Home Country Food

Two years ago, my family and I went to my home country during spring break. It was the first time I’ve been in El Salvador and especially out of the United States. I knew that El Salvador was going to be very different from New Jersey, especially the food. Here in New Jersey, there is fast food restaurants but where my grandparents lived there was none of that. In New Jersey, I would usually eat waffles/pancakes or cereal for breakfast but in El Salvador my grandparents would makes us scrambled eggs, plantains with sour cream, red beans, and these small fishes fried in a pan. That was technically what we ate for breakfast everyday. Sometimes, though, we would drink some coffee and drink that with the sweet breads they had.

For lunch we would eat tortilla with sour cream and cheese which is this type of hard cheese. And for dinner my grandmother would make us pupusas, a favorite dish of mine that my mom would make for my family and I back at home, though it was not the same the way my grandmother made it. Pupusas are tortillas stuffed with either re-fried beans, cheese (quesillo) or cooked pork meat. It is a traditional dish and I have always loved it. This dish is usually served with this slightly fermented cabbage slaw and tomato sauce. The food in El Salvador was really delicious and I really enjoyed the experience of going to another country and eating food that I normally do not eat here in New Jersey, even if I had to eat the same food almost every day!

Cooking the Food

Yesterday we cooked and it was really fun. We cooked in this really kitchen. Both of the dishes we made yesterday were really delicious and i have never tried them before in my life. Apart from being delicious they were also healthy. Both had vegetables. My group made the Fettuccine Alfredo. I’m so glad that we cooked it ourselves and it came out good. Cooking is fun and I really like it a lot. I hope to make these dishes for my family so that they could see how delicious they are.

Shopping at the Grocer

Well today we went grocery shopping. I usually go grocery shopping with my mom and I also help her choose out the groceries she needs. Some items in the store were expensive while others were cheap. Our budget was fifty dollars and we spent over thirty dollars which is still a lot for just two meals. There were a lot of different products but we had to find the right ones to use for the two dishes we were going to cook.

Food Discussion

Today we discussed the types of food that are healthy and those that are not. First we discussed Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which is pyramid where you need to complete one level in order to move on to the next level until you reach the Self Actualisation level. The first level is Physiological which is the need for food, water, shelter, and warmth is located. The pyramid shows how we need food and water in order t move on the next levels. We also read and highlighted a reading called Preface to The Gastronomical Me where the author M.F.K Fisher discusses the reason why she writes about food and why its so important to us. We do not realize how much our bodies need food and that we can not concentrate on anything else if we have empty stomachs.