Native American Culture Summary

This paper looks to define and explore three books which are a crux to various food histories which in the last decade has become a scholarly journey as food history is becoming increasingly studied as a scholarly endeavor by historians where previously it was not seen in such a scholarly light. The three texts which are going to be examined are: Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food by Jeffery M. Pilcher, The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture by Rebecca L. Spang, and lastly To Live and Dine in Dixie: The Evolution of Urban Food Culture in the Jim Crow South by Angela Jill Cooley. Each of these books seek to redefine how people see their perspective topics whether it be Mexican identity rooted in cuisine, the evolution of southern food in a racially divided south, or even the concept of the restaurant emerging from a revolutionary culture. These texts bring awareness to various topics which have both social, cultural, and economic stigmas associated with them.

Food is a highly unique commodity, for though it is essential to every single person on earth, there is no other commodity which is acquired and consumed in such diverse ways. It is a multifaceted social instrument, serving to connect people across cultural boundaries while simultaneously drawing lines through society, dividing people across race and class. Though we have discussed the connections between certain alternative food movements and the creation of a ‘white’ identity, I contend that the social mechanisms of food extend beyond the production of ‘whiteness’, and are intricately bound up in the creation and perpetuation of other racial and class identities in Western society. As the ways in which we consume and engage with food

In Jessica Harris’s “The Culinary Season of my Childhood” she peels away at the layers of how food and a food based atmosphere affected her life in a positive way. Food to her represented an extension of culture along with gatherings of family which built the basis for her cultural identity throughout her life. Harris shares various anecdotes that exemplify how certain memories regarding food as well as the varied characteristics of her cultures’ cuisine left a lasting imprint on how she began to view food and continued to proceeding forward. she stats “My family, like many others long separated from the south, raised me in ways that continued their eating traditions, so now I can head south and sop biscuits in gravy, suck chewy bits of fat from a pigs foot spattered with hot sauce, and yes’m and no’m with the best of ‘em,.” (Pg. 109 Para). Similarly, since I am Jamaican, food remains something that holds high importance in my life due to how my family prepared, flavored, and built a food-based atmosphere. They extended the same traditions from their country of origin within the new society they were thrusted into. The impact of food and how it has factors to comfort, heal, and bring people together holds high relevance in how my self-identity was shaped regarding food.

When the Native Americans were forced onto reservations they stopped hunting and preparing their own food. Instead the United States government gave them food that their bodies were not used to digesting. Indians were not used to eating flour, lard, canned meats and poultry that are swimming in fat, and canned fruits and vegetables packed in sugary syrup.

Tradition has been said to mirror a way of life. Observation has concluded that participants in tradition “actively construct as well as reflect culture and community” (Sacks 275). For most people in the 21st century, tradition only reveals itself during special times or certain seasons. For others it is simply a way of life. The foodways of Mexicans and Native Americans are of particular interest in this study because of the food that grew from necessity and is maintained as sacred or reserved for only special occasions. The tamale is one such food. Significantly changed and altered throughout history it has remained a

For many people, culture and identity are closely tied to identity-- sometimes so closely that the things they do, eat, or say may not even feel like a conscious decision. However, from an outsider’s point of view, it is easy to note the differences between cultures in many different ways. One of the most tangible examples of this is, of course, food. When speaking to many people from older generations, it is easy to see how much food is entwined in their stories from the past, whether they come from far away or are still living where they were born. Throughout Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, food is heavily used in many different ways to represent multiple races.

In the documentary America Before Columbus food was a major part of the early success of the settlers in America. In terms of food “horses, pig, sheep, goats, chickens” are but a few that become very popular in America (2009). The impact that food had in America as well as Europe has more to do with thriving and surviving than with the economics of food trade. The Irish could maximize the use of the American potatoes so much that “in a hundred years the Irish population more than doubles” (2009). In the America’s meat was the most inexpensive food and thus settlers of the new world became one of the best fed people on earth. (2009). Without a doubt food trade, to include the byproducts of food became a high demand as trades among the people

In 1992, in the 51st volume of Western Folklore, Sarah E. Newton published her article: “The Jell-O Syndrome”: Investigating Popular Culture/Foodways. In this piece, Newton discusses the history and impact of Jell-O, gelatin desert, in American foodways and pop culture since its establishment in 1897 (252).

