Studying foodways – What foods people eat and how they produce, acquire, prepare and consume them – is the best way to gain deep understanding of a culture.
“You are what you eat” is a sentence often uttered to encourage people to eat healthy. I understand it more as explaining food as a central component of any culture. When one wants to understand a culture better, one wants to learn about what and who that culture values. I believe that through studying foodways, a person can gain the deepest understanding of a culture than through any other type of study.
For example, what reflects a culture are holidays and traditions. Those celebrations almost always include food. Thanksgiving -which is considered to be the most American holiday- places a lot of emphasis on food. Families come together to share plates of turkey, yams, cranberry sauce and other holiday staples. This food is specific to Thanksgiving and is tied to the complicated history of pilgrims and Native Americans. Through studying what people eat during Thanksgiving, one can learn a lot about early American History. Similarly, one can learn a lot about different branches of Islam by studying what people are allowed to eat during Ramadan, or a lot about French Christianity through studying why people eat crepes during Candlemas. Food and religious celebrations are often tied, and religion is a crucial factor in a person’s culture. If we understand why people eat specific food at speficic times for specific reasons, we start to understand the history and values of the culture better.
Moreover, through studying foodways, we can learn about what people from certain cultures value most. For example, in France, there are over 200 registered traditional cheeses. In order to obtain the right to label a cheese Sainte-Maure Villages or Reblochon, a cheese producer must prove that they follow specific rules and processes that have been defined after years of traditional fabrication. In France, these traditional labels also exist for wines and other fine goods. Studying the detail put into preserving the quality of traditional foods shows French people’s commitment to their own history and traditions just as well as (if not better!) than studying how the government funds the rehabilitation of monuments or the preservation of artwork.
Furthermore, participating in a meal, including its preparation and consumption, can teach you a lot about how members from the same culture interact with one another. Who is allowed to eat first? Do you eat with your hands, chopsticks, or a fork? Does someone say grace before the meal starts? Are women the ones who always prepare the meal? Does the meat have to be halal in order to be selected for the meal? Those questions have different answers even within a culture, but can be very indicative of existing hierarchical structures within a culture. Through studying foodways, we can get a glimpse of power structures within cultures, which helps us know the culture itself a lot better.
There are many ways to study a culture. For example, language, history, anthropology, literature. All can teach us valuable lessons about a culture. However, all of them are also linked to food. When you learn a language, you learn the words for staples of a country. When you study history, you talk about food importation. No matter what you study, you can find a way back to food, because it is the deepest and best way to understand a culture. Through encovering why we eat what we eat during holidays, what we value during our food production process, and how our consumption traditions are organized, we can develop a deep understanding of a particular culture.
- Studying foodways – What foods people eat and how they produce, acquire, prepare and consume them – is the best way to gain deep understanding of a culture. 50
- Fossil evidence indicates that the blompus-an extremely large, carnivorous land mammal-inhabited the continent of Pentagoria for tens of thousands of years until its sudden decline and ultimate extinction about twelve thousand years ago. Scientists have d 66
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- Innoculation 66
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 119, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[1]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
...le to eat healthy. I understand it more as explaining food as a central component ...
^^
Line 7, column 656, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Than
...aditions just as well as if not better! than studying how the government funds the r...
^^^^
Line 7, column 656, Rule ID: SENT_START_THEM[1]
Message: Did you mean 'Then'?
Suggestion: Then
...aditions just as well as if not better! than studying how the government funds the r...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, however, if, moreover, similarly, so, well, for example, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.5258426966 108% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.4196629213 89% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 14.8657303371 128% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 11.3162921348 106% => OK
Pronoun: 40.0 33.0505617978 121% => OK
Preposition: 78.0 58.6224719101 133% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 12.9106741573 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2988.0 2235.4752809 134% => OK
No of words: 582.0 442.535393258 132% => OK
Chars per words: 5.13402061856 5.05705443957 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.91168771031 4.55969084622 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.89477242152 2.79657885939 104% => OK
Unique words: 280.0 215.323595506 130% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.481099656357 0.4932671777 98% => OK
syllable_count: 925.2 704.065955056 131% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59117977528 101% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 14.0 6.24550561798 224% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Interrogative: 6.0 0.740449438202 810% => OK
Article: 2.0 4.99550561798 40% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 3.10617977528 193% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.77640449438 281% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.38483146067 160% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 34.0 20.2370786517 168% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 23.0359550562 74% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.5045867791 60.3974514979 99% => OK
Chars per sentence: 87.8823529412 118.986275619 74% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.1176470588 23.4991977007 73% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.88235294118 5.21951772744 55% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.97078651685 101% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 7.80617977528 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 10.2758426966 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 0.0 5.13820224719 0% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 19.0 4.83258426966 393% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.293731286252 0.243740707755 121% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0715850441014 0.0831039109588 86% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0613285621314 0.0758088955206 81% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.167208309818 0.150359130593 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0637319107315 0.0667264976115 96% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.3 14.1392134831 80% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 48.8420337079 111% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.92365168539 39% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.1743820225 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.18 12.1639044944 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.9 8.38706741573 94% => OK
difficult_words: 126.0 100.480337079 125% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.5 11.8971910112 55% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.2143820225 78% => Gunning_fog is low.
text_standard: 10.0 11.7820224719 85% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.