User:10000BL/Balthrope

Annotation:

Cooking can be described as a 'labor of love' and a quick perusal of cooking experiences can prove the truth of this statement. Just think of the ways in which the process of cooking involves work -the physical tasks of cleaning and chopping foods, the possibility of injury from sharp knives or other instruments, the chance of burns from hot grease or ovens. Doing a turn in the kitchen can also involve emotional work, worrying over the quantity and/or quality of your meal, feeling joy when everything turns out perfectly, and disappointment when the reverse occurs. There is also the work of buying and/or growing one's own food, as well as presenting the dishes one has slaved over.
The families in the movies demonstrate their love for one another, laboring in (and out of) the kitchen to provide nourishment for both body and spirit ---> taking care of each other with food (e.g. what do you like to eat?).
My particular interest is in the way these films use food to represent ethnicity and culture in African American and Latino families.
The movies all celebrate the power of families to sustain their members through life's sorrows as well as embrace life's joys, using food as ametaphor for many emotional experiences.
Place family meals in their broader contexts.
Each film participates in a borad exploration of how food exists within a culture, giving viewers meaningful glimpses into ethnic foodways; here I accept the definition of foodways as 'the pattern of what is eaten, when, how and what it means'.
Part of my task in this essay will be to delve briefly into the history of various foods within these two heritages, and discuss how the 1960s and 1970s helped produce a more hospitable climate for ethnic foods so that films like Soul Food and Tortilla Soup could one day be made.
Tortilla soup equals Eat Drink Man Woman.
Tortilla Soup captures some of the very things that make Latino families strong, such as their emphasis on communications at meals.
The three cinematic families exhibited here all find strength from their shared meals, so that they are able to overcome any crisis.
SUMMARY soul food: every sunday the family meets at Big Mama's for a magnificent feast. Ahmad tries to keep the family together after Big Mama dies, by inventing a story so everyone will come to the house for dinner. Food thus becomes a major element of the film through the community and solace it provides the squabbling family members, serving as the glue that holds this northern urban clan together.
SUMMARY once upon a time: Eat very simple most of the time. Charles's extended family and community shower him with support and love, again sometimes in the form of food. Cliff also encounters a white woman who demonstrates concern for his well being, and food is important to his friendship with her.
SUMMARY tortilla soup: focused on a Latino family in LA, is a celebration of food and family in which the patriarch (semiretired chef) tries to hold onto his grown daughters despite their efforts at independence. Here the family meals are truly spectacular repasts, to which others who are not family members are also treated; the family's discussions during these meals are engaging and often conflicted. Everybody love over meals. The fact that so many emotional scenes erupt over the dinner table and are soon resolved strongly suggests that good food has the power to heal the many wounds families inflict on each other.
Having briefly introduced each film, it is now time to consider the ways in which foodis used, first by dissecting the two minority cultures' foodways in terms of what is prepared, how it is prepared, when it is served, for whom it is served and most important, the meanings behind the foods.
African American families feast on traditional Southern foods such as fried chicken, catfish, ham, string beans, greens, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni and cheese, cornbread, adn desserts like the ubiquitous sweet potato pie. In Once Upon a Time occasionally this food is eaten, in Soul Food every sunday afternoon.
Soul food, term introduced in 1960s and ever since used.
Soul food was credited with being authentic black food by some in the black community, while others took a more ambivalent stance about the foods that survived slavery and became synonymous with poor blacks prior to the 1960s. ---> see bullet 6 appendix book.
Big Mama: soul food cooking is cooking from the heart. This view equates soul food with the family, and the love that undergirds soul food cooking motivates Big Mama and countless other mothers to spend hours in the kitchen.
Foodways include food selection and preparation. The cooking styles in favor here include frying, boiling and baking, with heart and feeling. Cook by vibration, I can tell by the look or smell of it.
African American cooking style is a style developed that did not rely on written instructions, since slaves were denied literacy, and even after slavery was abolished, some blacks were unable to attend schools; a tradition was established of passing down cooking secrets orally.
Most of the meals in Soul Food are prepared for the family's tradtional weekly gatherings, yet the audience catches a glimpse of Terri and husband Miles at home, discussing work issues over an ordinary dinner of pasta, salad and wine. The atmosphere at the couple's condo is in direct contrast to the raucous, good nurtured banter and love on display at Big Mama's house. The marriage between Terri and Miles is already on shaky ground at the start of the movie, which their simple meal and tense conversation at their home suggests.
A scene near the end of the film: Terri, Maxine and Bird meet in a restaurant for lunch ends without anyone ordering lunch due to their inability to agree on any matters (house sale of big mama e.g.). That no food finds its way to their table, in light of Big Mama's sudden departure, supports the primary message that food symbolizes love. Its absence here indicates animosity and the unrelenting conflict two of the sisters - Terri and Maxine - carry over from childhood.
Foodways in Tortilla soup: