EE1

Keane Lim

WRIT 1133

Professor Eric Leake

18 April 2013

Food As Identity

            The proverbial statement of "you are what you eat" actually has its merits when discussing what role food has in determing one's identity. Taken in a literal sense, the food we eat does have the effect of shaping the body's structure: greasy foods make us chubbier, and the lack of food would cause us to be stick thin. But to look at food in that consequential manner would be insufficient because its values are not so simple. This essay investigates the metaphorical meaning of "being" what one eats, or in other words, how food shapes identity, culture and the presentation of one's identity to others around them.

            Sandra Cate's "Breaking Bread with Spread" explores an expressive use of food for identity. These prisoners used food to create an identity for themselves in contrast to the drab, institutionalized environment they were residing in. While the food provided was sure to have the nutrients necessary for healthy living, it lacked taste and personality. Since the prisoners were caged in their jail cells, they used variety of ingredients as a creative outlet to improvise new, tasty recipes. Inmates like Joseph Watkins and Max Hackett became known by new titles such as "Chef BamBam" or "The Pie Guy" through their unique spread recipes (Cate 23). Sharing spread was an identity marker because not everyone "has money on the books" to buy the ingredients (Cate 20). Even once made, spread had a loftier status because people of same ethnic groups would form and eat together. This practiced culture continued even when they were released from jail and generated pride for some of the inmates who "on the outside ... got really fancy with spreads" and even made spread for their family (Cate 24). What spread had allowed the inmates to do was distinguish themselves from the monotony of the "larger contexts of confinement" and humanize themselves again despite mealtimes being heavily controlled (Cate 20).

            Food is used as an affirmation of one's identity for the Shenzheners in Mary Ann O'Donnell's "Cultural Politics of Eating in Shenzhen." At first, Wang Jin relates the difference of northerners and southerners to "seafood" and "meat" and how fishers are "sneaky" and meat-eaters are "dumb" (O'Donnell 31). These comparisons use food to represent the historical transformation of socialism in China to capitalism. In the People's Republic, the government worked towards egalitarian distribution of rice and other goods to the work units. For the Old Shenzheners, food gained a stronger meaning as time passed and immigrants slowly took over their city. People like Wang Jin would "talk about favorite foods from their past to indigenize capitalist globalization" in order to reclaim the city as their own again (O'Donnell 33). They used food to keep the memory of the Old Shenzhen culture alive since the new generation lived in a postsocialist economy and composed this new society of fish, outnumbering the meat-eaters from the past.

            The spirit of the Old Shenzheners is imposed through the meals that they share together. In this shifting environment, the food allowed them to assemble together and reminisce nostalgically of the early makings of the city and the different political ideals. Their strict adherence to food from the Old Shenzhen area has reaffirmed their identity and segregated them from the budding modernization.            Food like cornbread was tied to the rustication under the Mao Regime. The anecdote of Big Sister Liang and how her son thought "cornbread was just another fad among his parents' generation" showed how food was relevant to her identity as an Old Shenzhener but incomprehensible for her son as a new generation child (O'Donnell 35). What she ate was a reminder to her of her hardship as a rural resident in China, working to fulfill her quota in the fields whilst never having enough to eat yet the occasional treat of corn bread. Though the community has become more cosmopolitan, the old Shenzheners' perseverance lead to the conservation of its identity and allowed the new generation to experience and pay homage to a part of their culture which they never would have experienced without food.

            Touched upon in Cate's article was cultural identity through food like was the case with the Old Shenzheners. More thoroughly is this idea of cultural identity discussed in Roy Ahn's "Home Run: My Journey Back to Korean Food" where a slip of the tongue in mixing "galbi-tang" with "galbi-chim" causes him to question his identity as a Korean. While he mixed up two Korean dishes, he realized that knowing food from your ethnic roots is very important to cultural identity. As a Filipino-American, I, too, feel embarassed sometimes when I choose to eat an American dish whilst my family eats dishes from the home country because of how accustomed I have become to eating American food. I find myself in situations where I have to ask "What's that?" to my family as they goad me into trying the food which I am reluctant to try because of how different it looks to me. Since I proudly identify myself as Filipino whenever people ask, it seems strange to not to eat food from your ethnic roots more often. I think the reason why the slip was a big deal for Ahn was because he felt distant from his culture and moreso, since it was a relevant part of his identity as a Korean.

            Ahn's dilemma was when he moved to America and "downplayed [his] ethnic roots ... and [his] Korean heritage was an inconvenience," choosing to forsake his ethnic food and "eat all the things [his] friends did" (Ahn 13). In this context, the American food he ate became who he was as he became more Americanized and embarassed of his parents' Korean food. The reawakening of his cultural identity came after his parents' death when he took on cooking as a profession, and he began to notice "latent Korean influences beginning to insinuate themselves" (Ahn 15). Although his parents, who were his main reminder of Korean culture, died, food was able to fill that gap in his life again. This newfound change of identity was seen when he talks about "pronouncing aloud the Korean names of as many dishes ... and remembering most of them accurately" which proudly contrasts from the original mistake he made. Through these new recipes and perspective, he was able to reconnect to his culture and instill on his child Charlie what it means to enjoy eating both Korean and American foods. He was able to share a part of his identity with Charlie that he was slowly rediscovering for himself. To be what you eat is to be accepting of the culture that food comes from.