Nutrition is possibly the greatest significant constituent of Indian culture. Rich of the daily unchanging and tradition in Indian paths universally the ritualistic of making and eating food. In history, females widespread their way to the local marketplaces to fill their carrier with potatoes, berries, meat, and catfish. Once amassing them the women would return home to begin ever-ending the flourishes and flour to make additional cornflower tortillas for the evening mealtime. Mexican foodstuff is attractive in wash and flavor. The fruitfulness of their cooking comes from their concern for the sensory experience of eating. It is often said that cooking is philosophy”, and to appreciate the enlargement of Mexican food it is important to know about the history of

In “A Wild Taste”: Food and Colonialism in Eighteenth-Century Louisiana, Dawdy reconstructs minutely “what and how people were eating in [French] colonial Louisiana” (Dawdy, 389) based on narrative accounts of colonial writers and also the confirmation from archaeological data. Then, she tries to show “how the sensual and social experience of eating relates to the political rationalities of colonialism,” (Dawdy, 389) which involved mediative practices like adopting and valuing native foods, transplanting French foods and habits into the local environment, and taming exotic ingredients with traditional French recipes (Dawdy, 407). In addition, she identifies the “pyramid [structure] of preference in the order of European, Native, and African

for this assignment, first summarize the article "Were Luxury Foods the first Domesticates?". Then choose a food that you consider to currently be a luxury food and trace its origin. Summarize the origin and include appropriate citations for your research.

The dietary adjustments of a particular culture is indicative of the cultural impact of another and is frequently exemplified throughout the colonial history of North America. Indeed, the incorporation of European food goods, such as alcohol, into the diet of the North American Indigenous Peoples is representative of the immense influence which the first explorers had on these early tribes (Lunn 1992). Furthermore, the transitional dietary modifications of the First Nations People of Canada’s north is a direct reflection of Western influence and the European attempt to assimilate these traditional societies according to Western idealism. Traditional dietary conversions correspond with the establishment and eventual sustainment of the Canadian North as a welfare state. Significant European influences are discernible within three major stages of socio-cultural changes in Northern First Nations’ food history: the trade-based economic and cultural influence of Hudson Bay Company during the 19th century; the Canadian government’s resettlement of Inuit away from traditional hunting-gathering communities in the mid-20th century; and the contemporary effects of industrial society-precipitated climate change on the traditional food supply. These Western influences have contributed to the traditional peoples’ dependence on government management and transitioned the societies of Canada’s North into a welfare state. The purpose of this research essay is to illustrate the connection

The purpose of this report is to analyze in depth, Chicken, and dumpling stew; a traditional French-Canadian dish consisting of a chicken cooked in water, dumplings; a biscuit dough boiled in water, and varying vegetables including; celery, carrots, and onions. The report uses the cultural-ecological theory to look at the social/cultural history of this food dish; including its time of origin, the Great depression era. Equally, the report discusses the social/cultural history of the ingredients in this dish to better understand how or why these specific ingredients came to be combined to create this popular comfort food. In addition, this report will provide analyze the current status and situation of this dish in our western culture as well

Food is very much a part of pop culture, and the beliefs, practices, and trends in a culture affect its eating practices. Pop culture includes the ideas and objects generated by a society, including foods, and other systems, as well as the impact of these ideas and objects on society. For example, Mcdonald's is another of the thousands of fast food chains that populate our cities though they often use the term “popular culture” only to refer to media forms. Their popularity has also increased internationally. Although all humans need food to survive, people's food habits and how they obtain, prepare, and consume food, are the result of learned behaviors. Mcdonald’s, like other food chains, has made an effort to ‘localize’ its products so that they will be more successful in each different cultural context. These collective behaviors, as well as the values and attitudes they reflect, come to represent a group’s pop culture.

“For its methodological purpose, [ideal types do] not seek to embody historical reality…but endeavors to integrate them in concrete configurations which are always and inevitably individual in character” (Weber, 9). In the case of Dawdy’s article, Native American culinary practices hold the title of “traditional” while French customs were “modern”. Furthermore, as Dawdy herself says, there “was a duality between French domestication and Indian wildness” that supported a “civilized/savage trope” (Dawdy, 396) that can be used to conceptualize our “ideal types” in this case. All of this leads us to the creation of ideal types based on the recognizable savage or civilized attributes of Native American and French cultures respectively. Once these ideal types are created, we can easily understand how the French colonists want to remove themselves from the Native Americans, while taking their customs and foods and elevating them to their civilized ideal type, ushering them into modernity as a product.