Food is a major part of everyone’s daily life and can be a way to unite many different people from all over the world. We don’t notice it, but often times people converse about food and discuss why they do or even don’t eat certain foods. Many people worldwide have their own reasons for the foods they eat, whether it be that for religious, culture or even personal reasons. The foods I eat heavily rely on three major reasons; culture, time, and personal preference. My Puerto Rican culture is a big deciding factor on the food I often eat, especially when I am at home with my mom. A dish that’s often created at home is yellow rice and beans. This dish is so common in Puerto Rican culture due to its relatively cheap cost, easy access, and delicious taste. These reasons are why people often cooked homemade meals back in the 50’s as stated in “Something from the Oven” by Laura Shapiro, “What mattered most was how much they had to pay and what their friends and families liked.” This also made me realize that that was all my family really based food on. We never referred to a meal plan (such as my plate) or any food recommendations from the government since they were mostly tailored towards other groups, and as Hispanics we just didn’t necessarily fit in. There weren’t examples of food we (Hispanics) typically eat in these American food diet/plans. So, if we liked how it tasted and we could afford it, then we would eat it. My mother grew up in Puerto Rico where her parents owned a small farm where they grew their own food and made little money (most native Puerto Ricans live in poverty) for quite some time before moving to the states. Because of this, rice (which is cheap) and beans (which are easy to grow) became a popular dish that could be made in bulk for her, her two parents, and her five siblings. Once my mother moved to the states and her parents began to work, it was up to her to care for her siblings and naturally she began to make yellow rice and beans. It was a common dish she ate while in Puerto Rico, it was cheap, could be made for many people, and didn’t take much time. Naturally once she grew up and had me, she began to make this very same dish for me. Instantly, I fell in love with the meal. As the only family member who didn’t live in Puerto Rico, it helped me feel closely related to my roots. We no longer live-in poverty, yet my mom still makes yellow rice and beans. She often explains in Spanish that she will continue to make this dish for us since it’s a staple in Puerto Rican culture, and because it’s a quick meal to make once she gets home from work. Afterall, “the most pressing issue for them [mothers] is time” (Jiayang Fan). My mother does work a lot to provide for me, so most of our meals need to be able to be made quick since she is also very hungry once she arrives back home. A meal I wish I could eat more often due to its savory taste is pernil (pulled pork in English). Pulled pork isn’t a food we can often eat in the Maldonado-Hernandez household due to it being time consuming, messy and expensive. Pernil is another Puerto Rican dish. But instead of this one taking only a few minutes like yellow rice and beans, this dish usually takes over ten hours to cook in the oven alone. These ten hours don’t even include the prep time which could add another hour or two to the cooking time. Because of this, this dish is typically only made on special occasions and holidays in our household when my mother has time off from work to cook it. Aside from pulled pork’s long cook time, the ingredients are quite expensive. The shoulder or butt itself can run for two dollars a pound and ingredients include many spices and seasonings such as salt, black pepper, and oregano just to name a few. Oregano can easily cost about ten dollars along with many of the other ingredients. Another dish I enjoy a lot are arepas. Arepas is a common Hispanic dish that takes little time to make and is very cost effective. The ingredients needed to make arepas are flour, warm to hot water, and salt. Arepas are a common snack in the Maldonado-Hernandez household since they cost only about ten dollars to create a very large batch (approximately 20-40 large ones). It takes maybe five medium arepa to completely stuff someone, so it only made sense that Puerto Rican families in poverty leaned towards this warm snack to fill empty stomachs. It’s cheap and it also creates a large amount of food which works perfectly because it’s common in Puerto Rican culture to make large batches of food to share and split with you family since Puerto Ricans often have other family members living with them (ex. grandma and grandpa). By having other families living with each other, we (Puerto Ricans) can save some money, but it also created what could almost be a closer bond or connection than eating separate. I know my family use to love to eat with the rest of my other family members when we can and even use to have each of my grandparents living with us and helping us cook meals everyday before they moved back to Puerto Rico. I find this very interesting because now my family lives in Florida, very far away from the rest of my family that still live in New Jersey. Even though we use to love eating meals with family, it also seems that family issues have also divided us and caused this move. Because of this, we spend very little time eating or cooking with family now and tend to keep to ourselves. But, because of this move, my mom no longer works. Because my mom no longer works this allows for my mom to be able to make meals at home a lot more often. It seems like she is working on trying to feed me ore greens and carbs and less meat. Before, my meals weren’t so healthy because time played such a huge role in what I ate. There were some points where throughout elementary school and high school I played many sports. These sports started off with softball, basketball, cheer, and