The Adventure of Food

            If anyone told me that food does not represent one’s cultural identity, I would surely disagree.  In fact, I might take it personally because of the effects food has affected my life individually.  Growing up, I had a religious upbringing.  My family followed the rules of Judaism very strictly when it came to food.  We were restricted from eating many foods if they did not follow certain regulations, and this became an enormous factor of my childhood.

            According to the rules, mixing dairy and meat was forbidden.  Even if the food was completely dairy, it couldn’t even be cooked in the same kitchen as something with meat.  This limited the amount of restaurants my family could eat at. Ultimately, we would have to pay much more money for groceries, which was a challenge.  And the food that we could eat, there was a specific blessing we had to make on it, before and after eating it.  I remember going out to dinner with my unreligious relatives and watching my cousin devour a cheeseburger, something I could never enjoy.  Furthermore, many foods like bacon and shrimp, I couldn’t eat under any circumstances.  Imagine watching all the food advertisements on TV knowing you can’t eat any of it.  (Which is part of the reason why I never watched television.)  Or, imagine attending your Little League pizza parties and bringing your own pizza in tin foil.  That was my life, and I despised it. 

            The older I got, the worse it became.  I was becoming more aware of the real world of food, and knowing that I couldn’t be a part of it killed me.  I remember very vividly the first time I broke the rules.  Me and three (unreligious) friends went to a resort for a weekend, and there was an amazing dining hall.  I gave into the peer pressure and consumed every possible food that was against the rules that was available. I took pleasure in every bite.  Once my parents got divorced, my father, being less religious, gave me the option to eat whatever I want, while my more religious mother maintained her convention.  Because I never had a choice before, this resulted in me eating everything and anything.  It was like being on a wheelchair until high school, and then suddenly one day you can walk.  Well, I ran for miles.  I had gone from one extreme of food, to the other.  My religious past completely explains my admiration for every food that I have today.   I am now open to trying all sorts of new foods, weather it’s octopus in a small village in Spain, or a one-dollar burger from a local fast-food place. 

            Looking back on my childhood, I can’t completely resent the rules I once followed, for they have taught me so much today.  Because I once had such few options, I have learned to value every food that I am able to eat today very greatly. Most importantly, I now live a life where eating food is an ongoing adventure, where I explore all different cultures within each meal. And although I don’t make the same blessings on my food as I used to, they taught me to realize my fortune of having a meal to eat every day, and that is a blessing itself.