Soups:

Soup has always been one of my favorite foods. One of my dads best soups is an Irish dish corned beef and cabbage that he makes in to a soup and there's never any left overs that he gets to enjoy. The preparation of soup is a neglected art, and some of the things that was said in class were things that I've never heard about the preparation of soup before. Even if people do eat soup because they assume that its a healthy choice, they unfortunately eat store bought canned soup instead of making it themselves, convince is important. most soups today are filled with not protein based broth and full of MSG to extend the flavor of the meat or other flavors already in the soup. But MSG is something that the body cannot digest naturally, and some people actually have an allergy or a problem with their bodies when they consume MSG.

Blended soups are more trouble to make but the new gadgets make the process fairly easy. In the kitchen we worked with a homemade soup that was meant to show us that we can get our protein that we need from things other then meat. we didn't evolve eating meat, it was actually a rare occurrence and only happened when there was a killing of an animal. daily life in the early generations of human life was sustained by women who were gathering roots, vegetables, and berries.

the meat that we eat has a history, as a way of shielding people from the horrors of food production they are only interested in buying their food from a store. Most people don't think about the lives that are taken to fill the large pack of chicken legs that they are buying on sale or the bulk pack of frozen shrimp. My family wouldn't face that fact but instead compensate with eating less meat and we're very big on never waisting any food. We're not as far as eating every single piece of the animal but we eat what we buy and most things are never put to waist.

http://www.greenphonebooth.com/2009/01/waste-not-waist-full.html here's a website about not waisting and being green, it was a pretty interesting website. now a days theres even cooking shows that talk mostly about condensing food portions and eating more well balanced foods.

All good examples of Americans trying to change their current situation.

That's about all that I wanted to talk about this week. : )

King Korn the movie that was shown in class, i watched it online and i really like how it talks about how we don't really think about what we put into our system; and how really we consume so much corn weather through the corn fed cow that makes our hamburgers or a 2 liter soda, we become essentially made of corn. I guess the quote you are what you eat is really true"

the movie explores why we are the richest nation in the world and yet we have the poorest eating habits. How did Americans get so fat so quickly? and also its about family that is growing corn and their experiences. Its pretty amazing how the decisions that were made back in the 70's have made such a difference so many years down the road.

I also really liked this commentary that i found, of the Aaron Woolf talking about his film

http://www.independentfilm.com/films/videogalleryfilms/king-corn-documentary-aaron-woolf-interview.shtml

There's not just one person that is responsible for these problems that the U.S. is facing today. Truthfully many countries and people are responsible and basically human growth and the process of trying to make things better and faster is just showing some side effects.

Teresa Mares came to speak to the class this week about the community gardening movement in Seattle. Along with a tour of a pea patch she talked about the seattle department of neighborhood P-patch program and the diversity of food sovereignty at Marra Farm. the reading this week "want amid plenty: from hunger to Inequality" Janet Poppendieck talks about how food was going to waste in the United States. how there is an abundent food production but also a huge amount of food waste. This article was interesting because it talked about how public and private groups are working to put a use to food that would have normally been wasted. A great deal of food that is provided for the soup kitchens in the United States today comes from coporate overproduction or mislabeled food that would have normally been discarded. This change will feed an extra 450,000 americans each day.

I took from this week, was the material that was showing us that people are getting involved; and their work is making a difference. Seattles efforts alone are enough to see that the nation is trying to become more economically friendly because of the obvious issues on the envoirnment.

http://www.seattlegreenmap.net/web-content/pages/people.html is a link for the seattle map project its a very good example of what seattle is doing to be green..

other states are joining in the campaign

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/07/national/main4782695.shtml is a great site about other states efforts..

Emily Horton...

Going off of the blog suggestions: Food and how you feel in terms of identity is so important when it comes to how it marks you as an individual. When I was in Italy, there was so much excellent food around me but for the first bit of my trip all I wanted was my parents cooking. Home made and healthy ingredients are what I was raised on so needing to go out to every meal while traveling because something I wasn't used too. This idea and aspect can be used with people going into any situation that they're not accustomed too. a person becomes defined by what they consume and its very important when they go to a new area that they find stores and foods that are in keeping with their traditions.


I'm going to tie this idea into the movie that we watched in class on Tuesday 1/27. The movie was about power hungry corporations that are systematically destroying food supplies. They do this by adding pesticides, viruses which makes crop seeds invaluable. This in turn destroys the livelihood of small farmers leading to monopolizing the global food supply.


I actually think the whole problem is within the genetically engineered crops; the become scientifically produced which goes against what nature intended. I found the lecture about this really interesting. That grocery stores take the fruit and vegetables that are not rip and that will do the best during the journey and have the longest shelf life.. But this takes away the food value and also takes away the quality of food that people are buying. However they are able to have all types of food all year round from all different places all over the world. So for convince and regularity there is a trade off. Part of this is not the corporations fault because they are trying to keep up with supply and demand the best the can but when they purposefully take out the small farm because of the tiny competition they produce, that's when its gone a little to far..




















I added some photos from the exercise we did this week. The group activity helped tie all the concepts together to teach us the how to make a simple sustaining meal from simple ingredients. Connecting regional cuisine through the experience of cooking and eating. All associated with the cultural and historical context. There are in the process pictures and then some final products..


thank you for these group activities I really love them...