Finding Home in Food Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Finding Home in Food - Essay Example This research will begin with the statement that since his teenage years, Western food has been a source of great attraction and enjoyment to the author. Fast food like burger and pizza had become his favorite since his teenage days. Eating pizza was one of the most pleasurable activities in his young days. The researcher has remembered going to a pizza joint near his school every weekend. Although it was not considered good by his family to have fast food, he used to love it. The author was discouraged from going to these joints. However, he used to manage going there with his friends on weekends. The researcher’s memories are filled with the fun and enjoyment that he has had while going to the fast food joints. He loved the cheese, different toppings and the starters that were all made in a Western way. Going to pizza joints made him feel that he was ‘modern’ in his outlook. For the author, eating fast food was like being a part of the ‘developed’ w orld. He used to look forward to going to pizza joints and enjoy the pizzas. So when the researcher got a chance to travel to the United States, he thought that he was going to have the greatest time in his life. The author knew that it is the country where burgers and pizzas are found in great varieties and sizes. Moreover, there was no one to stop him from having it. So he thought that his time in the USA will be filled with great entertainment and fun. The author thought that he will not miss his home much. However, his journey to the United States proved his thinking completely wrong.... I had thought that fast food is one thing that I cannot live without. Soon I realized that I was wrong. By the fifth day, I started remembering home food. My mind started dwelling on home made food and beverages. On that day, I told my friends that I will order the pizza. I took the number for nearby pizza joint and called them. I went outside my room to avoid my friends from listening to me. When I became sure that no one was listening, I asked the guy on the other end, â€Å"Do you have pizzas with Asian toppings?† The customer care guy gave a long â€Å"mmmmmmm† and said â€Å"No sir, we don’t.† I was quite disappointed and ordered the usual pizza. By this time, i.e. in just five to six days from the time I arrived, I had lost my enthusiasm towards fast food. I was craving for spices and variety in food. Even then I thought that maybe I am feeling home sick and hence, missing the food. I thought that if I have just one dish of Asian food, I will go back to the fast food with the same enthusiasm. However, my heart was saying something else. Fortunately, the confusion between the mind and the heart was cleared very soon. The next day, one of my distant relatives came to visit me. She brought a big Tiffin box full of Biryani, an Asian dish made of rice, chicken and spices, for me and my friends. She said she thought that home made food will make me feel at home. I said it is nothing like that, and that I am quite used to the Western food. My friends coughed to hide their laughter. After all, there was no strength in my statement. They had realized that I was craving for home made food now. However, as I did not want to lose the challenge, I tried my best to hide the truth.

Comparison Between Livingstone and Sauer Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Comparison Between Livingstone and Sauer - Essay Example Sauer, however, began to head the geography department at Berkeley in 1923, when geography was beginning to take form as an established discipline (Bruman 1996). In the late nineteenth century, geography was more of a reading genre than it was part of institutionalized academia. Robert Mayhew explains, in an essay by Wendy Gibbons, that geography texts were "essentially gazetteers, with headed paragraphs for conveying information about the nations of the world, starting with the mathematical location before moving on to descriptive geography" (Gibbons 2001). Thus, given the different expectations of the time periods, the initial purposes, final results and methodology between the two men were also different. Each time period has its own academic trends and priorities. Prominent public figures are often direct or indirect products of their intellectual surroundings. Therefore, it is valuable to take a look at the academic climates in which Livingstone and Sauer made their respective contributions as well as their various purposes in embarking on their adventures, whether they be academic or otherwise. Livingstone conducted his explorations during what is considered the new imperial age of exploration. This was a time of expansion, the expansion of territories as well as of ideas. With the best of intentions, Livingstone helped pave the way for European colonialism and exploitation. Industrialisation brought with it the desire for imported minerals and natural resources (Crawfurd 2005). Since the accepted idea of the time was that Europe was far superior to Africa, the country that first set foot onto uncharted African territory was practically considered its owner. Even though slavery had been abolished in Europe, it was the Africans that did most of the excavating, exploring, translating and carrying. Africa at this time was seen as a mysterious and dark land, ripe for exploration and conquest. It was the perfect space to play out the prominent ideas of the time. Livingstone was initially a missionary. He began his explorations not so much as an attempt to map uncharted territory, but more as an effort to open up new paths to commerce and Christianity. While working to construct missionary stations deeper into the "Dark Continent's" interior, he came into close contact with Africa's slave trade. His intention was then to slowly eradicate the slave trade by replacing it with the trade of European goods. He believed that "civilization" must be brought to Africa and that Christianity and commerce were the perfect carriers. Livingstone was not very successful as a missionary and made numerous geographical errors (Sykes 1996). After all, he converted only one African who later reconverted and various miscalculations nearly sacrificed his Zambezi expedition. Later he thought he had found the source of the Nile only to realize that it was actually the upper Congo (Sykes 1996). Still, he represents for many the spirit of the explorer. His contributio ns to the geography of Africa are invaluable. It was he, after all, who first began to draw attention to Africa and her people. Carl Sauer is considered one of the founding fathers of American geography. He marks the initial separation of physical geography from human or cultural geography. His predominant concern was the relationship between people and their environment.  Ã‚