UCI What American Learn from Other Food Cultures Article Summary just read the article and write a one page summary that is 300 words and follow the rubric

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What Americans can learn from other food cultures
By Amy S. Choi | Ideas.TED.com
Dec 18, 2014

What Americans can learn from other food cultures

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Food feeds the soul. To the extent that we all eat food, and we
all have souls, food is the single great unifier across cultures.
But what feeds your soul?
1
For me, a first-generation Korean-American, comfort food is a plate of kimchi, white rice,
and fried Spam. Such preferences are personally meaningful — and also culturally meaningful. Our
comfort foods map who are, where we come from, and what happened to us along the way.
Notes Jennifer 8. Lee (TED Talk: Jennifer 8. Lee looks for General Tso), “what you want to cook
and eat is an accumulation, a function of your experiences — the people you’ve dated, what you’ve
learned, where you’ve gone. There may be inbound elements from other cultures, but you’ll always
eat things that mean something to you.”
2
In much of China, only the older generations still shop every day in the wet market, then go
home and cook traditional dishes.
3
Jennifer Berg, director of graduate food studies at New York University, notes that food is
particularly important when you become part of a diaspora, separated from your mother culture.
“It’s the last vestige of culture that people shed,” says Berg. “There’s some aspects of maternal
culture that you’ll lose right away. First is how you dress, because if you want to blend in or be part
of a larger mainstream culture the things that are the most visible are the ones that you let go. With
food, it’s something you’re engaging in hopefully three times a day, and so there are more
opportunities to connect to memory and family and place. It’s the hardest to give up.”
Food as identity
4
The “melting pot” in American cuisine is a myth, not terribly unlike the idea of a melting
pot of American culture, notes chef Dan Barber (TED Talk: How I fell in love with a fish). “Most
cultures don’t think about their cuisine in such monolithic terms,” he says. “French, Mexican,
Chinese, and Italian cuisines each comprise dozens of distinct regional foods. And I think
“American” cuisine is moving in the same direction, becoming more localized, not globalized.”
5
Most cultures don’t think about their cuisine in monolithic terms. Mexican, Chinese and
French cuisines each comprise dozens of distinct regional foods.
6
American cuisine is shaped by the natural wealth of the country. Having never faced
agricultural hardship, Americans had the luxury of not relying on rotating crops, such as the
Japanese, whose food culture now showcases buckwheat alongside rice, or the Indians, or the
French and Italians, who feature lentils and beans alongside wheat. “That kind of negotiation with
the land forced people to incorporate those crops in to the culture,” says Barber. And so eating soba
noodles becomes part of what it means to be Japanese, and eating beans becomes part of what it
means to be French.
7
So if what we eat is what we are, what are Americans? Well, meat. “If Americans have any
unifying food identity, I would say we are a (mostly white) meat culture,” says Barber. “The
protein-centric dinner plate, whether you’re talking about a boneless chicken breast, or a 16-ounce
steak, as an everyday expectation is something that America really created, and now exports to the
rest of the world.”
8
Every single culture and religion uses food as part of their celebrations, says Ellen
Gustafson, co-founder of the FEED Project and The 30 Project, which aims to tackle both hunger
and obesity issues globally. (Watch her TED Talk: Obesity + hunger = 1 global food issue.) “The
celebratory nature of food is universal. Every season, every harvest, and every holiday has its own
food, and this is true in America as well. It helps define us.”
Food as survival
9
Sometimes food means survival. While the Chinese cooks who exported “Chinese” food
around the world ate authentic cooking at home, the dishes they served, thus creating new cuisines
entirely, were based on economic necessity. Chinese food in America, for example, is Darwinian,
says Lee. It was a way for Chinese cooks to survive in America and earn a living. It started with the
invention of chop suey in the late 1800s, followed by fortune cookies around the time of World War
II, and the pervasive General Tso’s Chicken, in the 1970s. Waves of more authentic Chinese food
followed, as Hunan and Sichuan cooking came to the U.S. by way of Taiwan.
10
In Chinese cities, meanwhile, only grandparents are cooking and eating the way that people
from outside of China might imagine “Chinese” food. The older generation still would shop every
day in the wet market, bargain for tomatoes, then go home that night and cook traditional dishes,
says Crystyl Mo, a food writer based in Shanghai. But most people born after the Cultural
Revolution don’t know how to cook. “That generation was focused purely on studying, and their
parents never taught them how to cook,” says Mo. “So they’re very educated, but they’re eating
takeout or going back to their parents’ homes for meals.”
Food as status
11
Those slightly younger people have been the beneficiaries of the restaurant culture
exploding in Shanghai. The city is home to 23 million people, and has more than 100,000
restaurants, up from less than ten thousand a decade ago. Now, you can find food from all of the
provinces of China in Shanghai, as well as every kind of global food style imaginable.
12
The introduction of global foods and brands has compounded food as a status symbol for
middle-class Chinese.
