How the Food We Eat Reflects our Culture and Identity Essay

Ntozake Shange in her set about, What Is It We Really Harvestin Here? had taught her readers a very important lesson that is very merry in understanding angiotensin-converting enzymes culture and ones family. It is the simple truth that pabulum is more than food. It was clearly communicated in Ntozake Shanges essay that food is not just an arbitrary or random thing that arises from ones culture or family. Rather, the local food of ones culture and family is a reflection of his or her environment and his focusing of living. The food that we eat is a mirror to what the nature provided to us outside of our houses.At the kindred time, food is in like manner the mirror of our own creativity and taste. Whether we prefer saintlikeness over spiciness, such preferences appear and manifest on how we prep are and how we cook our foods. Summing it up, food is a very important element that we must take a look (and taste) to have a good grasp or understanding of ones culture or ones family . The essay What Is It We Really Harvestin Here? can be regarded as a very important and remarkable piece of literature in proving the significance of food in understanding ones culture.In the essay of Shange, she told the story of numerous local delicacies that will convince us to the point that we are establishing. Take for example the Shanges example of cherubic potatoes. In the essay, she made a very good way of instructing his readers on how to generate quality sweet potatoes. Growing sweet potatoes require much dedication, patience and knowledge. As seen in Shanges instruction on how to grow a sweet potato, it was seen clearly how one must work hard to be able to produce a good quality potato.In fact, as stated in the essay, one must Get your soil ready at least two weeks before planting. . . (Shange 111) The entire procedure is difficult. As stated again, The easiest thing to do with a sweet potato is to bake it (112). These lines clearly showed that ripening sweet potato es is a tough job. This difficult method of maturation such crops mirrors the characters of the tidy sum or group of people who happened to eat those crops. As growing a potato requires dedication and patience, we can also argue that the people that grow this crops are dedicated and patient.This is our first way of proving the point that we established above that food is viable factor to see in understanding ones culture or ones family. Another notable proof of the relationship of food and culture is the case of the Carolina Rice. As discussed in Shanges essay, rice, more particularly the Carolina rice reached a great(p) demand in the 1700s. Because of this, the slaves who came from West Africa are priced better than their other counter parts. This is because of a more complex knowledge and skill that is required in growing rice. The slaves who grew from rice countries are priced better.As stated in the essay, Plantation owners were perfectly aware of the superiority of African slaves from rice country (114). Despite the complexity of growing rice, its cooking is much simpler than its cultivation. Again, this can be related to the simplicity of the lives of the people who adapt this kind of food. Rather than undergoing some complex process of cooking, rice are just simply boiled in water (116). Once again, this showed how rice that is very complicated to grow yet very simple to cook mirror its African cultivators who have a rich culture and tradition, yet living a simple life.The way we cook our own food tells a hole on our preferences and fondness. In the essay, it was written in the later part of it that North Americans does not prefer burnt rice at the bottom of the casserole. In fact, they reign it scary. However for the people other people, rice, at least the bottom of it are preferred to be burnt. This burning made possible the cooking of very modify rice (116). In my opinion, these burnt rice preferences of the colored people remind them the colo red of their skins.Sidestepping a bit from the literature to my own experience, being Hispanic also mirrored on my food tastes. My taste for a good food is determined by my background as someone who has a Hispanic descent. culmination from this particular background, I prefer foods that possess a great deal of flavor and variety. As common to all Hispanics, we prefer rice meals, chilies, spices and tomatoes. This in find to our cultivation of these crops and fruits in the earlier times and of course to our rich ethnic and historical past.Shange had successfully proved to us the important relationship of food and our cultural and familial identity. As we said in the beginning of this essay, food is not a random and arbitrary thing that just popped in our households. Rather, food is fruit of our experiences, our appeals, our desires that were smoothened by time. What we grow is who we are. What we buy is who we are. What we eat is who we are. Food is truly a mirror to our cultures and most importantly, a reflection of our humanity. Works Cited Shange, Ntozake. What Is It We Really Harvestin Here. p. 109-117