Recipe of the Week: Check out these traditional Muslim dishes!
We just started reading Reading Lolita in Tehran in our English class, a memoir that takes place in Iran under the regime of the Islamic Republic. The book follows an informal class of women who discuss banned literature, such as works by Jane Austen, Scott F. Fitzgerald, and obviously Vladimir Nabokov. The women all have interesting and different perspectives, often discussing issues that they have with their government, the Islamic rule, and how the post-revolutionary world has affected them.
This got me thinking into the food traditions of Islam in general. The Qu'ran gives Muslims a certain dietary law to follow. According to this law, Muslims can eat what is considered to be pure, clean, and fresh. This is refered to as halal, which literally means permitted. Almost all foods are considered to be halal, and can be eaten freely.
The foods that are forbidden are called haram, which literally means prohibited. Some foods which are considered to be haram include pork, alcohol, or any animals that are improperly slaughtered. These types of foods are forbidden to maintain one's purity and cleanliness.
This dietary law is what the women in Reading Lolita in Tehran live by, which may seem distant to us, but these traditions are not extremely foreign in America. In fact, many religions have a dietary code similar to this one, all in hopes of maintaining one's same purity. Food is prominent in one's religion. For example, it is Jewish dietary code to keep kosher, which allows certain foods and not others like that of Islam.
Through this blog, I have hoped to expose the power and influence of food around the world. In this case, we have seen the role of food in religion, and how Islam has reacted to food in the world. Food can determine one's purity, and therefore food is powerful.
Peace out, and rock on.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Sunday, November 13, 2011
food talk.
Recipe of the Week: Lazy Man's Pickles Shout out to Blue Kitchen!
Everyone talks about food. Maybe you're so full from your lunch you can barely move, maybe you hit up the new Caribou Coffee in town, or maybe you're craving a chocolate chip cookie right now. Food is so engrained in our everyday conversation, and many of us don't even realize it. That is because sometimes, we aren't always talking about what we ate for dinner last night.
Food is used as metaphor. It is increasingly prevalent in the daily lives of people around the world. Food is a focus for life, and therefore constitutes much of one's conversation and language. Food metaphors are used to describe family, sex, politics, gender, sports, and much much more.
In this post, I am just going to discuss how food is used as metaphor regarding politics. But first, let's discuss the importance of using metaphor. In our English class, we have been focusing on how metaphor is essential to our everyday language. According to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their book Metaphors We Live By, we all think and speak in metaphors, and are therefore very influential in our daily lives.
And food is major part of these metaphors. Regarding politics, the most commonly used food metaphor is when one is hungry for power. Now, when a politician is hungry for power, they do not actually want to eat power or have any feeling in their stomach. Instead, they have a craving, a wanting, for power. The feeling that one has when they are hungry for power is therefore similar to one when someone needs food, and craves and wants it. In both cases, they are wanting something to relieve the feeling of hunger, whether it be food or power. Many entities can be hungry for power, such as countries, people, political parties, etc. This metaphor is everywhere.
Now, what does this metaphor imply? The feeling of wanting power is extremely complicated, and can only be described using another feeling, a feeling that is more common to the average person. Not every person will experience a hunger for power, but most people will indeed feel a hunger for food. The experience of hunger is therefore common, and allows more people to understand the feeling of wanting power. Metaphors help us understand experiences, experiences that we may not be able to have ourselves.
If interested, find more food metaphors here. Think about how often you use phrases like these, and how important metaphors, more specifically food metaphors, are.
Peace out, and rock on.
Everyone talks about food. Maybe you're so full from your lunch you can barely move, maybe you hit up the new Caribou Coffee in town, or maybe you're craving a chocolate chip cookie right now. Food is so engrained in our everyday conversation, and many of us don't even realize it. That is because sometimes, we aren't always talking about what we ate for dinner last night.
Food is used as metaphor. It is increasingly prevalent in the daily lives of people around the world. Food is a focus for life, and therefore constitutes much of one's conversation and language. Food metaphors are used to describe family, sex, politics, gender, sports, and much much more.
In this post, I am just going to discuss how food is used as metaphor regarding politics. But first, let's discuss the importance of using metaphor. In our English class, we have been focusing on how metaphor is essential to our everyday language. According to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their book Metaphors We Live By, we all think and speak in metaphors, and are therefore very influential in our daily lives.
And food is major part of these metaphors. Regarding politics, the most commonly used food metaphor is when one is hungry for power. Now, when a politician is hungry for power, they do not actually want to eat power or have any feeling in their stomach. Instead, they have a craving, a wanting, for power. The feeling that one has when they are hungry for power is therefore similar to one when someone needs food, and craves and wants it. In both cases, they are wanting something to relieve the feeling of hunger, whether it be food or power. Many entities can be hungry for power, such as countries, people, political parties, etc. This metaphor is everywhere.
Now, what does this metaphor imply? The feeling of wanting power is extremely complicated, and can only be described using another feeling, a feeling that is more common to the average person. Not every person will experience a hunger for power, but most people will indeed feel a hunger for food. The experience of hunger is therefore common, and allows more people to understand the feeling of wanting power. Metaphors help us understand experiences, experiences that we may not be able to have ourselves.
If interested, find more food metaphors here. Think about how often you use phrases like these, and how important metaphors, more specifically food metaphors, are.
Peace out, and rock on.
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