gymnastics to name a few. As I got older and into high school I only focused and played softball. I played on so many teams and so many important positions that it was difficult for my mom to be able to work for so many long hours and be able to feed me homecooked means with all the practices I would have each day, so she would often also buy fast food. This made it a lot easier for us to still be able to eat something we both enjoy and that also gave us enough time to do the things we needed to do on the daily without having to take time out of our day to cook. Looking back at this concept, it probably would have taken the same amount of time or maybe just a little more to cook a fresh meal instead of eating McDonalds or Wendys. Many of the dishes and snacks I eat fall within three main categories: culture, time, and personal preference among other small categories such as family time and economics. First there’s yellow rice with beans which mainly fall in the culture and time category. Then there’s pernil which fall in the culture and personal preference categories. Lastly, there’s arepas (my personal favorite snack) which fall under all three categories. After taking this class, I have started to work on eating not only heathier, but more sustainably. I personally don’t think I could be vegan, but I am trying my best to now make sure meats are not a main part of my and my family’s meals.
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The food market is a very competitive industry with many markets competing against one another for any chance to grow and market items to their consumers. These supermarkets can be divided into three different groups, each with their own ideology and methods to get consumers to buy from them. These three markets can be categorized as the large supermarkets, farmers markets, and a smaller/local grocer. During this project, I looked at one marketplace for each category. For the large supermarket, I decided to look at Target. For the farmers market, I looked at Meridian. And lastly, for the smaller/local grocery stores, I looked at the Fresh International Market. Each grocery store had its own layout, items, and consumers. While walking around Target, I noticed one very distinct difference. While Target is considered a large supermarket and my focus was supposed to be on grocery there, I saw lots of other items. These other items include clothes, beauty products, and self-care products which were all placed right in the front entrance for when people enter. I think the placement of these items were all strategic and a way to try and get people to look at other possible items people might want to buy on their way to the groceries since grocery stores will try to use psychology to get people into new products (The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food, 5). Once I picked up the few headbands and gloves I wanted, I made my way over to the grocery section where I noticed that there were lots of sweet drinks, candy, and junk food lining the ends of each isle for people to walk by and pick up. The fruits and vegetables had their own section with two isles worth of product, there were two isles for condiments and spices, and lastly the rest seemed to be mostly junk food or processed food. At the far back of the Target, there were the electronics which I only stopped by briefly. While walking around Target, I did notice that most people there were college students who were in casual wear, or a little bit dressed up. This made sense to me since Target is a bit pricier for a large supermarket compared to other large supermarkets such as Walmart. The prices seemed to Target middle class and higher and seemed to exclude lower class people. Even the store was set up to be more modern, giving me a middle-class or high-class vibe by having mostly self-checkout and one or two workers behind the counter. The use of self-checkout could be because mostly college students shop at that target, it would only make sense that they would know how to work self-checkout or perhaps prefer it over talking to an actual employee since now thinking about it, there weren’t many employees wondering around. The self-checkout also fit the McDonaldization process which uses efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control to make the shopping experience easier for consumers (The McDonaldization of Society: 20th Anniversary Edition, 13-15) It was difficult for me to spend much time at the farmers market since I had a friend drive me there and he couldn’t spend too much time there. While I was there though, I noticed that it seemed to have a much more natural and open environment compared to the Target and even the Fresh International Market. It was a fairly cold day when I visited Meridian, so most people there were wearing jackets. But from my little knowledge of fashion, it seemed like the coats they were wearing were heavy duty or name brands which only could mean that most people who shop there are upper-middle class or upper class despite the prices seeming to not be that high and able to easily be afforded by people in middle class. I did notice was that there weren’t many people that went to shop there during my time there which could possibly be due how cold it was that day. The foods, fruits and vegetables were all packaged in containers that appeared minimalistic or were just in the open, adding that that open and healthy environment which may be one of their biggest selling factors. The last place I visited was the Fresh International Market. My first impression once hearing the name of this grocery store was that it would sell foods and ingredients from all over the world, but instead it was an Asian market which also seemed to have lots of Asian employees. When I entered, the first impression I got was that lots of healthy and savory foods were served there since on the left side of the entrance was an