Why are red beans and rice linked to Mondays in New Orleans? Do you associate certain foods with other particular days? Saturday, Mar 3 2012

Red beans and rice are linked to Mondays because as stated in the reading Mondays were wash days.  Wash days were one of the hardest working days and families needed to create a meal that was easy to cook and that took little preparation.  Red beans and rice was the dish that was easiest to create so it became fond to make this dish on Mondays.  Another reason why it is linked to Mondays is because Sundays were known as the day when ham was cooked and the ham bone was the essential of the ham.  The ham bone was also the essential for adding flavor to the red beans and rice which was cooked on Mondays.  This is just another reason why red beans and rice are linked to Mondays because this day comes after Sunday where you would get the bone to help add that flavor to the red beans and rice.  I myself do associate certain foods with other particular days.  For example in my family I associate foods like; fried chicken, rice, collard greens, cabbage, candy yams, macaroni and cheese, stew meat, baked chicken, and chicken pot pie all with Sundays.  I do this because in my family Sundays is when we partake in all of these foods together.  I also associate these foods with Sundays because it brings my family together and gives us time to catch up on what has happened during the past week over great tasty dishes that my grandparents and uncle had prepared.

 

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What is the purpose of the feasts described in Daniel? How do ancient feasts compare to modern St. Joseph’s Day feasts? Saturday, Mar 3 2012

The purpose of the feasts described in Daniel was for those who had higher power.  They were for the King his nobles, their wives, and his concubines to eat as serving to whom they prayed to and were thankful to for everything that they had received in their life.   Ancient feasts compare to modern St. Joseph’s Day feasts in the way that it is set up to give govern to a higher being.  For example like when the King who came after Belshazzar praised the idol Bel they set up a feast in front of the idol for the idol as a way of giving back to the higher being that they served or was thankful too.  Ancient feast also compare in that the food that they had worked so hard for and created goes on the table just like that of the St. Joseph’s Day Altar.  They are alike in that they are both prepared as a tradition.

 

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What is the main premise of Campbell and Esselstyn? Saturday, Mar 3 2012

Forks over Knives examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed by rejecting animal based and process foods.  The main premise of Campbell and Esselstyn is to promote a healthier diet to control the obesity and death rates from diseases in people by a whole food, plant based diet. Dr. Campbell is a nutritional scientist at Cornell University and Dr. Esselstyn is a top surgeon and head of the Breast Cancer Task Force at the world renewed Cleveland-Clinic.   They conducted several groundbreaking studies, and one of them took place in China.  Their research led them to a startling conclusion that degenerative diseases like, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and several types of cancer could always be prevented and in many cases reversed by adopting whole foods, plant based diet.  In the documentary the idea of food as medicine is put to the test.  The documentary shows how real life patients are told to try what the research has shown in order to help improve their health conditions and for that improvement to stay.  Campbell and Esselstyn conducted this documentary all over the United States, Canada, and China.

 

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What is the purpose of preserving traditions? Saturday, Mar 3 2012

Traditions are things that were created by a group of people and that are passed down from generation to generation.  There are many reasons to preserve traditions.  The first reason that comes to my mind is so that those who come after the ones who created the tradition will be able to experience what they created or had to go through just for them to experience the tradition.  In the reading for this blog by Dr. Kim Vaz she starts off the article saying how Americans recognize that the tradition of the St. Joseph’s altars came from the Sicilian natives.  If it was not for the Sicilian Natives creating this tradition and preserving it us Americans would not now have this as a tradition.  This is an example of why preserving traditions is important. Dr. Kim Vaz talks about how the Sicilians when they settled in New Orleans brought not only their good work ethics but also their preserved traditions.  There is a piece from the article where she says. “A little known story in commentaries about St. Joseph’s day is the way the tradition developed and transformed the spiritual practices of New Orleans’ varying cultural communities.”  This example showed how preserving one tradition opened opportunities for new things to progress.  This shows that preserving traditions is important in the way that they are able to take one thing and make it start something new.  Preserving traditions are important because without preserving them there would be no recognition that they ever once existed in a way.  Without the preservation of this tradition people like me would have never been able to gain the knowledge about what St. Joseph’s altar day is where it came from, how it is celebrated or any of the above.  Remember that preserving traditions are important because they help people to experience them.

 

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From what you’ve read for this week, speculate how documenting St. Joseph’s altars might play a role in the promotion of a just and humane society? Saturday, Mar 3 2012

Documenting St. Joseph’s altars might play a role in the promotion of a just and humane society because it talks about bringing everyone together.  Throughout the reading for this blog I read a lot about how the altars originally were created by different families and were shared with everyone in that village or town.  This is a good example of helping to create a just and humane society because people like to feel welcomed.  There was a part in the reading where after a while the feast became more like a competition showing that it was not creating a just and humane society. However, they soon realized that it did not matter about the decoration or whose food and altar looked the best but about who was partaking in the feast and what they were celebrating. This is a way of creating a more just and humane society.  Another way that this could promote a just and humane society is how they brought their traditions over to the United States with them.  Here in the United States we tend to believe that if something was created by me then why should I have to share it with someone who had nothing to do with making it, this is how in justice and humane our society is.  Them bringing over there traditions and letting it be used by people who are not of that culture and who did not have anything to do with the creation of this feast and holiday celebrated on March nineteenth shows just how this can promote a more just and humane society.  The St. Joseph’s altars plays a great role in the promotion of a just and humane society because it brings people together rather than having them separated and distant to the point where there is no way to be just and humane.

