Food that Bounds with Memory and the Identity - Essay Example

Food, Memory and the Identity Apple pie is something so simple and plain but hugely triggers a gushing deluge of memories and always has a special place among the pantheon of pastries, sponges and biscuits. Apple pie is made up of flour, sugar, salt, sticks of butter, cold and cubed, ice water, cinnamon sugar, and nutmeg to result into a subtle, crumby, and moist sponge-cake cum-biscuit with humped back. The Apple pies have been significant to tea drinkers who immerse them in piping hot cup of tea. It is undeniable that the apple pies have hugely evokes the memory of our community’s popular diet that tends to be shared among families and loved by all. Apple pies hugely help in creating communities by making people stay together and creating unity amongst people while sharing it. I realized that holding on cultural and ethnic identity is through the apple pies because it reflects upon the history of my ethnic group and constructing choices that allow me to experience different local specialty especially in my own community’s backyard. The apple pie components and the way of making it serves to illustrate the unity within my culture and enables me to feel intrinsic connection to the culture I was brought up in. The apple pie is significant in recreating and re-experiencing past memories by taking one back to great things shared together and appreciated as an individual who plays a major role in the society. The delicious aromas and tastes emerging from the apple pie cement the close knit relationship I have with the community particularly the older generations (Belasco 27-31). It is worth noting that food consumption especially the apple pies are more about symbolism and less about survival because the body does not become equated to it that much. Moment with apple pies enabled me to recapture memories of the childhood community that was coupled with love, peace, and togetherness. Having apple pies would dispirited me after a dreary day because of its sugary taste that made life sweeter thus providing a prospect of a depressing morrow (Belasco 15-24). Raising a cup of tea that had a soaked apple pies was a wonderful experience because it triggered a shudder that ran through the me. These indeed extraordinary things happened within me and during events; I would meet people and enjoy the apple pies. Apple pies further create hierarchy among individuals and in persons by making them think differently and at times positively. According to Belasco, the apple pies would make an exquisite pleasure and invade the people’s senses and things that were isolated finally became detached without even the provision or awareness of the origin (15-19). After taking the apple pies, I would then experience love that filled me with precious essence and I would no longer feel mediocre, contingent, and mortal while powerful joy connected with the taste of the tea and the cake clouded the me. It is apparent that the apple pies infinitely transcended the savors although seizing and apprehending all these became difficult. However, drinking several mouthfuls after the first one with the apple pies makes the potion loss its magic perhaps because the truth I seek for as I drink tea lies within me. The apple pies seem to invite me into being even though it is hard to realize this and that is a repeated and diminution of strength, something that enlightens me (Belasco 20-26). As I put the cup down and a piece of apple pie remains in my hands, there is a close examination of the mind, which helps me in discovering the truth as the mind feels overtaken by itself. The mind seems to seek for all the necessary tools it can use to create something that does not exist but can give the reality and substance that can actually enlighten me. This state may at times bring no logical proof and other states of consciousness melt and vanish even when I decide to attempt to make it reappear. The apple pies palpitate in the depths of peoples’ being and bring back once more the fleeting sensation. Taking the apple pies made me shut out every obstacle, every extraneous idea that affected me in one way or the other (Belasco 23-29). I felt that my mind could make further effort and leave its resting place and attempt to rise, something that has embedded like an anchor at a great depth. Apple pies further create social boundaries by inducing some thoughts in the eaters thus making them think they are superior to others. The memory prompted by apple pies is indeed incredible because it socially create some boundaries not only within an individual’s mind but also amongst people. The apple pie brings memory that reveals itself and the taste and smell alone are more fragile but more enduring, persistent, something that makes me more happy and enduring. Moreover, the apple pie made to attempt to recapture significant things that are hidden outside the realm beyond the reach of my intellect. After a weary and dull day that depresses marrow, the apple pie make shudder run through the whole body thus bringing an exquisite pleasure that invade my senses thus making the vicissitudes of life that become indifferent to me. Tasting cake soaked in a spoonful of tea provides a surge of memory and an exquisite pleasure and the portion lost its virtue. It undeniable that little cake is imbued with the potential to evoke powerful memories of things (Belasco 30-33). Belasco explains that recipes and references to apple pies are significant to the individuals by its mix of recipe that was more Westernized foodstuffs that greatly represents people’s identity by depicting certain eating habits (17-25). The taste of the apple pie described my own custom and my own childhood need to fit within the society I grew up in. The apple pies are cooked with the right ingredients and served with traditional utensils thus showing identity of the traditional meals that relate back to the my own culture and background. The apple pies are essential in triggering my cultural memory and greatly identify within the culture and helps in maintaining my own ethnic culture. Memories of the apple pies, taste, and cooking method have been constructed and enacted as part of my cultural food that contains the entertainment and the containment of cultural diversity. Childhood experience with the apple pies plays an important role in adulthood by shaping my food identity. The relationship between food and identity is nicely and contextually mediated by use of sensory, emotional, and cognitive experience as per what I experienced with the apple pies. It is apparent that the taste of something can provoke a strong sense of recognition and even after taking sometimes: apple pies can still be recognized. Eating and remembering have very important roles that blend in a pragmatic and highly symbolic manner (Belasco 31-34). The apple pies blend the productive processes of remembering subsequent utilization that help in constructing personal identities in a nice way especially the way ritual and routine together structure the way people eat and recall what they have eaten. According to Belasco, daily and seasonal pattern of the apple pies such as consumption tend to shape an individual’s ordinary life’ and occasions thus helping in anticipating and looking back upon events (22-30). Reputation with the apple pie is vital as far as my personal identity is concerned and enables me to remember past of my society’s generosity. The apple pie comprises individual dishes and the process that helps in passing knowledge of its preparation from one generation to the other, something that roots food into memory and time because of the traditional oral transmission. In conclusion, apple pie’s cultural significance and role in the articulation of my identity and in the formation of gendered subjectivity that contextualize particular domestic practices is very crucial. It is apparent that the apple pie memories especially taste and smell and texture can always be very evocative thus reminding a person of good memories of not just eating food but place and setting. The apple pie triggers deeper memories of feelings and emotions as well as internal states of the mind thus acting as a target of memory in the brain. Eating apple pies is indeed a great memorable experience. Works Cited Belasco, Warren. Food: The Key Concepts. Maryland, Baltimore County. Berg, 2008. Print. Read More