Over the past three days, I experienced a wide variety of cultural environments in one compact town: Allendale, MI. These cultures, however, did not reflect the differences between race, but the differences of social constructs in relation to food. Through my extended time of competition I experienced vast changes in the perception of food during hotel breakfasts, college campus restaurant lunches, dinner buffets before laser tag, and fast food restaurants, and random late night carry outs.
As famous writer David Foster Wallace once quoted, "all the gourmet's extra attention and sensibility [is] just supposed to be aesthetic, gustatory [pleasures]" (Consider the Lobster). This in fact is true of any location outside the home.
At hotel breakfasts, we paid little attention to the lacking appearance of the food and where it had previously been manufactured. The stress before competition dawned upon us and we scrambled to finish up the food we had and rush onto the bus. So we ate for the sake of it being free.
College Campus food- so delicious I felt a break from reality. Although I applaud the GVSU food services for making a food heaven, the experience didn't give me the chance to consider the effort the chef's had put in, or the transport of the goods to the table. It didn't make me question the morality of the situation, to eat the foods that others could not. It was purely an explosion of senses and one hour well spent.
The dinner buffets, the fast food restaurants, and the late night carry outs. Not about food at all. So yes, the pasta, ramen, and subs were good, but the whole experience came from the conversations not the food. Crowded into a booth at subway, a couch in a hotel room, or a table at the laser tag center, we had no interest in appreciating the food in a way other than what appealed to our gustatory pleasures. The social construct of food was clearly defined as a means to feel comfortable in a conversation, to mooch off of others, and to share whatever thoughts we had on the aesthetic pleasures of it.
As famous writer David Foster Wallace once quoted, "all the gourmet's extra attention and sensibility [is] just supposed to be aesthetic, gustatory [pleasures]" (Consider the Lobster). This in fact is true of any location outside the home.
At hotel breakfasts, we paid little attention to the lacking appearance of the food and where it had previously been manufactured. The stress before competition dawned upon us and we scrambled to finish up the food we had and rush onto the bus. So we ate for the sake of it being free.
College Campus food- so delicious I felt a break from reality. Although I applaud the GVSU food services for making a food heaven, the experience didn't give me the chance to consider the effort the chef's had put in, or the transport of the goods to the table. It didn't make me question the morality of the situation, to eat the foods that others could not. It was purely an explosion of senses and one hour well spent.
The dinner buffets, the fast food restaurants, and the late night carry outs. Not about food at all. So yes, the pasta, ramen, and subs were good, but the whole experience came from the conversations not the food. Crowded into a booth at subway, a couch in a hotel room, or a table at the laser tag center, we had no interest in appreciating the food in a way other than what appealed to our gustatory pleasures. The social construct of food was clearly defined as a means to feel comfortable in a conversation, to mooch off of others, and to share whatever thoughts we had on the aesthetic pleasures of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment