Poland Influence On American Culture

Working in an industry with so much legislation has taught me to watch the news. In my five years of regular news watching I don’t once recall hearing Poland’s economy mentioned. Though rarely mentioned Poland certainly deserves a round of applause. They were the only European county to avoid the 2008 recession and were 5th in overall European economic growth last year coming in at 3.5% (Myers, 2016). In comparison the United States came in slightly behind at 3.12% (“US GDP growth rate by year,” n.d.). With their economic success and a variety of internships available Poland is an attractive option for those looking for international employment opportunities. If you are fortunate enough to find yourself in employed in Poland you will notice a significant difference in culture and management styles than that of the United Sates.

This essay is going to describe how the society has an influence on food choice. Food is very important to the human body since it has the right nutrients for a balanced diet in order to enable good health and growth. However people depend on food, as people need food throughout, for the body to constantly work. However this essay is going to explore how food choice has influenced the internal and external factors that may actually have a little to do with the food itself, and in order to give a clear concept this essay will therefore explore the social factors of what one has to eat.

A significant amount of the 17th century was spent in devastation for the nation of Poland. The Ukrainian Cossacks were controlled by the Commonwealth at the height of their success. In 1648, the Cossacks waged war for their independence, with Russia joining the Cossacks in 1654. On another front, Sweden had invaded Poland in 1655 leaving much of the country in ruins (Lambert, n.d.) Within a span of seven years Poland was fighting two different wars with three different countries on its own land. The result of these wars left most of the country’s population dead and a majority of the country in ruins. With a country in ruins and now a weak central government things continued to not fare well for Poland in the 18th century. In 1764, the king of Poland died unexpectedly, leaving Poland again Vulnerable to Russia. Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, saw this as an opportunity to further Russia’s influence in Poland. She intervened to have a former lover Stanislaw Poniatowski be crowned the new king of Poland. By having Poniatowski as king, Catherine could easy manipulate the state of Poland for the benefit of Russia. Poland would again deal with more strife in the coming years. The country would have an uprising in order to regain its country but were quickly defeated leaving parts of Poland divided off between Russia, Prussia and Austria. By 1795, Poland ceased to

Sveiki! Lithuanian culture is a very interesting culture, they have very different lives then we do in the United States of America. I choose Lithuania because my dad’s father was from there. The cultural practices aren’t very different than those of the U.S.A. they have dancing and similar foods. The climate and geography is similar to Alaska but not very similar to anywhere else in the United States.

A meal time was one of the most important times of the day, for a prisoner. In the morning, a prisoner would be fed coffee or herbal tea. The Holocaust Explained states “For lunch prisoners would be given a litre of watery soup. If they were lucky, they might find a piece of turnip or potato peel.” (The Holocaust Explained.org 2014). For dinner, black bread, a tiny piece of sausage, and cheese. The black bread was supposed to be able to last prisoners throughout the night, and into the morning. Because of the bread’s durability, many prisoners secretly hid and stashed amounts of black bread to eat. In camps like Belzec, food was placed on a high value within the life of the prisoners, making reason for them to smuggle and steal it. But because of the constant work, brutality, and small portions of food that were given to the prisoners, many died and suffered from sickness caused by hunger. Through this, weight and muscle tissue were barely left on the bodies of the prisoners, with the lack of food and

While in the camps theses two men faced some of the same horrific and disgusting experiences. They both talked about the lack of food as there is mentioning of them eating only soup and bread. Although at one point a kapo who liked Vladek gave him a present of things like sausages and eggs. But as stated in both books there was a widespread famine throughout most of the camps and the need for food incited violence.Also food was able to be traded for favors or sometimes other items like

In the text, An Edible History of Humanity, Tom Standage provides his take on how the past was so deeply affected by food throughout the generations. The book approaches history in a different way altogether: as a sequence of changes caused, influenced or enabled by food. Standage explains that throughout history, food has not only provided sustenance but has also acted as the catalyst of societal organization, social change, economic expansion, military conflict, geopolitical competition and industrial development. As Tom Standage explains, since the time of prehistory to present,

The people barely get to eat. “Eliezer and his fellow captives are forced to live in squalid barracks; they are fed only bread, water, and tasteless broth.” “The train with the deportees had crossed the Hungarian border and, once in Polish territory, had been taken over by the Gestapo.” “As the train passes through towns, people throw bread into the open cars, then watch as the prisoners beat and kill each other for food. (Wiesel).”