open section with lots of fruits and vegetables. On the right side, there were lots of what seemed like dried but packaged foods, and in the back and left side were refrigerated foods. One thing that confused me about this grocery store was that there didn’t seem to be any method or thought into what was placed where and why. It made it a bit confusing to navigate. The consumers there didn’t appear to have any trouble navigating the store which could mean that they visited often and possible the store was designed for frequent shoppers. The atmosphere of the Fresh International Market was also very healthy, but it did seem a bit scattered. The people were dressed there in all sorts of different clothes and the prices weren’t awful at all, meaning that most of the people that shopped there were most likely lower class and above. Lastly, the products there varied in design, but they all had some form of Asian language written on them, which also told me that this store was directed towards the Asian population in the area. Overall, each store had their own target audience and vibes which varied from social-economic class to healthiness. Personally, I enjoyed the vibes at the Fresh International Market and Target the most due to the products they offered. Routines define many people’s lives and help people in a social and practical way. Even in college, many students have a routine that they are unaware about. This routine works hand in hand with the McDonaldization process which “offers [users] efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control” (Ritzer, 13). My goal was to break this McDonaldization process on campus by trying to join in on pre-established friend groups. The first step was trying to find someone who I could connect to. My idea was that this connection could be anything. If I could find a connection, then I could create some sort of conversation with the other person. This was probably the hardest part of the project since many people have already found their own groups of people that they want to hang out with now that we are almost two months into the school year. There aren’t many students who are readily looking for new friends since they already have their established friend groups. These friend groups are predictable to most people, and they know these people well. I had to search around quite a bit to see if I could find someone I could possibly be compatible with. The first place I tried was at my dining hall in Brody. I thought this would be the best place to look since this is where a lot of people gather to eat and therefore, I would have lots of opportunities to see and even speak to people with common interests. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that this is also where many people come with their already pre-established friend groups to eat dinner and lunch. I had tried to speak to a few girls while in line, but most of the conversations fell dead after a few words. The most memorable exchange at the beginning of this McDonaldization project was with a male at Brody. I had noticed he had a keychain on his bag from a video game I use to play a lot over the summer and complimented it. He then turned around and asked if I was flirting with him. I found this to be a bit embarrassing because I had not been flirting with him and had only been talking to him for the sake of this project, so I told him no and then he immediately turned around and ignored me the rest of the wait in line. This first step was the longest step and involved me having to talk to a lot of strangers. My first breakthrough though was not one I had been expecting. There was a male named Eli sitting in the kitchen/movie area in Butterfield Hall while I was on my way to a study lounge on the same floor. I had for some weird reason thought that they had closed that area of the hall and decided to peek into the room only to see him sitting there watching a football game. I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed after I had walked in without an invitation and quickly apologized. He said it was fine and we immediately hit it off. Eli complimented my necklace and then from there we spoke for what seemed like twenty or thirty minutes before grabbing dinner together. During dinner we exchanged socials and made plans to hangout later. It wasn’t until a day later that he had messaged me asking to go over to his dorm to hang out with a few of his friends which went great. Since this initial interaction, we had both hangout multiple times and always say hello to each other when we bump into one another. After I had befriended Eli I decided that I should continue on and try to break this McDonaldization process on campus. Four days later I met a female names Emily who I had met on the bus after psychology class and who had also coincidentally lived in the same hall as I did. It took me two stops before I worked up the courage to make a comment to her about how the bus driver kept slammed on the breaks and that’s all it took for her to start talking to me. We spoke the whole ride to Brody and once we got off, we exchanged numbers. We had made plans to meet up that night with a few of her friends and go out. Since then, Emily and her friends frequently visit my dorm, and we have all became close friends. Many people don’t say this but joining in on pre-established friend groups really isn’t as hard as it seems. At first, it’s scary and intimidating because you do not know how the other person will react or even how the people who witness it will react. It’s just like how Anthony Bourdain was originally scared to admit he was an activist until someone he was close to was sexually harassed. After that, he said “I’m a fuckin’ feminist” (Rosner, 3). All he needed was some courage and push to go against the stream. The same goes for McDonaldization. It just takes some courage and putting aside any embarrassment you may feel.
