Monday, May 13, 2013

Ethnic Food Traditions

I'm Italian-American, and for us, food = love.  If you can't send home everyone with leftovers, you haven't made enough.  Wednesday night macaroni is sacred.  Our idea of a snack is laying out antipasti.  Holiday meals go on for hours and multiple courses, and our Christmas cookies literally cover the entire dining room table.  Sharing a meal with each other is at the heart of family life.

How is your ethnicity reflected in the food you eat?  What are some of the dishes that define your culture?  What is the attitude towards food and eating in your culture?

7 comments:

  1. Puerto Ricans, during holidays, make ridiculous amounts of food. Some of these traditional foods are pernil (pork), and arroz con gandules. We usually have different types of dessert such as flan or little figure sugar foods. During the holidays we try and eat as much as we can. My abuela (grandma) always says, even if I have the biggest plate of my life, "Come mas chico, no puedes hacer lleno si has comido nada." Destroying the food made by family is time well spent with one another.

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  2. Portuguese people during holidays make tons of food. Also there is no such thing as done eating. As soon as you finish your first plate of food your already have someone putting more food on your plate or yelling at you that you have not eaten anything. Some dishes we are known for is salted cod fish which is called bacalhau. We are also known for barbecue chicken and any other kind of meat or chicken barbecued. All I know is if you go to a Portuguese house for the holidays you better be ready to eat all day long. Also make sure you like seafood and barbecue because that is all you will be eating.

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  3. Brasilians are known for being "grill masters" and we have rodizio and churrascos. Both involve grilling a lot of different kinds of meat and serve them. To us it a time where family and friends can gather together to have fun and talk. They are often accompanied by dancing and watching soccer and happen every weekend possible.

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  4. African Americans are known for their "soul food". I think it refelcts the African American culture because of how much "soul" is invloved in everything. Basically, every Sunday and during hoidays, "Thanksgiving food" is served. This includes cornbread, baked macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, collard greens, and yams.

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  5. Every time that I have traveled to Portugal it has been an endless feast. There are some days you don’t even leave the dinner table you basically spend all day eating. There is a variety of Portuguese cuisine manly sups and sea foods are the main dishes. The most treasured meal Portuguese people enjoy is a salted cod fish called bacalhow people say there is three hundred sixty five way to cook bacalhow one way for every day of the year. This is strange that Portuguese people enjoy this fish so much because it’s not indigenous any ware near Portugal.

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  6. Soul food is a very popular food in my household , soul food cooking has so much history behind it. I discovered pork has an almost limitless number of uses in soul food. My family loves to cook many foods such as greens, cornbread and pork chops. Soul Food is not just food you eat but soul food brings families together ,especially Sunday dinners after church . Every Sunday all of my family member come together at big mama's house to have dinner , I love how my family comes together .

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  7. Coming from two different nationalities and cultures the food is always amazing and plentiful. On my African- American side soul food is extremely popular. My favorite dish is the Mac and cheese, collard greens, corn bread and fried chicken. This dish also represents a great Southern cooking culture since my ancestors also made this dish when they were back in North Carolina for many years. Moving forwards my next culture is being Italian and I can say proudly that Italians don't play games with their food. My favorite dish would be my aunt's homemade lasagna which she's been making for years. What else I find interesting is that my aunt learned her lasagna recipe was from her mother and she learned it from her mother and so on. As you can tell from all this, your boy eats good.

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