Food & Cultural Identity

 

Food and Cultural Identity

At the end of our unit on food, students must create a video in which they teach their classmates how to cook something. They can choose to cook a dish that is from the country they are studying (each student studies one country over the second half of the semester), or they can choose a dish that they know how to make and enjoy. Regardless of which they choose to do, an important part of the video is explaining the cultural relevance of the dish. They can prepare cold cereal or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but they have to put it in the context of U.S. food culture and explain its significance.

The ICC goals for this unit are:

Investigate: I can understand meal times and customs in my own country and in several Spanish-speaking countries, and why certain foods are eaten in some places but not in others.

Interact: I can teach others how to make a dish of my choice (from my culture or a different one) and explain its cultural significance.

For this part of the lesson, students focus on the "Interact" part of the ICC goal, after they have learned and reflected on the investigate part ("why certain foods are eaten in some places but not in others").

Preparation: Food as culture

Students have spent the unit learning vocabulary and some dishes considered "typical" in Spanish-speaking countries. Guest speakers from Mexico and Guatemala have presented briefly on food from their country, as well as customs around meal times and etiquette.

Students in this class also have a Flipgrid partner exchange with Spain every week, and for two weeks they share favorite foods and food-related traditions with their partners. 

Toward the end of the unit, students watch episode one of the Hulu series Taste the Nation. This episode takes place in El Paso, TX, and students learn about foods they are likely familiar with as well as foods they have never heard of. We pay special attention to what is said about the food, why it is significant, more than how to make it. For example, one lady describes giving her children a burrito in the morning to eat later in the day, and she describes it as sending them off with a hug. 

Afterwards we wonder... Do we have a food like that?

Students discuss the significance of the foods shown in the video and the importance of place... why are these foods in the south of the U.S. and not in the north?

For homework, students write a journal entry in English about the cultural significance of food.

Assessment: Create a video

Students create a video in which they prepare a dish of their choice in the target language. They are provided a rubric and instructions on what to include (sequencing words, adjectives, list of ingredients, etc.). The most important part, though, is to include the cultural significance of this dish. 

To prepare for this assessment, as homework students watch a sample of the professor cooking a Spanish tortilla. In class students review what a Spanish tortilla is and talk about the common idea of the Mexican tortilla and the fact that Spanish tortillas are not well known in the U.S. The cultural relevance of the tortilla was explained in the video, and students are given questions to help them think about the dish they will prepare: 

1. When would they eat this? Why? 
2. Do others in their culture eat this dish? 
3. Has it been eaten historically? 
4. Is it eaten by people in other countries? 
5. Is it expensive? Cheap? 
6. Complicated to make? Nutritious? 
7. Would their grandparents have eaten it? 
8. Would they serve it to a guest? (etc.)

After the assessment is complete we watch the videos in class over the rest of the semester (if students agree to it), and we keep reflecting on how our foods (even simple PBJs) are cultural products that hold fascinating practices and perspectives...