13
The introduction of global foods and brands has compounded food as a status symbol for
middle-class Chinese. “Food as status has always been a huge thing in China,” says Mo. “Being
able to afford to eat seafood or abalone or shark’s-fin or bird’s-nest soup, or being able to show
respect to a VIP by serving them the finest yellow rice wine, is part of our history. Now it’s been
modernized by having different Western foods represent status. It could be a Starbucks coffee, or
Godiva chocolates, or a Voss water bottle. It’s a way of showing your sophistication and
worldliness.”
14
Eating is done family style, with shared dishes, and eating is the major social activity for
friends and families. Eating, exchanging food, taking photos of food, uploading photos of food,
looking at other people’s photos of food — this is all a way that food brings people together in an
urban center. Even waiting in line is part of the event. People may scoff at the idea of waiting two
hours in line to eat in a trendy restaurant, says Mo, but waiting in line for a restaurant with your
friends is an extension of your experience eating with them.
15
How and why you eat your food, is, of course, also very cultural. In China, people eat food
not necessarily for taste, but for texture. Jellyfish or sliced pig ear don’t have any taste, but do have
desirable texture. Foods must either be scalding hot or very cold; if it’s warm, there’s something
wrong with the dish. At a banquet, the most expensive things are served first, such as scallops or
steamed fish, then meats, then nice vegetables, and finally soup, and if you’re still hungry, then rice
or noodles or buns. “If you started a meal and they brought out rice after the fish, you’d be very
confused,” says Mo. “Like, is the meal over now?”
Food as pleasure
16
“Food in France is still primarily about pleasure,” says Mark Singer, technical director of
cuisine at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. “Cooking and eating are both past time and pleasure.” The
French might start their day with bread, butter, jam, and perhaps something hot to drink — “There’s
no way that it would expand to eggs and bacon,” says Singer — but it’s a time of the day when the
whole family can be united. Singer, who was born in Philadelphia, has lived in France for more than
40 years. (He doesn’t eat breakfast.)
17
“Things have changed dramatically in the past 20 years when it comes to food in the
country,” he says. “What was a big affair with eating has slowly softened up. There are still events
in the year, like birthdays and New Year’s Eve and Christmas Eve that still say really anchored into
traditional food and cooking. But it’s not every day.”
18
Some of the ideas of French food life may be a performance, adds Berg. “I led a course in
Paris this summer on myth-making and myth-busting and the performance of Frenchness. The
students want to believe that France is this pastoral nation where people are spending five hours a
day going to 12 different markets to get their food. The reality is most croissants are factory made,
and most people are buying convenience food, except for the very elite. But part of our identity
relies on believing that mythology.”
19
An Italian child’s first experience with food is not buns or rice or eggs, but probably ice
cream.
20
How a country savors a food is also telling. In Italy, as in France, takeout is still relatively
rare. “Eating fast is not at all part of our culture,” says Marco Bolasco, editorial director of Slow
Food and an Italian food expert. Our meals are relaxed, even during lunch break.”
21
Food in Italy is love, then nutrition, then history, then pleasure, he says. An Italian child’s
first experience with food is not buns or rice or eggs, but probably ice cream, notes Bolasco. Status
and wealth play less of a role in food than say, in China.
Food as community
22
In Arab cultures, community is key to the food culture. The daily iftar that breaks the fast
during Ramadan, for example, features platters of traditional fare such as tharid and h’riss that are
shared by all who are sitting down to break the fast, eating with their hand from the same dishes.
Families and institutions will host private iftars, of course, but mosques, schools, markets and other
community organizations will also offer large iftar meals, and all are open to the public and shared.
This family style of eating is not dissimilar to the dishes on a Chinese dinner table, where one does
not eat a single portioned and plated dish, but is expected to eat from shared, communal platters.
Food as humanity
23
Perhaps cuisine, though, isn’t so much about progress as it is about restraint.
24
“One of the great things about cuisine is that it the best way to hold back our worst kind of
hedonism,” says Barber. “There is no landscape in the world that sustainably allows us to eat how
we think we want to.” In another sense, says Barber, food is the physical manifestation of our
relationship with the natural world. It is where culture and ecology intersect. It can become even
more important than language, and even geography, when it comes to culture.
25
“Your first relationship as a human being is about food,” says Richard Wilk, anthropology
professor at the University of Indiana and head of its food studies program. “The first social
experience we have is being put to the breast or bottle. The social act of eating, is part of how we
become human, as much as speaking and taking care of ourselves. Learning to eat is learning to
become human.”
Illustrations by Andrea Turvey for TED.
About the author
Amy S. Choi is a freelance journalist, writer and editor based in Brooklyn, N.Y. She is the cofounder and editorial director of The Mash-Up Americans, a media and consulting company that
examines multidimensional modern life in the U.S.
