Ahn and Nicholson

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.