 

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What are the social, religious, and/or economic connections to bread? Saturday, Mar 3 2012

“Bread symbolizes maintenance of life as well as deprivation, as in a bread-and-water diet.”  Bread and poverty associated closely with one another well before the term poor boy was applied to loaves.  Bakers donate state loaves to charitable institutions and some produced bread under government contract for Charity Hospital.  Bakeries made involuntary contributions of bread to the poor if government officials caught them shorting their loaves.  Labor problems forced the artisan employers to confront workplace issues together despite their tradition of baking secrecy and independence.  The much longer loaf of French Bread that the brothers suggested accompanied the nations rapid urbanization and the evolution of baking from family shop to industrial manufacturing. Gendusa produced the key feature of what later came to be known as the poor boy loaf, but the sandwich name developed   through its association with the street railway workers.

 

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What are your thoughts about Xavier and its mission after your first semester? Monday, Dec 5 2011

My thoughts about Xavier after my first semester are that it is an institution driven on education and making sure that we as students get the best education that there is to offer.  I have seen that they are really true to their mission statement.  I have learned that Xavier is a school that challenges you and makes you strive to be the best that you can possibly and ultimately be.  Xavier really implements their mission statements by having the opportunity to go study abroad and do volunteer opportunities in the global community.  Xavier is school that really takes it religion which is catholic serious.

Things that I have learned to like about Xavier is that they are very understanding when you have emergencies and need to have things done at a later date and time.  I like how there are lots of little things to do on campus.  I like the way they have lots of organizations for you to join.  I like that they have many volunteer opportunities because volunteering is very important to me.  I like how they take care of a problem in an honorable matter.

After this first semester I have grown to realize that this institution is really not the institution for me.  I have come to this conclusion because I realized that I do not like small schools.  I love the education that the school is given me.  I will recommend this institution to anyone who is looking for a small based school that is going to offer them a great opportunity for higher learning and where they will receive a great education.  In conclusion I have really learned a lot about myself and this institution after being here for a semester.  The professors that I have received here have been great all except two.  I have learned a lot about this school that has changed me and the person that I thought I was.

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What did you think of the book Fast Food Nation? Sunday, Dec 4 2011

My thoughts on the book Fast Food Nation are as follows:

 

When I first saw the book Fast Food Nation I said to myself that this is going to be a very boring book to read.  I was semi right in thinking this, however, some parts of the book was actually interesting.  The book itself is really educational and informative.  The book gave me information about the fast food world and corporations that I would have never gotten before.  I learned that there are a lot of scandals that go on in the fast food world from this book. The personal life stories in this book made my imagination really go into a state of imagination.  I was actually putting myself into the shoes of these people and asking myself what if this is one day me from eating fast food.  This book has made me stop and think about the choices that I make when I decide to eat fast food.  The book let me know what places not to eat and what to look at for in my food.  I found it amazing that such things actually could happen to people from eating fast food.  After reading this book I realized that fast food is actually even more unhealthy for you than just making you gain weight but that it can actually kill you from diseases that you would have never expected to get.  In closing, this book turned out to actually be a good book for you to read if you were bored out of your mind and had nothing else to do and wanted to be informed on what was going on in the fast food world.  I recommend that people read this book so that they will be informed on what actually goes on in the corporations and behind closed doors in the fast food nation.

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How do automobiles and interstates play a role in spreading the fast food culture? Sunday, Dec 4 2011

Automobiles and Interstates play a major role in spreading the fast food culture.  Automobiles and interstates are one of the most popular forms of transportation for fast food companies.  For instance McDonalds the world’s largest fast food companies to me uses an eighteen wheeler to deliver their processed frozen food all around the world.  This shoes that automobiles and interstates contribute a big factor to how we get the processed food that we buy from McDonalds.   Automobiles and interstates have been used around the world to transport fast food culture for thousands even probably millions of years and all over the world.

Without automobiles and interstates we would probably not have the processed foods that we purchase from fast food places like, Krystal’s, Checkers, and McDonalds.  You have to get the food true from overseas probably but the automobiles and interstates gets it to the states that makes up the United States of America.  In conclusion automobiles are a major way of transportation that needs the interstates to transport the fast food culture on.  Therefore, these two combined contributes greatly in the role of spreading the fast food culture.

 

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Email to my favorite professor at Xavier thanking him/her for all that they have done. Sunday, Dec 4 2011

Mrs. Caitlin

 

Hello, I am writing you today to thank you for changing my views on math.  I have always been a person that just hated math and everything about it. From the time that I stepped foot into high school I never had a math teacher that really just made math easy for me to learn such as you had.  You have changed my views.  I no longer hate math and believe that I can do the math as long as I have a good teacher and confidence in myself.  I appreciate how you took the time out to work with the students especially me to understand the math that we were working on.  I appreciate how you took time out and broke down the math problems to the point that I could understand it.  I appreciate how you always had a smile on your face and never one time was rude to any of us.  I appreciate that you did not get frustrated when I was having a difficult time on a problem and was overlooking the simple things.  I appreciate how your spunk and charisma flows through your teaching style.  Once again I really appreciate all that you have done for me and how you have changed my views on math.  I am glad that I was able to meet a wonderful person and great professor like you.

 

 

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