Classmate Interview

Masha Yazlovsky: What food or dish is related to your sense of national identity?

Morgan Patrick: Pecan Pie.

MY: Can you describe that dish?

MP: It’s basically a crust of a pie, made out of bread, has jelly filling on the inside and is topped with pecans.

MY: What type of jelly filling is it?

MP: It’s a custard, hard to describe. Very sweet and definitely complements the pecans.

MY: How does it relate to your sense of national identity?

MP: It’s something my family always has, either on Christmas or Thanksgiving. It’s a holiday treat.

MY: How often do you eat that dish?

MP: If I could eat it, I would eat it every day, but I try to just eat it every once in a while.

MY: When do you eat it? For what occasion?

MP: Mostly for Thanksgiving, Christmas.

MY: What is the dish usually paired with?

MP: It is usually dessert on the menu.  I usually eat it with some type of ice cream.

MY: How many people does one pie serve?

MP: Honestly it depends on how big the slices are. My sister wants a huge slice, like half the pie.

MY: Did you grow up eating that dish or did you one time discover it?

MP: I grew up eating that dish, it’s been in my family for such a long time.

MY: Is there a specific recipe you follow, a family recipe?
MP: Usually it’s a family recipe, but if we don’t have time [to cook the pie], we just buy it.

Buzzfeed Assignment

         I watched two Buzzfeed videos: “Chinese People Try Panda Express For The First Time” and “Mexican People Try Taco Bell For The First Time.” Both videos where pretty similar in that people of one culture tried an Americanized version of foods that are considered to be typical for their culture. In the first video about Chinese people trying Panda Express, many of the participants were surprised about the food that Panda Express sold, because they never heard of it. For example, many of them did not know what an egg roll was because they do not have it back in China. One participant in the study said that Panda Express sold “White People Chinese food”. There was one older man, probably in his 70s, who liked the majority of the food that he tried, but many of the other people could barely swallow it because the tast was so different from what they were used to. For example, one person said that the Chow Mein at Panda Express smelled like stinky feet and was much worse than chow mein one would get in China. Likewise, they said that the orange chicken was “food that fools Americans” and another person said that the chicken “is sad”.  Likewise, in the video about Mexican people trying Taco Bell, almost everyone in the video hated the food, said it was not Mexican food, and that they would not recommend it to their friends. There was only one older woman, who said that she would eat it again if it was in front of her. Many of the foods that the people tried from Taco Bell were based off of Mexican food, but had a huge spin on them. For example, the tacos that were tried by people in the video where made with “Doritos” flour tortillas, and had too much cheese in them. One woman even said that the cheese looked fake. I cannot really relate to any of these people’s reactions because I never tried “real” Chinese or Mexican food.

Cox Dining Hall Ethnography

I left my dorm at 5:55 p.m. on Wednesday the 21^st of September to walk to Cox Dining hall for dinner. Upon my arrival, at 6:00 p.m., there were a series of steps leading down to two big glass doors that led to the dining hall. Inside, there were a series of tables on the outside half, similar to what one would expect at a mall food court. Large lights, which looked like orbs, and decorations hung from the very high ceiling. On the other side, the side farther away from the door and Asbury Circle, various vendors were lined up in a semi-circle along the perimeter of the dining hall. Inside the semi-circle, there were more seating options, which included long rectangular tables, with chairs on the sides, and booths. The vendors included: Freshens, a salad and frozen yogurt vendor; Twisted Taco, a taco vendor; Café Compesino, a coffee shop; a make-your-own sandwich station; a sushi and Japanese food vendor; and a few others.

I decided to get a salad from Freshens, so I walked over and waited in line behind four other customers. Three of them looked as if they were undergraduate students at Emory, and one was a middle aged woman dressed in business casual attire. I waited seven minutes until I got to the front of the line, and once I reached the front, the kind-middle-aged worker, named Kimberly, asked in a groggy voice, “Salad or bowl, honey?”

“Salad, please.” I answered, and she scurried away mumbling something about getting more bowls.  Kimberly, along with the other woman working at the cashier at Freshens, where wearing black caps with a white button down shirts, aprons, and white pants. Kimberly came back five minutes later, with a stack of metal bowls. “What you want in it?” Kimberly sleepily said, and I went on to list all of the things that I wanted in it. As Cox closes at 7, the majority of the add-ins that I asked for, like egg and pesto, they were out of and Kimberly unapologetically said, “What else, don’t have that!” Once Kimberly finished making my salad, she handed it to the woman at the cashier who said, “Want anything to drink, baby?” I said I didn’t want anything else, paid for my meal, and then headed over to the “hydration station” to get a glass of water. Both Kimberly, the woman at the cash register, and most of the other Cox Dining Hall workers that I saw looked extremely tired and were ready to go home after a long day of work. After paying for my meal and getting water, I sat down at one of the booths in the middle of the dining hall and was surrounded by students frantically studying for their midterms the next day, talking about weekend plans, and some adults just grabbing a bite to eat with their colleagues. At 6:15, about 40% of the tables were occupied. Once I finished my meal, around 6:40—20 minutes before closing, the dining hall was about 30% full. When I walked out, the majority of the people in Cox were students.

The Making of a Meal

Cooking a full meal takes some time and planning. If I were to cook a meal for our class, I would make it as a study break from midterms. My budget would be probably around $150. I would make guacamole with chips, pesto pasta, chicken breast, and berries for dessert. To make it easier on me to cook, I would buy pesto sauce already made, instead of basil and the other ingredients to make it. To buy all of the ingredients listed below in the recipes, I would go to the Whole Foods near campus.

The recipe for the guacamole is as:

·                  10 avocados – $20

·                   5 tbs of lime juice – need to buy one lime – $1   

·                    1 cup of minced onion – need to buy one onion – $2

·                    10 tbs of cilantro –

·                    3 tomatoes chopped up -

·                    salt and pepper to taste

·                   chips

Pesto Pasta recipe                          

·                    6 packs of pasta

·                    Pesto sauce from store

·                    Butter

·                    Parmesan cheese

Sautéed chicken breast

·                    15-or so pounds of chicken breast

·                    Butter

·                    Salt and pepper to taste

Berries

·                    3 packs of strawberries

·                    2 packs of blueberries

·                    3 packs of raspberries

·                    whipped cream (in can)

Other

·                    Plastic plates

·                    Plastic Utensils

·                    Napkins

·                    Mini water bottles

I I would try to cook this meal by myself in the kitchen of my dorm, Long Street Means. If I needed help or was running out of time, I would ask my friends to help me.  In total, the process of cooking and buying the ingredients would probably take around 5 hours—it would take 2 approximately hours to Uber to whole foods and back and 3 hours to cook the meal and set the table. Additionally, I would use plastic utensils and plates so that the cleaning up process after the meal would be much quicker – instead of having to wash all of the plates and utensils, everything would be discarded. I would reserve the lounge of Longstreet Means Hall to host the dinner party, and have it be buffet style, so that everyone could get what they wanted.

Reflection: finding prices for each ingredient is quite difficult, and I ran out of time trying to find them. 2