            While never living in Korea, Ahn was able to enjoy his culture through food. Food has the great advantage of being portable, so like stories, the displacement from one's homeland does not stop culture from spreading, as seen in Alexandra Greeley's article "Pho - the Vietnamese Addiction." The origin of pho was after the Vietnamese nationalists escaped from French imperialism. It has now become a famous dish from North Vietnam, most precisely in Hanoi. When the Communist regime was erected in the 1950s, many Vietnamese migrated to South Vietnam and spread the recipe. It has become a part of the entire Vietnamese culture's identity and evolved into varying recipes depending on what region of Vietnam it was cooked at.

            Now that pho restaurants have proliferated in America, refugees who left to escape the regime and the terrors of war were able to reconnect with their homeland by eating ethnic dishes. Granted, it will never be the true "taste of Hanoi pho" that they expect but pho will remind them of the Vietnam they have left behind (Greeley 80).  I saw this experience of nostalgia when I went to a pho restaurant to take field notes. When I asked the owner, he told me that the reason why he had named his restaurant Pho 79 was because it was the year he left Vietnam To my surprise, I received similar answers at other restaurants afterwards. For the Vietnamese, to be what you eat is to relish in the national pride that these home dishes provide.  Food has become a brand name to which people identify with, and it means more to people if they are able to peg it to a location they are familiar with like Vietnam. The dish was nostalgic to them for the day the left their country seen in the year number in these names. The Vietnamese use pho as a symbol and establish their cultural identity with it at their restaurants in America, which is the melting pot and home of many cultures.

            Something I noticed when I was taking field notes was that there are even unconscious mannerisms in an environment with food that we do that represent our culture identity. Food etiquette, for example, differed at the restaurant depending on whether the customer used chopsticks or spoons and forks. It is quite clear that utensils are the more prevalent way to eat in America, so the use of chopsticks is representative of another culture's customs. You never really understand how your cultural practices differ until you have seen others. How we were brought up influences our cultural identity and how we perceive situations.

             In psychology, the difference in culture practices is divided into two categories: individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Americans fit in the individualistic, or an independent route, whereas Europeans and Asians are more collectivistic. Jamie Horwitz, PhD in Environmental Psychology sees this difference in cultural identity with the eating habits of NASA Astronauts in her article "Eating at the Edge." When the astronauts plugged in their trays to a hydrating post, it would create a triangular table where they could eat face-to-face. The architect designed it like this deliberately along with two other social spaces: a porthole and the sleeping area. However, the only contested social space was the face-to-face meal area. Raymond Lowey, a French astronaut, explains that "some American crew members are content to eat 'on the run' and by themselves, whereas many European crew member prefer eating a complete meal as a group" showing how our habits towards food represent our cultural identity (Horwitz 45).

            Horwitz's analysis of the video cameras showing American astronauts "popping little carrots into their mouths while working at computers" demonstrates the stark contrast between individualistic and collectivistic cultures. In fact, a lot of what Horwitz says in her article about "eating on the edge" is applicable to cultural differences in food. Her evidence of Campbell's soup, ergonomically shaped for cars' cup holders, and Swanson TV dinners appeals to America's individualistic food culture. This increase in "grazing" and erratic eating schedules is favored by these on-the-go products which allows people to eat by themselves (Horwitz 42). Even at DU, where we are blessed to have many international students who show new perspective to American culture in our cafeterias, the difference in cultural identity is seen clearly in how we eat. While some students eat with groups of friends, there are several students eating at the large bars on the outskirts of the cafeteria where they can eat alone. In contrast, many students notice that international students tend to associate in groups when they eat. Coming from a collectivistic culture makes international students more likely to eat together in these settings while other backgrounds prefer eating alone. So while in modern times convenience has become a heavily valued marketing tool with more fast food restaurants and drive-throughs being built in countries like America, places in Asia like Japan will emphasize products like the kotatsu which allows families to eat together under a warm table. Horwitz uses the term of eating in a "timeless time" and in one's "own time-place" to represent the growing preference for independence sought by the American population in food.

            To be what one eats is multifaceted in how it defines identity. It creates identity like for the prisoners in San Francisco. It solidifies identity for the Old Shenzheners overtaken by the new generation. It is a source of national pride for the Vietnamese, and a way of expressing one's cultural relationship like for Ahn and myself. Most importantly, it provides a bigger context on how food values differ in other cultures like for America, an indivualistic culture, and Europe and Asia, which are collectivistic. To be what one eats means that food is a part of the development of one's self, an extension to one's identity and the culture they were brought up in.

Works Cited

Ahn, Roy. "Home Run: My Journey Back to Korean Food." Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture. Vol. 9, No. 4 (Fall 2009), pp. 12-15. Online.

Cate, Sandra. "Breaking Bread with Spread." Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and   Culture. Vol. 8, No. 3 (Summer 2008), pp. 17-24. Online.

Greeley, Alexandra. "Pho: The Vietnamese Addiction." Gastronomica: The Journal of   Food and Culture. Vol. 2, No. 1 (Winter 2002), pp. 80-83. Online.

Horwitz, Jamie. “Eating at the Edge.” Gastonomica: The Journal of Food and Culture.      Vol. 9, No. 3 (Summer 2009), pp. 42-47. Online.

O'Donnell, Mary Ann. "The Cultural Politics of Eating in Shenzhen." Gastronomica: The             Journal of Food and Culture. Vol. 10, No. 2 (Spring 2010), pp. 31-39. Online.