Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.

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You Aren’t What You Eat

Growing up in America with no real connection to my heritage and homeland made

it easy to fit into the description of what “American Culture” is. American culture is far to complex to explain fully though and it I easier to understand by identifying its various components. Television, movies, advertising, sports, education, and food are just a few of the aspects of culture in this country. Geeta Kothari, the author of “If You Are What You Eat Then What Am I,” grew up for the most part as an American citizen despite being born in her native country of India. As she grew up in her new home she realized that a major part of American culture is food and she became intrigued by the differences between Indian and American cuisine. Feeling as though she was not as “American” as her new friends Geeta yearned to try new tastes. This was difficult because her mother only allowed Kothari to eat certain foods and in fact prepared Indian dishes regularly. Overall, Geeta Kothari wanted to diversify her taste for food believing fully that it would allow her to identify herself as an American while maintaining the importance of her Indian culture.

As a young Indian girl growing up in the United States, Geeta was sure

to be faced with several different challenges while adapting to her new culture. She would undoubtedly have to deal with stereotypes of Indian women, making new friends, and attending a new type of schooling. However, she soon realizes that the biggest change between her old life and the new one in which she needs to adapt is her diet. American’s make up a largely red-meat eating nation. “I want to eat what the kids at school eat: bologna, hot dogs salami- foods my parents find repugnant because they contain pork and meat byproducts, crushed bone and hair glued together by chemicals and fat.” (Kothari, pg. 21) Rather than looking at their eating practices as taboo however she gains a deep interest to adopt these practices and even goes as far as to mention eating hot dogs and bologna; the opposite of what her mother wants for her. Although she does eat some of the American food present to her, her parent’s culture from the homeland is still implemented in the home.

Kothari’s mother is the biggest advocate of maintaining their culture

and at times it irritates Geeta because she wants nothing more than to be like her American friends. Kothari expresses disappointment toward her mother because she has nearly no time for Geeta. “At night, if I want her attention, I have to sit in the kitchen and talk to her while she cooks the evening meal, attentive to every third or fourth word I say.” Geeta and her mother begin to work together to experiment with American foods until they can find a comfortable set of recipes and commit them to memory. Kothari’s mother takes catering classes in order to try and accommodate her daughters. “On weekends we eat fried chicken from Woolworth’s on the back steps of my father’s first- floor office on Murray Hill.” (Kothari, pg. 24)

Tuna fish is one of the foods allowed by Geeta’s mother and Kothari is

anxious to taste the tuna fish that she sees her classmates eating during lunch. When Geeta and her mother open the can of tuna to prepare their first tuna fish salad sandwiches they are disgusted at both the consistency and the smell of the fish and even compares it to an internal organ. (Kothari, pg.22) Geeta is depressed at the idea that the tuna is gross and her classmates enjoy it so much. Little do they know that tuna fish needs additional ingredients if they want to achieve the tasty sandwiches that her schoolmates eat. Eventually she learns from a friend at school how to make the tuna salad sandwiches and falls in love with them. This turns out to be the first American dish that Geeta learned how to prepare. Although she is adapting to the new culture and trying new foods, Kothari stays quite in tune with her Indian culture all the while.

“In New York, at the first Indian restaurant in our neighborhood, my

father orders with confidence, and my sister and I play with the silverware until the steaming plates of lamb biryani arrive.” (Kothari, pg. 24) This shows the appreciation that Geeta maintains throughout her life for her original home of India. When the family returns to India the cuisine is similar to that in the restaurant in New York, but preparation and conditions are much different. “In the hot sticky monsoon months in New Delhi and Bombay, we cannot eat ice cream, salad, cold food, or any fruit that cannot be peeled. Definitely no meat.” (Kothari, pg. 24) Back home Geeta and her sister do not argue with their parents about food because they know the rules and the danger of not eating what is healthy at the time. India and the United States illustrate the great differences not just between themselves, but all countries in the world.

Eventually Geeta is sent to boarding school in London because her parents feel

that she will fit in better there since they were once subjects of the British Empire in India. Once again she is subjected to new smells and different tastes. On one of her first days in fact she is heckled by a group of girls because she is unfamiliar with steak and kidney pie. “`What, you’ve never had steak and kidney pie? Bloody hell.’ My classmates scoff, then marvel, then laugh at my ignorance.” (Kothari, pg. 26) It takes Geeta a year to finally realize what she has in front of her and soon she is a self proclaimed vegetarian although she doesn’t know why. As time passes she finds herself ordering Indian dishes and wanting the taste of her childhood to return, but no meat is involved in these meals. She marries a meat eater, who accommodates her diet with several meatless recipes. None of which can she replicate and this is her biggest personal problem. Meanwhile her mother has taken classes to learn to prepare traditional American dishes and Geeta is still left behind without knowledge of what she likes to eat or how to make it. Surprising is her cabinet in her own home; full of Indian spices and ingredients with a few American plates such as pasta and sauce. “And then I realize I don’t want to be a person who can find Indian food only in restaurants.” (Kothari, Pg. 27) Her whole childhood method of fitting in by eating what her friends ate came back to her adulthood of preparing what she had eaten for her whole life; the things her mother prepared back home in India.

All in all, Geeta Kothari felt that in order to fit into a culture you

must be able to cook and eat that culture’s food. She strived to and was even disappointed when she could not eat what the other kids ate because she was unaware as how to prepare the foods. When she went away to London to attend boarding school she found that the food she ate did not shape her identity and rather was just a portion of it. During her travels she realized that her traditional Indian recipes were just as important as her newfound American ones. At the end of her journey she found herself right back where she began only this time she ate the foods she wanted to eat knowing deep down that you are not what you eat.