Thursday, May 3, 2012

Food and Relaitonships


On Wednesday our class made homemade bread.  As we were all trying to move around each other in the kitchen and to make sure that everyone got a chance to be included in the whole process of preparation it got me thinking about how cooking and baking can be such a bonding experience.  It made me think of all the holiday goodies that are made.  In my family we do Christmas cookie baking days that have grown to include family members and close friends.  One of the greatest things about baking together is that it helps to strengthen relationships.  In my own family it has brought my cousins and my siblings closer together after some family strife, thus we make sure to keep up the tradition of cookie baking.

In our class today we talked about food being a commodity in our society, the only real value placed on food is that of monetary value.  From what we talked about in class it seems that one way in which we devalue food is through buying premade meals at restaurants and in the grocery store.  Therefore we have no time and no care invested into what we are putting in our bodies.  I think that this devalues our food, making it more something that just eaten than something that has meaning to the individual.  I think that by putting in more effort to make one’s own food there is then more meaning to that food.  There is a sense of pride when someone tells you that the meal was delicious! It allows one to know that the food was valued by you and by others, which can strengthen the relationship one has with the people that they cooked for. 

In a movie that we watched, it talked about how some women were able to survive and remain somewhat mentally intact during the Holocaust by sharing recipes.  This is important because it shows that food is the center of relationships between families, events and friendships.  Cooking allows for the sharing of something special from the food recipe itself to the sharing of special events.  Thinking about these things has allowed me to fully realize that there is more of a connection to food than people think about.   

2 comments:

  1. I completely agree that food is greatly connected to the process of forming relationships between people and can help strengthen the bonds between family members. However, I think going out to eat with friends or family can have the same quality as cooking together. Tonight I enjoyed a delicious meal at Tapatios with some friends. I do not think I would have been able to prepare mexican food to taste as good as it did. I still felt the same type of connection and special bonding with my friends over one of our favorite types of cuisine even though we did not prepare it.

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  2. It seems there are some foods that just never taste as good when you make them yourself, though I would probably feel differently if I were of Mexican heritage and therefore grew up knowing how to make that kind of food.

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