Blog 2

After reading Geeta Kothari’s article entitled “You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?” it really made me sit back and reflect upon how difficult it would be to learn how to cook food from a completely different culture then the one you are used to. She did a great job contrasting the Indian food that her family prepared on a regular basis to the food that her childhood friends would eat. In particular I found a striking visual contrast of the tuna sandwich that her mom makes versus the tuna salad sandwiches that her friend’s parents made. “The tuna in those sandwiches doesn’t look like this, pink and shiny, like an internal organ.” (Geeta Kothari) For me the comparison of the tuna to some sort of internal organ was very striking, it also helped to illustrate Kothari own “otherness” to the reader. The food that she and her sister want to eat so badly is usually “American” style food, the good stuff like donuts and fried chicken. However as she gets older she realizes that the food she misses the most is the home cooked meals that her mother and father had cooked. That is the same way I start to feel after being away at college. It is the little things, like the homemade glaze that my mom puts on her ham. Or the homemade meatloaf that my dad makes. It is this feeling of homesickness that drives Kothari into a whirlwind of fear that after her parents pass away she will no longer be able to have those favorite foods that still mean so much to her. I enjoyed the analogy she uses at this point, “I prepare for this day the way people on TV prepare for the end of the world.” (Geeta Kothari) to me it made perfect sense, in my minds eye I could visualize her frantic efforts to capture the foods of her childhood.
Geeta’s mother throughout the essay exhibited a strong ability to adapt herself to her new found situation in America. The fact that she took the cooking classes helps to illustrate to me that she is actively trying to learn how to assimilate into the larger American culture, but at the same time it is sweet how she still retains her own heritage through her traditional cooking skills.
One part of her essay I didn’t particularly like is her references to her husband and how he likes to eat meat. It almost seems at times like she thinks she is better then he is for abstaining from eating meat, he has to learn how to cook around her tastes, but no mention is made concerning things she has given up to make him happy. Or when she writes about how she doesn’t like the smell that lingers on him after eating meat. “I hope he doesn’t notice me turning my face, a cheek instead of my lips, my nose wrinkled at the unfamiliar, musky smell.” (Geeta Kothari) It seems like she doesn’t completely accept him, that the meat that he enjoys somehow is so different from how she was raised. At the same time she worries that he will leave her for a woman that is a meat eater, someone that is not put off by the smell of cooked hamburgers or steak. I know I would have a hard time being with a vegetarian, and I just wonder what her husband thinks of it all. Is he fine with her choices, or does he wish that she would be able to enjoy a nice juicy steak with him at supper time.