Kevin Lim
Leah
Benedict English 201
2/9/12
Differences
from time periods and places
With her roots directly coming from Taiwan, my mother
moved to the United States when she was just 10 years old. When she was a child her parents forced her
to move due to their ambition to attain the American dream and become
successful. This had a toll on my mother
as well though since she didn’t want to leave.
When I was a child she would always spout out the random facts about the
food that she had back home and how it was so different from the food here. However, being the child that I was I never took
the time to listen or to even care. This
project gave me the opportunity to learn about my family’s past and culture and
the types of foods that they used to eat on a daily basis. I learned this with the online interview with
my mother.
Throughout the interview my mother named all these kinds
of foods that I have never even heard of.
Some of these foods were rice porridge, and many different kinds of
soups. There were also many common foods
that I knew like fried rice dumplings and eggrolls. However, the thing that really interested me
was how they made their food. She told
me that ll of the ingredients used is all fresh with hardly any
preservatives. This shocked me because
that would have to mean that the products must have a very short shelf
life. My mother confirmed this, and she
also said that it was more “economical this way. This process lets us not waste the food that
we eat and also lets us appreciate the money used to get the food, the people
who grew the food, and thank the animals which gave us our fill for the
meal.” This was the life that my mother
had and she told me that it was one of the happiest times of her life.
However, her father suddenly decided to move to the
states so being the family they must follow along. My mother saw that after she had arrived in
the states, she noticed the differences in how food is transported is already
really different but also how they store the food was very foreign to her as
well. She saw vegetables like potatoes,
lettuce and tomatoes were being sold in plastic bags and being sold in large
quantities. This was a real shock to her
at first because she was thinking to herself how her family can finish that
many pieces of food in a few days. This
shocked her until her mother told her that there many kinds of chemicals that
can keep the food edible for a very long time.
At first my other was fascinated by this but that was until she tasted
the food that her mother made. She
noticed that there was a different taste to it; there was an excess taste. She tasted a sort of salty taste that wasn’t
in the food before. So she thought to
herself that it was probably the ingredients since the way that her mother
prepared the food hasn’t changed at all.
My mother also didn’t like how there were so many fast
food restaurants that were open. Her
first meal in the states was actually in a fast food restaurant in the
airport. This disgusted her because she
didn’t even like the taste of it at all.
She thought that the burger was “a softened hockey puck.” She tasted all
kinds of salts which made the food itself taste good but she knew that the
ingredients origins were not the same as it was back in Taiwan. Even though she had these kinds of opinions
she knew that there was nothing she could do about it. She had to live a new life where food is not
as fresh as it was and the way it is prepared can also be done in the matter of
minutes due to technological advances.
After a while of staying in the states my Grandfather’s business
of selling jewelry and also his other business of owning a shoestore was
skyrocketing and he playing the stock market also gave them a really good
income. He first bought a black and
white TV so his family can get some entertainment. This however led to my grandma watching a lot
of cooking shows to improve her cooking skills and to expand her variety of
what to make every night. My grandma
started to mimic the techniques being shown and started making more
Americanized meals. One time the
children were so shocked not to see rice on the table but steak that was made
medium rare and it was so tender that it melted in their mouths. After the meal my grandmother asked what for
the children’s thoughts about the food.
They said it was great but it still tasted like there were preservatives
and they wouldn’t want to eat Americanized food every day. My grandfather made a proposal to go buy
organic foods; even if it’s more expensive.
He told them that even if the food is more expensive it has “no
preservatives so it’s basically like the food back home.” This also proved that Pollan has a point
because my grandma was able to learn some new techniques just by watching and
she was able to “expand her horizons.”
The family decided to try the organic foods the next time
they went to the market. They picked up
many kinds of vegetables. They were glad
that they weren’t sold in bulk like the other foods so they don’t have to waste
as much and picked up some organic meat as well like fish and chicken. They decided as soon as they got home that
they would make their most favorite meal which was fried fish with corn sauce
all over rice. Back in Taiwan this was
considered fast food but it takes a very long time to make. The process of peeling the corn instead of
opening a can to get the food was very refreshing to them. It reminded them of the good times back home
and the quality time spent on cooking.
After my grandfather came back from work they decided to have a nice family
dinner.
However my experiences with food have always been about
how fast I can get my food and get on with my other activities. I would always not even eat breakfast in the
morning and just go to school because I overslept. I guess things have definitely changed over
the past 20 years since my mom came over from Taiwan.
