Food as a Cultural Domain: A Comparison of American and East Indian Styles of Hospitality and Food Sharing
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Added on 2022/10/02
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This article discusses the cultural differences between American and East Indian styles of hospitality and food sharing. It also explores the impact of healthy food on our body and mind setup.
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1 FOOD AS A CULTURAL DOMAIN
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2 A) After reviewing the Peeradina reading, I found a few similarities and differences between American and East Indian styles of hospitality and food sharing. If we consider American values and culture, we can see that Americans give more value to individuality and individual choices rather than family relations. This mentality reflects on their food culture too. While at home, they prepare foods for certain people who are supposed to eat the food, and if an extra guest comes, they are open enough to discuss that there is no extra food prepared in front of the guest. But the East Indian culture of food sharing is different from Americans. If an extra guest comes suddenly and there is not enough food prepared, still Indians manage to arrange something and share the food with the guest. But if we change the location from home to office, we can find a similarity between the food cultures of both of the continents. In the office, both Americans and Indians love to share their lunch boxes with others, especially for those who have not brought their lunch. Considering myself, I love to share my food with my friends and known persons. In case of unknown persons, I hesitate a little bit but if the person is in a real need for food, then I will surely share my food with the person. After informally observing a group of people eating, I think that people from different continents have different eating styles. While I observed that Americans finish their food much quicker and they talk very less while eating, Indians take time to consume their food and they are more relaxed while having their food. I think our culture and values have a great contribution to our style of having foods. Americans believe more in individual freedom, so while consuming their meal, they are more concentrated on their food and least bothered with external matters. But Indians are family-oriented and this nature reflects in their food habits too. If you visit an Indian family at lunchtime, you can expect that there will also be a plate for you at the lunch table. The food will be shared among all and, generally, they make a bit extra food in order to serve any extra guests at any time. So, from this discussion, we can
3 assume that cultural values play an essential role in food habits. Both American and Indian food styles have their own positive message. While Americans finish their lunch fast and prepare food for pre-specified persons, it reflects that they value time and avoid food spoilage. For Indian culture, they prepare extra food and eat their food slowly. It means that they give sufficient time to their food to be digested properly. It is our own perception that which food habit we will adopt. The questions are very relevant to the Peeradina reading and my observation. Both Peeradina reading and my observation create the ground for these questions, and the realization we get from the reading and the observation, clear our views to those questions. In a short, the answers for the questions are hidden under the thought we get from the reading and the observation. B) In my effort of data collection, I have chosen two domains from the given options, and those are- i) Healthy foods/ unhealthy foods, and ii) Foods that are currently cool or in style. Adding to that, I have engaged two of my friends named Albert and Johnson to complete this assignment. I asked them to enlist all the food names they can think of associated with my selected two domains. Both of them enlisted their favorite food names based on the two domains I selected. Here are the details of their listings- Albert- NoHealthy foods/ unhealthy foodsFoods that are currently cool or in style 1Noodles soupDoughnuts 2OatsIce cream 3PastaBurger 4French fryPizza 5MilkSandwich
4 Johnson- NoHealthy foods/ unhealthy foodsFoods that are currently cool or in style 1Brown riceChicken sandwich 2SalmonChocolates 3Peanut butterIce Cream 4YogurtCrispy Chicken 5Sweet potatoesPancakes After reviewing the information I gathered, I interviewed both of them in order to collect more meaningful details. To make my interview precise, this time I decided to interview them on the basis of one domain of my interest. I chose the domain named Healthy foods/ unhealthy foods for the interview. The first question I asked both of them is, “what do you understand about healthy and unhealthy food?” While Albert gave a straight reply to it, Johnson gave a descriptive answer. As per Albert’s voice, “the food which is good for our health is healthy food and the food which are not good for our health is unhealthy food”. As per the summarization of Johnson's explanation, foods that contain harmful ingredients like cholesterol, fat is unhealthy foods. And healthy foods are those which does not reflect bad effects on our body and help to maintain a disease-free body by providing essential nutrients. While I ask them about their favorite healthy food, Albert says Milk and cornflakes, and Johnson goes for simply Fruits. I asked them how they feel healthy food can impact their lifestyle. In answer, Albert said, "I have no idea about it bro. I love to eat foods and whenever I feel hungry, I eat some food of my choice." Johnson gave a thoughtful answer to my question. He said, "I think we should practice consuming healthy foods in order to maintain a good lifestyle. Healthy foods indirectly help us to live longer and keep our body system fit".
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5 The information I gathered from the interviews relates to the article named ‘YouAreWhatYouEat:ReligiousAspectsoftheHealthFoodMovement’ written by JillDubisch. In that article, I read about the effect of healthy food in our body and mind setup. I also learned about healthy food movement which was started in the eighteenth century. I learned an interesting fact from the article that nutritional problems can often cause social, emotional, behavioral, and spiritual problems. The practice of eating healthy food can not only help to maintain a healthy body but also it is heavily associated with social and mental stability. There are many articles that tell us how vitamins and minerals help to overcome anxiety and depression. So, I found my interview quite relatable with the above- mentioned article1. Reference: Dubisch, Jill. 1985.You Are What You Eat: Religious Aspects Of The Health Food Movement. California: Mayfield publishing Company. 1Dubisch, Jill. 1985.You Are What You Eat: Religious Aspects Of The Health Food Movement. California: Mayfield publishing Company.