Food is a major part of everyone’s daily life and can be a way to unite many different people from all over the world. We don’t notice it, but often times people converse about food and discuss why they do or even don’t eat certain foods. Many people worldwide have their own reasons for the foods they eat, whether it be that for religious, culture or even personal reasons. The foods I eat heavily rely on three major reasons; culture, time, and personal preference. My Puerto Rican culture is a big deciding factor on the food I often eat, especially when I am at home with my mom. A dish that’s often created at home is yellow rice and beans. This dish is so common in Puerto Rican culture due to its relatively cheap cost, easy access, and delicious taste. These reasons are why people often cooked homemade meals back in the 50’s as stated in Something from the Oven by Laura Shapiro, “What mattered most was how much they had to pay and what their friends and families liked.” If we liked how it tasted and we could afford it, then we would eat it. My mother grew up in Puerto Rico where her parents owned a small farm where they grew their own food and made little money (most native Puerto Ricans live in poverty) for quite some time before moving to the states. Because of this, rice (which is cheap) and beans (which are easy to grow) became a popular dish that could be made in bulk for her, her two parents, and her five siblings. Once my mother moved to the states and her parents began to work, it was up to her to care for her siblings and naturally she began to make yellow rice and beans. It was a common dish she ate while in Puerto Rico, it was cheap, could be made for many people, and didn’t take much time. Naturally once she grew up and had me, she began to make this very same dish for me. Instantly, I fell in love with the meal. As the only family member who didn’t live in Puerto Rico, it helped me feel closely related to my roots. We no longer live-in poverty, yet my mom still makes yellow rice and beans. She often explains in Spanish that she will continue to make this dish for us since it’s a staple in Puerto Rican culture, and because it’s a quick meal to make once she gets home from work. Afterall, “the most pressing issue for them [mothers] is time” (Jiayang Fan). My mother does work a lot to provide for me, so most of our meals need to be able to be made quick since she is also very hungry once she arrives back home. A meal I wish I could eat more often due to its savory taste is pernil (pulled pork in English). Pulled pork isn’t a food we can often eat in the Maldonado-Hernandez household due to it being time consuming, messy and expensive. Pernil is another Puerto Rican dish. But instead of this one taking only a few minutes like yellow rice and beans, this dish usually takes over ten hours to cook in the oven alone. These ten hours don’t even include the prep time which could add another hour or two to the cooking time. Because of this, this dish is typically only made on special occasions and holidays in our household when my mother has time off from work to cook it. Aside from pulled pork’s long cook time, the ingredients are quite expensive. The shoulder or butt itself can run for two dollars a pound and ingredients include many spices and seasonings such as salt, black pepper, and oregano just to name a few. Oregano can easily cost about ten dollars along with many of the other ingredients. Another dish I enjoy a lot are arepas. Arepas is a common Hispanic dish that takes little time to make and is very cost effective. The ingredients needed to make arepas are flour, warm to hot water, and salt. Arepas are a common snack in the Maldonado-Hernandez household since they cost only about ten dollars to create a very large batch (approximately 20-40 large ones). It takes maybe five medium arepa to completely stuff someone, so it only made sense that Puerto Rican families in poverty leaned towards this warm snack to fill empty stomachs. Arepas are also a good way to bring the family together. It’s very common for arepas to be a family effort despite how short their cook time is since it’s very easy to allow kids to knead the ingredients together while either the grandparents, parents, or older sibling boil the dough. After the arepas are made, they are to cool down for about ten to twenty minutes while the family cleans up. Many of the dishes and snacks I eat fall within three main categories; culture, time, and personal preference among other small categories such as family time and economics. First there’s yellow rice with beans which mainly fall in the culture and time category. Then there’s pernil which fall in the culture and personal preference categories. Lastly, there’s arepas (my personal favorite snack) which fall under all three categories. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
December 2021
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