Food

Last night I bought goat cheese, macadamia nuts, malba toast, pepperoni, soy milk, fresh pasta and pesto sauce and the new cereal with chocolate. The cereal was horrible and had the strangest flavor, I will never purchase it again.

I am a self-proclaimed foode. I love to try different things and have very strong opinions about food. I have had the opportunity to travel and sample various cuisines and focused much of my schooling on culture and food; food as it related to a culture and vise-versa. I admire people like Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern for branching out and making the cusinely "weird" a little more un-weird to us, as we see that not everyone eats the same kinds of things. You would think that the popularization of shows such as these would open people up a little to accept the concept that there is no "normal" when it comes to food, only what we perceive as normal.

My typical trip to the grocery store seldom consists of buying food that would make a standard "American" dinner, however, I somehow get by on it just fine. I buy exactly what I like and want, and people tell me I don't eat "normal." What exactly is normal for Americans? I actually had a cashier make fun of my purchases at one time because I had a cart full of stuff, and only one package of meat. She said I didn't get anything to make a meal out of! I didn't mind her vocal participation on the summary of my purchases however, it was her view on what I bought that got me: Why are we conditioned to think that if we don't have our meals centered around meat that we aren't eating normally?

The American perception of a typical square meal perplexed me in college and it still does today. The good news is, as America is becoming more and more diverse, change is occurring, and the ideas of what is culturally normal is dissipating and blurring the lines between what we thought and what should be considered "normal."