Hi, this is Cris again!
I read in the paper the other day a joke about a boy who thought he was a corn, and when he was released from the psychiatric hospital, he saw a chicken and ran away scared. His mother asked, but son, you’re cured, you no longer think you are a corn, do you? His answer: yeah, I know I’m not a corn, but does the chicken know?
This kept me thinking on what to write for today on the subject. The relationship people have with food is to me a cultural construction, mainly changed by the personal experiences each one has through out life. You learn how to relate with food - what is food - from your parents and family in your early years, and it changes as you grow and acquire new tastes, new desires, new hungers. Its important to understand what is a real need for nourishment, what is a desire and what is a hunger based on envy, lust or another reason.
As I look at the pictures, in order to choose which one to publish, I saw, in most a portrait of the western civilization, and our need to accomplish several tasks at the same time, to become more than ourselves in order to make things work with our multiple social groups. Some of the pictures reminded me of the time I lived in US, and all the different tasks and flavours I tried, and how it has helped me understand how different it was from my own, the culture I was experiencing. In Brasil, offering you food (and lots of it, and all the time) is a way of showing that you’re welcomed, you’re liked. We like to show off our cultural differences (this is a big country too, and with regions so distinct, one could think it’s a whole new country, with new language and all) by offering all kinds of food (meat, vegetables, salads, soups, loaves and baked stuff, not to mention desserts, candies, puddings) at the same time! It’s a way of reassuring the richness of our cultural backgrounds, and a far more interesting, in my opinion, than Carnaval or soccer (ok, ok, that’s a whole new subject to talk about. Maybe later, then).
So the first picture that caught my attention was this one below, where the girl explains what is, for her, as an Italian girl, to be invited to twirl.
The second has a girl eating a fruit right from the tree, and how she desired it as saw the fruit was ripen and colorful (by the way, I don’t think it will taste good to eat the pomegranate like that, I suggest you stick with the seeds only!)
And the last, which I think sums up what I’ve tried to say with these few words, is the one where the girl sees herself in the reflection of the meal she was about to have.
I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did!
PS: I tried to make the picture copy-and-paste to work, if not, please understand and forgive me. I promise to learn for the next time.
