Food Perception and Ideology

Course: Food Culture

Describe one ideological understanding related to food or an ingredient. It could be that lesser indulgence equates to higher purity of the soul and therefore the avoidance of meat (indulgence) and vegetarianism as soul purity. It could be what Johnson et al. note in the article note as the Indonesians burying the dead in the fields, thus brings the dead back to the hearth where food is cooked in the form of produce and making the hearth the central identifier of one’s kin. It could be the notion of the provider of the family getting a chicken leg, as comedian Chris Rock notes or the culturally-constructed stereotype of the African-American identity with fried chicken. Think of any popular perception related to food in a culture in relation to social, ethnic, religious, economic, gender or aspect of life and explain it the way Williams-Forson takes the Chris Rock clip to explain it from a sociological point of view. To provide another example, of a food ingredient, chefs and grandmas are often seen throwing salt over their left shoulder. This is because spilling salt is bad luck and throwing salt over the left shoulder reverse bad luck. It is left because the devil always attacks from the rear or the left and it detests salt as it is incorruptible, moral and associated with God. If throwing salt over left shoulder is what I choose to write about in the discussion, I would highlight the different explanations for how this belief came about, including how some groups point out that Judas is spilling salt in the image from the Last Supper. Judas is the one who betrayed Jesus Christ and therefore, for many, spilling salt is associated with bad luck. You get the idea! The possibilities of what you write about are many. Simply contextualize your chosen example and use a source (cite it properly in text and in references) for any background information.

The prompt response must be at least 500 words long, excluding salutations, headers, prompt, titles, headers and references. It must be double-spaced, submitted as doc. or docx. files formatted with 1 inch margins on all four sides, page-numbered and in 12 Times New Roman regular font. All sources used in the response must be cited in-text (in parentheses) (regardless of whether it is paraphrased information or a direct quote) and in references. The citation and general formatting of the papers must follow MLA, CMoS or APA citation styles. MLA is typically used in anthropology, but you can use the citation style used in your majors. The key is to be consistent and not mix and match. Here are the sample guidcixes for formatting your response:
MLA

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