Reflection on Meatless Days

In Sara Suleri’s autobiography Meatless Days, she discusses how her identity was formed through the multi-cultural foods that she ate and prepared. Her mother being Welsh, and her father being Pakistani allowed her to have a very diverse palate. The relationship Sara had with her mother revolved around the food they cooked together, which enabled her to be exposed to a variety of cuisines as well as form a bond over cooking. I feel that I can relate to Sara and her mother’s relationship over food because much of the relationship that I have with my mom was formed in the kitchen, creating dishes for our family meals. I spent my childhood mixing batter and asking my mom how much milk the recipe asked for. The time spent with my mom in the kitchen helped our relationship flourish, which makes it easy to understand how Suleri and her mother formed their bonds.

Reading Communities and Culinary Communities, a contextual source that relates to Sara Suleri’s Meatless Days talks about how food is linked to identity, history, and tradition. I feel that this is true for the majority of cultures. Certain meals are made for specific traditional events that overtime form ones identity. Thanksgiving is an example of this in our culture. It is a meal that is of historical significance for Americans. The preparation that goes into the meal and the meal itself is what forms American identities. It is these traditional events that are vital to cultures and how the people of these cultures identities are shaped.