Home Run:
My Journey Back to Korean Food discussed the author’s struggle
with his cultural identity through food. When the author and his family first
moved from Korea to the United States he was not comfortable with his
background and made choices that reflected his discomfort. He asked his mother
to have a separate fridge in the garage for Korean food because he thought
people would notice the different smell and would only eat the popular American
foods that his friends ate when he went out. Although he did this it was clear
that he still did appreciate his mother’s traditional cooking and liked the
food. While he was cooking for work, after his parents died, he noticed that he
was adding Korean foods to his cooking again. Ahn wrote that he is now
dedicated to teaching his son Korean traditions and that he will do this
through Korean cooking as well as other things showing that he has become
comfortable with his cultural identity.
In Eating White, the author, Geoff Nicholson, talks about his memories
of his mother through the foods that she cooked, ate, and loved. He remembers
her love of many foods that are often considered as unhealthy in America now,
but that she would always cook in England when he was growing up. She liked to
cook foods that were very white, like white bread, and dishes with milk, cream,
butter, and cheese. This piece, like Roy Ahn’s piece really shows how culture
and food are important parts of a person’s identity.
Both of these writers had
recently come to the United States and they saw clearly how food from their
other homes was different from American food and how that told a lot about
cultural differences. I can relate this to the traditional foods that my mom’s
Italian family makes for every holiday. Although I do not feel like these
cooking traditions are a very large part of my life, they are unique and remind
me of the unique foods that each of the authors wrote about.
