Research Paper

Running head: THE ROLE OF FODD 1

THE ROLE OF FOOD 2

The Role of Food

Yayu (Julie) Ji

Trinity Western University

ENGL 102 A: Introduction to Literature

Prof. Lydia Forssander-Song

March 18, 2021

The Role of Food

Cultural elements from the theme of any written stories and the most common elements include food, people, and customs concerns. For instance, food culture helps with the understanding of attitudes, practices, and beliefs that surround the consumption and production of a certain food. The analysis here will be about the role of food in simple recipes and red bean cake, which is a food culture that integrates people's race, cultural heritage, and provides a communication mechanism between family and community members.

The two stories (simple recipes and red bean cake) have proven that food provides sustenance to humanity, plays major roles in entertaining, celebrations, and activities that bring family and friends together. Business organizations also earn their revenues through the sale of food. For instance, in the story about a simple recipe, the story is about how the narrator learns to cook the rice through his father. In other words, was used as a tool for bringing family members together. They come together to learn how to make new recipes, especially during special events. The narrator even describes how a simple rice recipe made him have a strong relationship with his father. At least according to the author, family bonding was strong as members practice or learn to prepare new recipes. The story in the red bean cakes is more about the confusion between listening to the order requested by the client and understanding the accent of the same client. The main issue in the story is that the waiter failed to place the correct to the customer because of an accent. In the process, the customer had to repeat the order twice or even thrice for the waiter to understand. The incident illustrates that food joints are places for interaction. Through such joints, people of different cultural backgrounds and languages are brought together by food. Through frequent visits to the same joint, waiters now understand the customer and never asked whether she is from Hong Kong or China.

According to the two stories, food also plays a role in bringing the connection between close people and also individuals of different cultural backgrounds. Through food, people tend to experience different cultures because some cultures are defined by food. Therefore, it is essential to increase effective interactions for one to learn how to prepare the recipe of food of a different culture. Again, the main cultural element in the two stories is food and it is used to characterize many places within the two places. For instance, the meeting points of two-point within the two stories are either the kitchen, homes, or restaurants. Emotions also dominate the two stories, whereby the relationships between the characters are built on emotions. The tone of the two stories is also objective because every opinion or discussion regarding food tends to remain neutral and they are set right by facts. The food as a topic also supports the objective tones presented by the two authors. For instance, the nature of the food offered at the restaurant and the resulting recipe of recipe to evoke the past cultures of the main characters.

References

Janice, S. (2004). Red Bean Cakes: New York and London.

Thien, M. (2004). Simple Recipes.