Food Effects

                No matter where a person is living, has lived or will live, they will always have something in common with every human being on this planet.  That something is food.  Whole societies are based around food; it often dictates how one will pan their day.  Despite all the possible uses of food such as holidays, ceremonies, social events, one of its main uses in society is comfort.  Individuals turn to food in stressful situations, they have for years, it can soothe one’s emotions by escaping reality through comfort and trigger old memories.  Certain foods cause a person to recall wonderful memories they have experienced in the past, causing them to forget the tense situation they may be encountering.   Some people have also been known to revert to a type of food they consumed during a time of need long after they have been out of the situation, it allows them to remember what it was like to not have normal food and cherish their current condition.  Essentially, food has been known to get individuals through harsh times as well as cause them to recall when they endured the tough times and succeeded.

                One can personally attest to all of these conditions food provides.   As a young boy, we lived in a small town in the Deep South on the banks of the Mississippi River.  As one would expect in the Deep South, we consumed numerous deep-fried foods and Mexican cuisine.  However, towards the end of the fourth grade, my father joined the Foreign Service and we were stationed in Krakow, Poland.  At the time the U.S. was not favored around the world, especially Europe, and Poland more closely resembled a communist country rather than a western democracy that it was.  No one there spoke English, in fact when one would hear English spoken on the Rynek (the local square), you would rush over and begin speaking with them to see where they were from and cherish talking to another native speaker outside of your small English speaking community.  Naturally, we were all stressed and every member of the family faced hardships in their daily life, whether it was joining a Polish soccer/rugby team where no one knows your language, deciphering the language at the market or attempting to give Polish citizens visas to your home country.  As an outlet most expats turned to food, and despite Polish cuisine to be very tasty, they cannot cook American food at all, therefore we all strived to attain our native food through anyway necessary.  This was done by three paths, one was to go to Warsaw (the capital) and use the commissary at the embassy there that was about double the size of the c-store at Centennial Halls, go to the American military base in Germany or have a family member mail it to you from the U.S.  The food that we craved would seem very minor or odd to many Americans, but to those who have been in this position know exactly how it is.  We would stock up on Root Beer, Reese’s, Lucky Charms,  moon pies, tortilla chips, milk, and most of all; American beef.  As one can see, we were not concerned with the nutritional value of these foods, rather the effect it give us upon consumption.  It reminded us of the days growing up on the picturesque farm in rural Missouri and the cookouts we would have family and friends.  This is not a rare occasion at all, Mary O’Donnell explains in her article The Cultural Politics of Eating in Shenzhen that even peoples moving within their own country experience this affect: “Zhang Tao failed to understand that when his mother ordered cornbread, she was reminded of the meals she had forgone both in rural Shandong in the early 1970s and, a decade later, in Shenzhen…” (O’Donnell 7).  This is similar to how we as expats felt, native Europeans could not really grasp the idea since they had never left the continent, but it provided an escape for us from this strange environment that we had become submerged in.   It is no secret that without American food to help comfort us and give us an escape route, or time in Poland would have been miserable. 

                This created a profound effect on us towards American cuisine ever since.  Now that we now live in the United States, we relish every time we eat the food that we used to long for.  There is not a burger, a steak, nachos or a Reese’s that we eat that does not remind us of the times in Poland where all we would think about was having a real American steak.  In essence, being in Poland has given us the reverse effect than when we lived there.  While we lived in Krakow, we longed for American food and when we finally had it, it would remind us of being home in America.  Now, having the exact same food reminds of when we lived in Poland rather than reminding us of actually being home.  Consuming food sometimes causes people to reminisce about a time when they were in harsh times or had terrible food options and therefore allows the person to appreciate any food they receive, even if it is not particularly good. 

                Putting up with “bad” food can be easily achieved if one goes through a time when they did not have access to much or good food.  Before junior year in high school, I went attended a three week Outward Bound mountaineering course in the Colorado Rockies south west of Vail.  Nine boys started the trip, while only seven of finished the course.  Through the course, we had two supervisors that taught us land navigation and how to live with the supplies that we had. By the last week or so of the trip, we only saw the instructors once a day, when they told us where we had to camp the next night, so throughout the whole day, we were the ones who laid out the route we would take and what and when we would eat.  Being the wilderness for weeks, our food was obviously limited with what we could bring.  We were limited primarily to bagels and oatmeal and powdered milk for breakfast and various other foods.  Most of the food that we could bring, especially the breakfast food, I extremely disliked, I learned eventually to simply eat what was provided.  Living like this did to things for us, we learned how to savor every scrap of food that we had, we could pour water in our bowls after our meal and drank it so that we ate every crumb, and to become resourceful with what we had.  People have been known to do these in these situations, such as those in the California jail system in Sandra Cate’s article. “The inmates concoct variations that approximate their favorite foods on the outside, often those with distinctive flavorings and textures.” (Cate 1).  Upon reading this article, I could relate to a large degree after going through Outward Bound, where we had limited food that was not so great. The inmates she discusses create something called “Spread” which is a concoction of random foods and ramen noodles; this becomes something they cherish because it is better than the bland prison food.  We would do something similar, we would essentially look at what we had left to eat for the day, and would simply mix it all together, and some of us would continue some of the combinations we discovered for quite a while after we returned from the trip, much like the inmates after they got out of jail.  

                After Outward Bound, we all talked about how we would eat anything and everything we could, knowing what it was like to not have much, we all appreciated that we now could eat as much as possible.  When we arrived at the airport to go home, we immediately went to the food court and split up, going to our favorite restaurants and bringing back more than we could eat.  We all shared each other’s meals and finished everything.  People who endured events such as World War Two also did this, Geoff Nicholson explained that one possible reason why his mother only ate white food was because during the War she did not have the liberty to eat what she wanted when she wanted. “Perhaps it was because she’d been through World War II, a time when milk and cream were among the many foods rationed in England, a time when there were bigger things to worry about than cholesterol.” (Nicholson 2).  Here he says that one reason his mother loved eating foods like milk and cream was because she could not get them very often during the war, so afterwards she would eat as much as she could.  After one has been confined to eating little amounts of un-flavorful food, one begins to relish anything remotely flavorful for a long time to come.

                Food is a powerful tool; it may be used by an individual to endure through difficult phases in life, giving them an escape from the reality that they face.  It can also trigger memories of when they were in hard times, by remembering this it allows the person to be grateful for what meals they have and lets them eat virtually anything.   Food helps us in times of need and reminds us of obstacles we have overcome in the past, which in turn gives us hope for the future.

Works Cited:

Cate, Sandra. "“Breaking Bread with a Spread” in a San Francisco County Jail." Gastronomica 8.3 (2008): 17-24. Print.

Nicholson, Geoff. "Eating White." Gastronomica 10.1 (2010): 21-23. Print.

O'donnell, Mary Ann. "The Cultural Politics of Eating in Shenzhen." Gastronomica 10.2   (2010): 31-39. Print.