Jaedons Blog

One of my favorite food memories is eating pizza with a few friends around the time of my birthday. Most of us had pepperoni, while one of my friends, who is Muslim, ate cheese pizza, and we all sat and shared the meal together. This is an example of a positive memory and shows how easy it is to include everyone. We ate different things, but nobody felt left out, and the focus was on being together, not on what was on our plates. It also taught me how food can bring all different types of people and backgrounds to the same table.

  If I could share one dish with someone who has never tried it, I would choose Chick-fil-A's chicken sandwich. It's a simple, crispy fried chicken sandwich on a buttered bun with pickles. The sandwich is something myself and a lot of other people in my culture have  grown up eating with friends and family.  I would want that person to understand that this dish in my culture is casual, fast-paced, and built around convenience, but also around small moments of comfort and connection. A meal doesn't have to be fancy to be meaningful. It can be something familiar that people share on the go, that's what makes a food like this feel like home.

In my house, some meals aren't shared. Instead, everyone finds and makes their own food. This reflects my family's values of independence and responsibility, since it teaches us to take care of ourselves while respecting that everyone has different tastes and schedules.

 I used to think that Pakistani food was only handmade curry.  I had never tried it but had already made up my mind that it was something I didn’t like based ideas that came from outside. My opinion changed when a friend invited me to one of his family events and I decided to go. I did not expected the food to be such a variety of nice looking and smelling dishes. When I took the first bite a food, it was very flavorful, seasoned, slightly spicy, and very well cooked. It is to this day one of the best things I’ve tased before, and my opinion has changed since.

 Spaghetti is a dish that is a must have for representation of my culture. Spaghetti start as an Italian dish, but immigrants brought it to the United States sometime around the 19th and 20th century. Overtime Americans began eating the dish and adopting their own version with different meatballs sauce or garlic. American is often described as a melting pot, this is a good example of how many different foods from different cultures can be brought to one place and shared.