week 10 Thursday, Apr 19 2012

Because I didn’t do the service learning project, I can’t write about that. So instead I’ll talk about how I volunteer at a certain geriatric facility (nursing home). At the nursing home, I can’t really do anything medical, which is a real bummer, so instead I do little things. Like read to the bed ridden patients and polish the nails of old ladies who tell me I remind them of their grand-daughters, or some other members of their family, or even themselves when they were my age. There’s one particular patient that I consider my favorite. She always runs around looking for her daughter and refuses to believe that her daughter is now a grown woman with children and a family of her own. She says over and over again, “I just bought her an ice cream and she ran off with it, she’ll ruin her new dress.” No matter how many times anyone explains to her that her daughter isn’t there, she won’t listen. Her eldest son even went so far as to write her a note explaining that she is in a geriatric facility and that instead of worrying all day she should relax. It doesn’t work. In her mind, the note says that he’ll be there to pick her up after he leaves work, which is strange because she actually does remember how to read. We believe what we want I guess. Even though I’m technically not supposed to, it makes her feel better if I agree that her daughter actually did run away from her. Sometimes I even help her look for her daughter. We search until she snaps back. She has early onset Alzheimer’s and she goes in and out. I honestly enjoy the time I spend with this particular patient, it makes me feel good to know that I can “help her.”

Leave a Response »

 

week 9 Thursday, Apr 19 2012

Seeing as how I didn’t go to the altar I can’t really talk about a non-existent visit. But I can talk about how a St. Joseph’s Day altar represents a gumbo. For one thing, a gumbo has all kind of things just thrown into it and so does an altar. Not that things are just thrown together to create an altar. Technically things aren’t really thrown together in gumbo either. Okay, a better explanation would be that the ingredients that are put into a gumbo are selected very carefully based on the type of gumbo you want to make. For example, you would put shrimp or crab or any other type of seafood into a chicken and sausage gumbo. You would put all of the required ingredients that make sense. The thought process is the same when it comes to a St. Joseph’s Day altar. Depending on how you want your altar to look it how you determine what you’ll put on it. Though you can decide exactly what you’d like on the altar, no alter would be complete without breads and the fava bean, just like no gumbo would be complete without roux and rice. So the process of making a gumbo and creating a St. Joseph’s Day altar aren’t really that different. In fact, they are more similar than anyone could really imagine. The average onlooker would simply have to look at the two process and break them down.

Leave a Response »

 

week 8 Thursday, Apr 19 2012

Truthfully, I have no idea how this reading ties into food except that it mentions a restaurant the serves turtle soup, coffee, and how coffin remind the writer about loaves of bread. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the piece very much as it seemed the writer was creating the story from the stream of consciousness. I’ve always enjoyed stories that were written in the stream of consciousness even though they are sometimes particularly difficult to read. Anyway, a connection between New Orleans food culture and a personal experience. Well, being that I’m from a town only two hours away from here most if New Orleans food culture is the same as my own food culture. Gumbo is a serious part of culture, we cook red beans every Monday, and we indulge in crawfish ettoufe quite often. So as far as personal experience goes, most everything I put I eat at home is related to New Orleans because our food traditions are the same.

Leave a Response »

 

week 7 Wednesday, Apr 18 2012

In the readings, the author tells us that red beans and rice is a particularly popular dish in the city of New Orleans. Since Monday was a wash day, an activity that took most the entire day, little time would be left over for cooking. So since red beans are a meal that is easily made and requires little attention, it seemed to be the most obvious choice for the food that would be served on that particular day seeing as no one would have any real time to dedicate to a meal. Also, on Sundays, ham was a large part of the meal that was cooked. So instead of throwing away the bone, because that was wasteful, it could be used again the next day to add flavor to the Monday pot of red beans. This tradition just continued and carried on until modern times, even though washing obviously isn’t an all-day process nowadays. Although these are the reasons that most people believe red beans and rice is a Monday tradition, they probably aren’t the entire reason red beans and rice is such a big deal for the people of New Orleans. In my family, my grandmother fries chicken and pork chops every Friday, except for the Fridays in Lent. She does this because my mom and all if her sister go over to my grandmother‘s house and play cards. This is a tradition that occurs every Friday at six o’clock and every Sunday after church. I would imagine that she fried these things because they are cheap and can be eaten quickly. The faster they eat, the faster they can get back to taking each other’s money at the card table. But this, just like many other things, is just another way my family finds time to bond.

Leave a Response »

 

week 6 Wednesday, Apr 18 2012

The feasts that are talked about and described in the readings (Daniel 5 and 14) are used to display the power of the one and only God. The readings explain to us that the God we serve is a jealous one, the first commandment, and we should not serve any other gods besides Him. The readings also explain that people have feasts to celebrate and worship certain things. Sometimes these things are good and sometime they are bad. In the first chapter, chapter five, we see that God is angered because instead of the king having a feast to honor and worship Him, the king is instead worshipping a false gods and idols. God then shows his greatness by writing a message on the wall. Daniel is called in to interpret the message and the king is slain later that night because of his ill devotion to the wrong thing. In chapter fourteen, we see God’s power again as he spares Daniel from being devoured by the lions in the lion’s den because of then deceitfulness of the high priests and their wives and children. In this story, the people are again worshipping false gods and are punished because of this. Modern day St. Joseph’s Day feasts compare to these ancient feasts because they are celebrating the goodness of St. Joseph’s intercession to bring the people out of their food drought. Even though the time periods are different the reasons for the feasts remain the same. Ultimately, something is being celebrated and/or worshipped/praised.

