has always tasted better when it is aesthetically pleasing. I like food that looks good because most of the time it is good. There are definitely some exceptions to this rule; pizza comes to mind, it’s usually not that attractive but damn it sure is good. Food to me is an art form; the way it is presented on a plate, the way one color contrasts another or the way they complement each other. This is why the idea behind a bento box is so appealing to me.

It was interesting not only to hear to what Andrea had to say but to listen to what the Japanese students talked about as well. For them, a bento box is just a lunch but to us it is almost like an art piece. I think back to my days of a packed lunch (brown paper sack, PB&J, string cheese, an apple, and a thermos full of milk) and I wonder if there is any way to make that look as appetizing as a bento box. I can’t think of any, but maybe y’all can.

I look forward to making my own bento box or at least attempting it, but I will never be able to make it as good as this