HW 4- My families' foodways

The food that my parents grew up eating is actually very similar to the food that I have grown up eating. Chances are this is a result of my parents remembering the foods that they ate when they were being raised by their parents. So after speaking to my mother about what she grew up eating, it seems a lot like where my family is from has a lot more influence on what I eat then just the different generations of my family. For example, my mother and I both grew up eating meat and pasta as well as drinking milk practically every night for dinner. We both ate family dinners every night, and although she had bread on the table all the time and ate ice cream for dessert when I ate chips ahoy, the variety in our meals were generally very similar.

My grandparents ate slightly different things from my parents and I. They were raised by my great grandparents, who were the first ones in my mothers side of the family to come to America. This means that they were raised eating lots of mediterranean food, more then me or my mother. Although all three generations used quite a bit of olive oil when we cooked, my grandparents were definitely subject to the most olive oil. Other popular greek foods that my grandparents and even my parents ate much more frequently then I did consist of lamb, pound cake, and heavily buttered pasta.

Although the types of food have differed slightly over time in my family, the real difference is the size of the portions. Both of my parents grew up with three other siblings at minimum eating dinner with them, and the same is true for my grandparents. Naturally, because there were more mouths for my grandparents to feed and they were not exactly rich at the time, there was much less food to go around for my parents and my grandparents. Also, I am the only member on either sides of my family who was ever born in New York, and both of my parents were raised in suburban environments. What this means is that although most of the time in my family we cook our own meals, there are always nights where we will order chinese food, and these nights were much more frequent for me then they were for either my parents or my grandparents.