Leave a Response »

 

week 5 Wednesday, Apr 18 2012

Caldwell Esselstyn is a surgeon that received his B.A. from Yale University and his M.D. from Western Reserve University. In 1956 he won an Olympic gold medal for being a member on the United States rowing team. He trained as a surgeon at St. George’s Hospital London and in 1968 he received the Bronze Star for serving and an Army surgeon in the Vietnam War. In 1995 he published his research involving coronary artery disease and patients with severe cases of this illness. After twelve years if research, the results have been updated. The findings record that twenty years after the study has been conducted, none of the patients have sustained any disease progression. The study that was conducted is a plant based diet that was created by Dr. Esselstyn that he and his wife follow. Dr. Esselstyn has written a book called Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease that includes several different recipes. The main purpose of the research is to show then citizens of the United States that it is healthier to have a plant based diet only. In the book, Dr. Esselstyn argues that with a plant based diet, we can stop cardiovascular diseases and even reverse them. In the initial study, all of Dr. Esselstyn’s patients had critical and advanced coronary disease. Many of them were told they only had a year or less to live. But within months of being on Dr. Esselstyn’s diet. Their symptoms disappeared and their hearts were doing extremely well. Twenty years after the study has been conducted, more than seventeen of Dr. Esselstyn’s original patients are still alive with no symptoms of cardiovascular disease.

Leave a Response »

 

week four Tuesday, Apr 17 2012

People often don’t take into account how much tradition is part of their life. It is easy to take any small (or big for that matter) tradition for granted. Most of the time, people take traditions for granted because they aren’t even aware that what they are doing is considered a tradition. As a people, we have to correct this deficiency in order to preserve our traditions, big and small. It is important to preserve tradition so that future generations can know how we got along as a people and as a society. Family traditions need to be preserved because they offer a sense of pride and love in a family atmosphere. These family traditions hold the family together and bring them closer because it offers something everyone in the family has in common. It gives the members something to look forward to. We can never get anywhere in thus life without knowing about of past. Some of the traditions we have are extremely old and with these, we can learn about our heritage and past family situations. Reasons why the tradition is still standing can spark interesting family conversations and bring members closer to one another. Without tradition we would be somewhat unorganized. They give us a sort of outline of the way things “should be” done. In this way, we don’t have to make up new things to do all the time. They are helpful tools that bring us all closer together and offer overall guidance and structure while making life interesting and giving us cool topics to discuss in certain conversations.

Leave a Response »

 

week three Tuesday, Apr 17 2012

An outsider looking in would view bread as just part of the four food groups and nothing more. But if one were to take a closer look at this delicacy that we so often take for granted, the onlooker may discover that there are more sides to a single loaf of bread than anyone would have thought of originally.  For centuries, bread has been the main source of sustenance in human society. It is filling, healthy, and affordable. Though bread has been all these obvious things, it symbolizes many other things from social to economic viewpoints. Socially, bread has been the backbone in charity for the poor. Bakeries donate their stale breads to the poor, offering them a sense of hope. So, in society, bread is more than just food. It is an object that offers a sense of security and hope in a dangerous hopeless environment. Bread is a major symbol when it comes to religion as well. In every religion that bread is served to the congregation, it is used to represent the body of Christ. This is because the Bible describes Jesus breaking bread at the Last Supper and explaining that it was part of him. So in religion, bread is also more than just food. It is a symbol of change and renewal. Economically, bread is an affordable way to provide sustenance to the body. But it is more than that. Bakeries provide jobs to members of society, making the world a more economically friendly. So here we have it; bread provides more than just nutrition. It is also seen as a symbol of safety, hope, spiritual comfort, and a source of income. It is easy to take such a simple thing for granted. But now that we know bread can be connected to so many other different things, we should take into account all the other things that we could be taking for granted.

Leave a Response »

 

week 2 Tuesday, Apr 17 2012

Documenting St. Joseph’s Day alters would play a role in the promotion of a just and humane society mainly because this new found information could be used to teach our community to appreciate new cultures. Even though St. Joseph’s Day alters are part of New Orleans culture as well as Sicilian culture, I’m sure not all New Orleans residents know exactly what the tradition or the reasoning behind the St, Joseph’s Day alters are. So in documenting the alters we can learn what they are actually about, in essence, offering knowledge of another culture, thus creating educated people who are just and humane.

Leave a Response »

 

week 1 Tuesday, Apr 17 2012

Ever since I can remember, my family has indulged in a seafood gumbo every Christmas. The gumbo contains all the usual seafood gumbo things: crab, shrimp, oysters, and other delicacies. My mom, her sisters, and my grandmother take turns cooking the gumbo. This is because whoever cooks the gumbo doesn’t attend Christmas Eve mass with the rest of the family, she instead attends on Christmas morning. They start from the eldest and rotate. My grandmother would be first of course and it would continue down the line until all seven of her daughters have gone and the cycle would repeat. If a sister would be hindered from making the gumbo for some reason, one of her daughters, preferably the oldest, would then take her place of making the gumbo, unless of course she doesn’t have a daughter or her daughter is too young. In this case someone would volunteer to make the gumbo and the cycle would continue from there. Notice that the only reasons someone couldn’t make the gumbo were that she was too young or if the child was a boy. By the time a female has turned sixteen she has acquired the skill of making a gumbo. It is a skill that must be acquired. We’ve never questioned why we must possess this skill, nor has an explanation ever been offered. That’s just the way it is. This tradition is one of many, but it is my favorite because all the women in our family can bond. This is the only way we can learn to make the gumbo. We are a large family of women. We have my grandmother, her seven daughters, seventeen female grandchildren, and eight female great-grandchildren and counting. The men exist but we obviously overpower them. Which is why getting our way is another tradition in our family.

Leave a Response »