Source: Observing an occasion where food had to be served to a group of people. The group was a group of men who played poker every Monday night, and every Monday night they would play at one of the group member’s houses. This week was my house.
Relation: Food is a part of everyone’s culture and subculture. American food is different from Mexican food. What’s served at a birthday party for a twelve year old could be different from what’s served at wedding reception. There are plenty of different types of foods, or motives and reasoning behind everyone’s decision on what should be served to a group of people.
Description: Every month my mother has to host the Monday night poker event and has to either cook for everyone or buy enough take-out food to fill everyone’s stomach. There are a handful of men, who barely fit around our table. There has been multiple times where my mom just cooks pizza since that seems to be the easiest. This time she cooked spaghetti.
Commentary/Analysis: Why spaghetti for the Monday night crew I wondered? Before I asked my mom I tried to think of some reasons myself. Was it cheaper, easier to make? Maybe it was on sale, or someone from the group had asked for spaghetti since my mom does cook it very well? I also began to wonder why it was still Italian food being served to the men who played poker. The conclusion I came to was that they were probably just getting tired of the same old pizza and wanted something new. Thus spaghetti was made. My only concern was why did they stick with Italian food? Was it better than all the rest or just preferred by the group, or by the cook? After asking my mom, I got my answer. She decided on what was being cooked because it was cheap and easy to make. So is cereal but I didn’t see her making it. To answer why she chose spaghetti over something cheap and easy to make, like cereal, is simple; for certain cultures and subcultural groups, there are only certain types of food that can be served. For example your boss comes over to your house; you’re not going to serve him cereal. But if kids come over to hang out with your son, you could serve them cereal and they wouldn’t mind.
Really interesting observation. Im my opinion cereal is totally a children's food; you don't normally see adults eating lucky charms or another sugary cereal even for breakfast. It is really interesting to look at how certain ages eat certain food and still keep within a budget.
ReplyDeleteIn response to your field study I wonder if you could be more descriptive on what type of people were at the dinner? Did each person eat different amounts of the food served at dinner? How did the group eat other types of meals?
Food is definitely an interesting topic that's always fun to think about. I think it's also interesting to think about how we don't only define certain foods as edible, but we also define them as edible only during certain parts of our day. Spaghetti and cereal are both easy to make, but only one is deemed acceptable to eat during the evening hours. An interesting example of this concept is when we eat "breakfast for dinner." Typical breakfast fare is perfectly good to eat for dinner, but it is almost necessary to call it breakfast anyway. Are these cultural notions about food completely abstract or is there real logic behind them? They seem to me to be abstract, but because I've grown up with them they'll always affect my food choices.
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