Food and Community

Both of these articles by Cate and O’Donnell caused me to once again think about food in a way that I never really considered before. Starting with the Cate article, I was able to see that food plays a very large role in the prison community. It’s not surprising that prison food is not of the highest quality, everybody knows that. What was surprising was how the prisoners dealt with this problem. In prison, the inmates create a substance that they gave the name spread. Spread consists of a base of Ramen Noodles, and then basically whatever else they want to put in the mixture. The inmates get these various foods to experiment with by paying for them. This is one of the ways that food is involved in the community. It shows a sort of social class ranking in the prison, based on who has the best food to contribute to the spread. Food also unites inmates within the prison. Making spread takes lots of teamwork so the inmates must collaborate together to make something that tastes remotely decent. Some inmates use their skill at making spread to make friends and to make sure others have their back in other aspects of prison life. It turns out that spread is a very important part of the prison community.

The article by O’Donnell explained food and community in a different way. Instead of prison, the setting is Shenzhen. O’Donnell explains how food is used as a separation of political ideals. The north predominantly eats cows, so they are considered to be slower than the south, but they are also more honest. Since the government protects the northern cow eaters, the northerners are loyal to the government and are considered to be more socialist. The South on the other hand relies on fish and seafood to eat, and since it takes skill to catch these fish, they are quicker and harder working than the north, but are also sneaky and dishonest. Since the government does not take care of the southerners, they are more capitalist. The article explains how food creates a distinction between older and newer generations.

Both articles go very in depth in displaying the roles that food plays in community. In both articles, there was more than one way that community could be identified by examining the food that they eat. I found the Cate article much more interesting than the O’Donnell article. I was amazed at all of the things that inmates are able to create using simple ingredients and limited resources. The pictures in the article reinforced my opinion, and I was amazed by the way the pie guy was able to make his creations. Both articles were very interesting to read and to learn the way that food can play a role in community.