Summary Writing
Knowing Language, Ch. 2
Courtesy of Sarah Sok
Summary Writing
? Summary writing can help writers remember key points from their
reading, learn from their reading, and use important concepts and
points from their reading in their writing
? Summary writing can give readers an accurate, objective, complete,
concise view of a piece of writing that they may not have read
Summary Writing
? Informal summaries – students might write short, informal, and
impromptu summaries for their own benefit to help them learn summaries of lecture notes or assigned readings as study guides
? Formal summaries – students might be required to write research
reports or summaries of documents for their instructors
One Method for Summary Writing
Read the original text closely.
1. Reread the text at least 3 times:
a. 1st time – to get the overall picture
b. 2nd time – to break the reading passage into parts, underline key terms and ideas,
look up words that are central to understanding the text, highlight quotations that
are important
c. 3rd time – to paraphrase the main ideas
2. Make sure you understand the main point of the text.
a. Look at the title of the text, and the main points of each paragraph. How is each
paragraph tied to the title? What is the common thread that ties all the
paragraphs together?
Do Step 1 of the Writing Process: Pre-Writing/ Outline/ Plan/ Brainstorm.
? Write one sentence that contains the title and date of the text, the author’s full
name, the place where the text appeared, and the central idea/main point/thesis of
the entire text. This can become the first sentence of your summary.
? In her article “Bilingualism May Be Good for the Brain,” which appeared in
the Los Angeles Times on February 27, 2011, Amina Khan reports that
neuroscientists are increasingly finding evidence that bilingualism is good
for the brain even while many public schools are moving away from
bilingual education.
? Decide on the appropriate order for the rest of the information in your summary
and make an outline. You might want to keep the order of the information the
same as the original text, or different based on the purpose of your summary.
Do Step 2 of the Writing Process: Drafting/ Writing.
Whether you refer to the original text or only to your notes/outline is up to you,
but you must write your summary IN YOUR OWN WORDS. Only use words,
phrases, and grammatical structures that you understand so that your summary
sounds like you wrote it.
Do Step 3 of the Writing Process: Editing/ Revising.
? Look at your summary and ask yourself if there are any unnecessary words
or phrases. Your summary should only include the main ideas, not the
details. It also should not contain your opinion (unless the prompt
specifically asks you to summarize a text and state your opinion).
? Reread the original text. Reread your summary. Ask yourself if your
summary sufficiently reflects the information and ideas as the author
presents them in the original text.
? Revise, edit, and polish your summary for grammar, language, style.
Summary Writing Dos and Don’ts
?
?
?
?
?
?
Dos
Be careful with word choice
State the title and date of the original text
and the author’s full name at the beginning of
your summary
State the author’s thesis at the beginning of
your summary
Refer to the author by last name only after
the first time you mention the author
Keep reminding your readers that you are
writing a summary by using signal phrases
such as “the article suggests…” and “the
author argues…”
Use the present tense
Don’ts
? Don’t include your own
ideas, opinions, or
interpretations in your
summary
? Don’t include
unnecessary details
? Don’t complete just one
draft of your summary
Verbs that introduce the author’s ideas/
opinions/ thesis
?
?
?
?
?
?
Conclude
Emphasize
Suggest
Believe
Show
Add
?
?
?
?
?
?
Suppose
Maintain
Claim
State
Contend
Demonstrate
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
Argue
Deny
Assert
Question
Challenge
Illustrate
debate
When using quotations (Knowing
Language p. 141)
Integrating Quotations in your Writing
Quoting is copying word for word what another person has said and putting the
words in “quotation” marks followed by the appropriate reference details (in-text
citations).
Using a small number of well-selected quotations can make your writing memorable
and interesting
However, use quotations sparingly (only a little) in your writing because too many
can make it seem like you cannot paraphrase or you cannot convey original ideas. Too
many quotations can also break the flow of your writing and weaken your
statements.
Three Steps for Using Quotations
1. Introduce the quotation using a signal phrase such as “Smith says…” or
“He claims that…”
2. Give the quotation using proper punctuation
3. Follow up the quotation with a sentence that explains it or comments
on it. Good phrases to begin this sentence include:
a. In other words…
b. These words mean that…
c. This suggests that…
d. This quotation explains that…
e. This is significant because
f. In essence, the author is arguing that…
Three Steps for Using Quotations
1. Introduce the quotation
2. Give the quotation using
proper punctuation
3. Follow up the quotation
According to Malcolm Gladwell, “If you work
hard enough and assert yourself, and use your
mind and imagination, you can shape the
world to your desires” (151). By this, he means
that all individuals are capable of achieving
success, but they must do so through hard
work, assertion, intelligence, and creativity.
Three Steps for Using Quotations
1. Introduce the quotation
2. Give the quotation using
proper punctuation
3. Follow up the quotation
In the excerpt “Silence” from her book The
Woman Warrior, Maxine Kingston remembers
that she “flunked kindergarten” (48). She
explains that this was a consequence of her
silence during her first year in an American
school when she was still unfamiliar with the
English language and the American culture.
Your Turn: Three Steps for Using Quotations
Choose a quotation that you think is
important from the article you are
summarizing.
1. Introduce the quotation
2. Give the quotation using
proper punctuation
3. Follow up the quotation

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