Course notes Latin American studies
LAS 101
Jonathan Safran once said, "Food is not rational. Food is culture, habit,
craving and identity." All countries have a myriad of diverse ways to express their culture. In my homeland Colombia and my current home the
United States there is a lot of divergence as well as resemblances The factors that create ones culture can range from religion, music and food.
All cultures share the fact, that they take pride in pleasures and the forms of entertainment they enjoy.
I believe one of the greatest cultural aspects in my homeland and as well as the United States, is food. Some typical dishes in Colombia are tamales, arepas in all styles, empanadas, rice with chicken, beans, sancocho (hen soup) and coconut rice. In exchange, some traditional foods in America consist of pizza, hamburgers, chicken nuggets, french fries, corn, chicken pot pie, candy apples and more. The main difference is that in Colombia the majority of food is prepared from scratch, which in turn means that meal preparation takes significantly longer to follow our grandmothers old recipe on how to properly cook beans. In American culture, we conveniently buy precooked and packaged foods and quickly microwave them. When we are really pressed for time, which is quite often considering the chaos of living the American dream, we turn to eating fast food. For example, in a Colombian household’s refridgerator, almost no
pre-packaged juice is maintained. For all meals, we freshly squeeze fruit to make natural juices such as lulo, raspberry, guanabana and tamarind.
However, here we easily pore a glass of orange juice from a carton or make iced tea from processed sugar. Another example is mashed potatoes. In my country, one would boil the potatoes, mash it and the mix appropriate quantities of cheese, salt and butter. While in American culture one can simply open up a box and heat it up the product while mixing it with milk. I believe
Jonathan Safran once said, "Food is not rational. Food is culture, habit,
craving and identity." All countries have a myriad of diverse ways to express their culture. In my homeland Colombia and my current home the
United States there is a lot of divergence as well as resemblances The factors that create ones culture can range from religion, music and food.
All cultures share the fact, that they take pride in pleasures and the forms of entertainment they enjoy.
I believe one of the greatest cultural aspects in my homeland and as well as the United States, is food. Some typical dishes in Colombia are tamales, arepas in all styles, empanadas, rice with chicken, beans, sancocho (hen soup) and coconut rice. In exchange, some traditional foods in America consist of pizza, hamburgers, chicken nuggets, french fries, corn, chicken pot pie, candy apples and more. The main difference is that in Colombia the majority of food is prepared from scratch, which in turn means that meal preparation takes significantly longer to follow our grandmothers old recipe on how to properly cook beans. In American culture, we conveniently buy precooked and packaged foods and quickly microwave them. When we are really pressed for time, which is quite often considering the chaos of living the American dream, we turn to eating fast food. For example, in a Colombian household’s refridgerator, almost no
pre-packaged juice is maintained. For all meals, we freshly squeeze fruit to make natural juices such as lulo, raspberry, guanabana and tamarind.
However, here we easily pore a glass of orange juice from a carton or make iced tea from processed sugar. Another example is mashed potatoes. In my country, one would boil the potatoes, mash it and the mix appropriate quantities of cheese, salt and butter. While in American culture one can simply open up a box and heat it up the product while mixing it with milk. I believe