The Culinary Seasons Of My Childhood Summary

A literal interpretation of the grandmother portrays an elderly southern woman attempting to maintain the proper and genteel values of the South. The grandmother places great importance on her appearance and the opinions of others. This importance is revealed at the beginning of their journey when the story compares the grandmother, a reflection of the past, to the daughter-in-law, a reflection of the present:

Gladys- Maternal grandmother, was an Entrepreneur, was taught that women should be independent, goal oriented, and affectionate.

The second theme exhibited by the grandmother is her class and racial prejudice, as most characters in southern gothic stories do. The grandmother exudes a sense of self-righteousness that she explains is imbedded in her because she came from a good family. Throughout “A Good Man is Hard to Find” descriptions of the south come up often. Most of the images are portrayed when the grandmother is reminiscing about “In my time” and on the “plantation” (114). Her insistent attitude and obsession about visiting the plantation shows the grandmother truly enjoyed that time period and implies she had no problem with the racial segregation in that era. She remembers back to when she was a young girl and Mr. Edgar Atkins Teagarden would bring her watermelon. “but she never got the watermelon”, “ because a nigger boy ate it when he saw the initials E.A.T.!” (115). It is clear the grandmother feels it is appropriate to use the N word when referring to African Americans, even years after slavery era. As the grandmother glamorizes Negroes and life on the plantation, it is clear she admired the ways of the Old South, a true characteristics of Southern Gothic writing. Her stereotypical character projects a prejudice that leaves the audience uncomfortable throughout the story.

From emancipation, leading all the way to the 20th century, African American women struggled to find better opportunities outside of their agricultural laborer and domestic servant roles. In Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865-1960, author Rebecca Sharpless illustrates how African American women in the American South used domestic work, such as cooking, as a stepping stone from their old lives to the start of their new ones. Throughout the text, Sharpless is set out to focus on the way African American women used cooking to bridge slavery and them finding their own employment, explore how these women could function in a world of low wages, demanding work, and omnipresent racial strife, and refute stereotypes about these cooks. With the use of cookbooks, interviews, autobiographies, and letters from the women, Sharpless guides readers to examine the personal lives and cooking profession of these African American women and their ambition to support themselves and their families.

An Edible History of Humanity is a book written by Tom Standage. It was first published on in 2009 by Walker & Co in the English language. The book is divided into six parts covering twelve chapters. It talks about the civilization of man from Old Stone Age during hunting and gathering all the way to present-day day. In this book, Standage describes how the development of food production has contributed to the civilization of humans (Standage, 113). He also outlines the role of food in the existence of humankind. The main theme in this text surrounds’ the history of man painting food as the tool in industrial evolution, civilization and how it impacts wars, as well as ecological competition. Standage concludes that food is the key cause of

He father was a British army officer. She grew up on a island called Antigua but she went to school in London. She studied music and French but her favorite thing to study in botany.When she was still a child she moved to South Carolina and her mother died momentarily. After turning 16, her father had to go back to the West Indies and she had to run three plantations. While her father away he sent her

“I would sometimes go with mother to her office and Mme. Walker was my great-great-grandmother, but she was this larger than life figure. The silverware that we used everyday, when I was growing up, had her monogram and our china, for special occasions, had belonged to her. We had this big, beautiful, silver punch bowl that my mother made eggnog in, every year at Christmas time. So, I knew little things about Mme. Walker and obviously the business was still there, but I really more interested in her daughter, my namesake, A'Lelia Walker, who was part of the Harlem Renaissance, so I really did some of my first writing about her daughter, A'Lelia Walker. Then, when I was in graduate school at Columbia University in

Beverly Buchanan was adopted as a child by her aunt and uncle, Marion and Walter Buchanan. She grew up in South Carolina where her father was the dean of the School of Agriculture at South Carolina State College. She was often with her father when he visited farmers across the state. She became fascinated with the architecture, environment, and people she meet. While she was working as a health educator she started reconsidering her career. Like van Gogh she started pursuing art after a previous career.

In many ways, food has been imperative to political and social influences on global human society. In chapters five and seven of An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage, the importance of food and its effect on history is shown throughout the major themes of trading, the idea that food is equal to wealth, and the life-long sustenance that foods provide to people. In Standage’s book, middle-eastern botanists traded the spice of cinnamon, and potatoes were traded and seen as a valued food in all of Europe. Standage proves that food equals wealth when he wrote about the importance of spices across the Middle East. He says that people who owned spices were seen as “luxurious” because they could serve delicacies such as rare spices and could serve more flavorful food. Finally, the sustenance that spices, as well as maize/potatoes, provide is actually very similar to each other. Although spices could be seen as a more “secondary” source of sustenance, the rarity and high demand for spices allowed for trading and receiving nutritious food. On the other hand, maize was very important because almost anyone could grow maize and it could, therefore, be used as a major food supply.

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.

From emancipation leading all the way to the 20th century, African American women struggled to find better opportunities outside of their agricultural laborer and domestic servant roles. In Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865-1960, author Rebecca Sharpless illustrates how African American women in the American South used domestic work, such as cooking, as a stepping stone from their old lives to the start of their new ones. Throughout the text, Sharpless is set out to focus on the way African American women used cooking to bridge slavery and them finding their own employment, explore how these women could function in a world of low wages, demanding work, and omnipresent racial strife, and refute stereotypes about these cooks. With the use of cookbooks, interviews, autobiographies, and letters from the women, Sharpless guides readers to examine the personal lives and cooking profession of these African American women and their ambition to support themselves and their families.

One of the important things during the time of the Renaissance was food. Food was very important to the people. They cooked and served food in a unique way. Others had ovens and others did not. Others who did not have ovens, they cooked their food over an open flame. In Renaissance times, food relied on what your social class is. There were the upper class people and lower class people. The upper class people had more choices of what they wanted to it and the lower class people didn’t have many choices of what they wanted to eat. Some of the foods were expensive. For them to have food they had farm. The upper class owned farms and they planted crops and harvested the crops for food. They raised animals for them to have meat and milk.

The kind of food that people ate during the Renaissance depended on where they lived and whether they were wealthy or a peasant.

It must seem nice being able to eat like a colonist during the First Thanksgiving, but was it always that great? The meals of today contain snacks and fun food, but people in the thirteen colonies had very simple meals. People used many techniques that are used even today to preserve food. What made it even harder was if there was a war, where people couldn’t hunt in fear of being killed. People had to rely on very easy foods when traveling. While all colonists in the thirteen colonies came from England, food differed in all the regions, especially in the New England and the Middle colonies. Food today brings people joy and is a way to socialize with peers, but back in colonial times, it was just a way of fueling the body.

The night before Easter I couldn’t sleep knowing what a great day it going to be with delicious food. I had a dream of all the great food we were going to bar-b-que with sides and desserts. My dad and I woke up early Easter Sunday to get everything ready and I knew it was going to be perfect. We started bar-b-queing and I just love the way it smells when I just barely put it on the bar-b-que pit. Especially after the meat cooks for a while, and I open the lid and a white cloud of smoke emerges into my face like when a car burns out and I just inhale then exhale the aroma of the meat. My family and I love to bar-b-que for Easter, so we invite our friends and family to come to our house to have fun and to have a memorable time. My dad, my