Foodways

At home my family cooks dinner using fish, meat, and vegetables. We also use a lot of olive oil in the dishes we made. Although I don't do most of the cooking I help out sometimes. On the weekdays my mom usually cooks the meals. She enjoys making dishes with fish and spices. My younger brother enjoys making japanese chicken curry. He likes to cook with vegetables and chicken. I enjoy baking mostly because it involves being exact with measurements and ingredients. Rather than estimating everything and putting it all together.

Most US mainstream people eat fastfood or eat at home. But even at home they don't always make the food, for example when I lived in the mid-west, Berkely, Michigan, my friend's house was always filled with snacks and frozen dinners. They also had a lot of canned foods and not too many vegetables. Sometimes they had fruit lying around but that was about all they had for fresh produce. There was also an abundance of boxed food, like Craft's Mac n' Cheese, which even my family had then as well. I believe the reason for all of this "pre-made" or "boxed" in many of the homes in the mid-west was because it was more efficient to come home and pop a frozen dinner in the microwave or a pre-made pizza in the oven.

The location: where people live plays a large roll in where and what they eat. In the city there are thousands of restaurants to go to and hundreds of different cusines to choose from. Some healthier than others. There are also many fruit and vegetable stands and stores, like Fairway and other supermarkets that cell fresh produce. But in the mid-west there are no fruit and vegetable stands on the sidewalks and if you want to go out to eat there are only a select few restaurants. There are less choices.

Since you have to drive to the supermarkets and grocery stores in the mid-west, it is not as simple and easy as it is in the city to go to the store, where some people can just walk a few blocks to shop. In the city it is easy for people to buy fresh food everyday and have a healthy meal, while in the mid-west it would be a hassle to drive to the store everyday for fresh food so they buy more non-perishable foods once a week, to avoid having to travel all the way to the grocery store several times a week. Hence the presence of pre-made, frozen, canned, and boxed foods in many of the homes in the mid-west (mainstream US).