Trick or Treat: a look inside

Recipe of the Week: Pumpkin Pie

Check out this classic recipe to celebrate the season!

Tomorrow, thousands and thousands of children across the country will run home after school, proceed to rip the pillowcase of off their bed, and return hours later with it filled, happy as ever. It's the one day of the year that mom will allow them to eat as much candy as then can shove into their face. It's a holiday revolved around food.

Because of the upcoming festivities, I'd like to call your attention to this article from the blog the Blue Kitchen, one that I highly recommend for my fellow foodies. It covers a ton of material, but I'm going to focus on just the part about Halloween. However, still please read the entire post.

Halloween originated from a Celtic holiday called Samhain, literally meaning the end of summer. The Celtics believed that on this night, the souls of the dead would return to earth. Check out more on the history of Halloween here. Flash forward hundreds of years, and you have a completely different holiday. The religious aspect has nearly disappeared. Now, Halloween is noted for the costumes, the candy, the parties, and the haunted houses.

Food has become the center of this day. The Blue Kitchen states almost unbelievable facts on the amount of candy consumed and produced. Pounds and pounds of chocolate, candy, and ultimately sugar.

So what is the role of food here, anyways? Does it take away from the traditions and religious observances of its native history? Does it modernize the holiday? Does it reflect our changed and still changing culture? Think about it.

Personally, I agree with the Blue Kitchen. Halloween is the epitome of our food-obsessed culture. We have an entire holiday dedicated to candy and sweets. However, I don't view this as a negative thing. It shows how food has dominated an entire day of our lives, and its power is immense. It brings many people together, of all ages, to come and celebrate the pure joy of sweetness.

There are positives and negatives to this upcoming holiday. We've heard my opinion, and one from the another blog, but I'd like to know how you fell about it. What role does food play in Halloween?

Chew on that.
Peace out, and rock on.

Happy Birthday!!

Recipe of the Week: Ice Cream Cone Cakes

Tomorrow, I will be celebrating my 18th birthday, legally entering the realm of adulthood, so I thought it would be appropriate for this post to be about the subject of birthdays, and the food associated with them. This recipe is a classic, and entails cake inside of an ice cream cone. Try it out!

Turning 18 grants me a whole new world of opportunity. I can buy a lottery ticket at the 7/11 around the corner. I can vote. I can drive till the wee hours of the morning. I can finally order that Magic Bullet off of the infomercial. But, as of right now, I am not thinking of these new freedoms. Instead, I am thinking of the food.

On Monday, I must bring food for both my class and my swim team. I will most likely go somewhere special for lunch (probably Noodles and Company) and celebrate with my family by having cake for dessert. This is how I celebrate birthdays. But how do other people?

In the book discussed last post, The Poisonwood Bible, one of the narrators, Rachel, is upset that she is spending her birthday in the Congo without gifts and without cake or ice cream. The birthday traditions of her hometown in Georgia aren't practiced, and ultimately can't be practiced in the Congo. There are different traditions to partake in, and different foods to eat.

Upon minor research, I have learned that most cultures appreciate birthdays, and each have their own way of showing it. Check this link out for the specifics. Yet throughout all these different cultures and regions of the world, food seems to be a common thread. In China, birthdays are celebrated with long noodles that symbolize a long, successful life. In Holland, children eat pancakes topped with powdered sugar. In Brazil, people enjoy fruit-shaped candies.

Food unites us all. We all need it; we all depend on it. This week, I encourage you to think about the real power that food has.

Peace out, and rock on.

It is the center of life.

Recipe of the Week: Chip-on-Chip Cookies

Welcome back! From now on, I'm going to start off each post with a recipe of the week (give or take) before actually delving into the meat of the post that I would encourage you all to try at home. First off, I made these cookies for my swim sister for our meet this week, and they turned out great! Instead of salt, you use 3/4 cup of crushed potato chips! How weird, but still solid cookies.

In my English class, we began reading the novel The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, generally about this family from the bible belt who moves to the Congo in the time of the Belgian's rule. During this time in the Congo, and still today, food is limited in most of the country. According to the book, the Congolese rely on a food called fufu from the manioc, or cassava plant. Fufu is a thick, pasty like substance with little to no nutritional or substantive value. However, this food is essential to the Congolese diet. In fact, according to the book, it is also essential to the Congolese life. The novel puts it simply, "It is the center of life" (Kingsolver). The cassava plant provides the Congolese in the story with a sense of abundance in times when they have little. In short, fufu is the center of life.

So what food is in the center of our own lives? The center of American life? Do we have a locally grown fruit, vegetable, or any other crop that is vital to our existence? I encourage you to think about this, and how it impacts you.

In my case, I am lucky enough to have an immense variety of food at my disposal, and my own life does not revolve solely around one all powerful food. However, it is still interesting to hear how food influences other cultures and their own ways of life.

So think about what food is the center of your life.

Peace out, and rock on.