In Document 2: Life in the Warsaw Ghetto stated that “…its inhabitants were forced to live on 180 grams of bread a day, 220 grams of sugar a month, 1 kg. of jam and 1 kg of honey, etc.” Also in Document 5: Ghetto Ration Card, it shows a picture of a card that were given to all people of the Ghetto which acted as a tracker for the 300 calories intake allowed daily. The restricted diet that they were forced to live upon were inhumane. In Document 4: Discriminaory Decrees Against the Jews it is said that “Jews were…denied access to certain city areas, sidewalks, transportation, places of amusement [and] restaurants.”

There has been times when the Jews are denied food for several days, for many reasons such as when they are

For breakfast they were served black coffee. For lunch they were served a bowl of soup. For dinner they were served a piece of bread. This is what they ate everyday while they were in the camps. One Sunday there was an air-raid. Near the kitchen 2 cauldrons of soup had been left, half full. “Two cauldrons of soup, right in the middle of the path, with no on guarding them! A feast for kings, abandoned, supreme temptation. Hundreds of eye looked at them, sparkling with desire….But who would dare?” (Wiesel 43). They were all tempted by the food that was left unguarded. Only one dared go near it. When he did the SS shot him. In chapter 7 Elie discusses wagon ride that lasted 10 days and 10 nights. “One day when we had stopped, a workman took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it into the wagon….Dozens of starving men fought each other to the death for a few crumbs. The German workmen took a lively interest in this spectacle.”

In the morning we got metal cups and spoons. We were each given two slices of bread and sometimes a pat of margarine or a little bit of marmalade. The coffee was toasted acorns ground up. It tasted terrible. The midday meal was potato soup with maybe a li ttle bit of meat. Potatoes were the main ingredient and the kind of beets you normally feed to cattle. We were already hungry in the Theresienstadt ghetto because we did not get enough to eat. In Auschwitz we were beginning to starve. In the evening we go t another slice of bread, some coffee, no marmalade, no butter, no nothing.

Regarding my family heritage, a large part of my food identity is Polish food. My great grandparents on my dad’s side immigrated from Poland in the early 1900s. When they came to the United States, they

During the first week of class, four readings were assigned. One of the readings, “Food and Eating: Some Persisting Questions,” by Sidney Mintz, discusses the paradoxes of food. Although food seems like a straightforward concept, it is actually extremely complicated. According to Mintz, there are five paradoxes, including: the importance of food to one’s survival, yet we take it for granted, how people stick to their foodways, but are willing to change, whether the government should allow people to freely choose food or if they should protect the people through regulations, the difference in food meanings according to gender, and the morality of eating certain foods. All of these paradoxes give people questions to think about, making this an extremely philosophical look at food studies. It also mentions that food must be viewed through the cultural context that it is in, which became important in “The Old and New World Exchange”, by Mintz, and “Maize as a Culinary Mystery”, by Stanley Brandes. These discuss the diffusion of foods after 1492 in different ways. The Mintz reading gives an overview of all of the foods spread from the Americas to the Old World, and vice-a-versa, but does not go terribly in depth on the social changes and effects of specific foods. Brandes focuses on the cultural impact of specifically maize on the European diet, noticing that most Western Europeans shunned it. He studies the cultural implications of this, concluding that maize was not accepted

This paper will discuss the multifaceted relationships among food, and culture. I will be looking at the relationships people have with food, and explore how this relationship reveals information about them. Their food choices of individuals and groups, can reveal their ideals, likes and dislikes. Food choices tell the stories of where people have travelled and who they have met along the way.