Off to a decent start
Dec. 16th, 2004 12:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sihayadesignsI have decided that for the first time in oh... ever, I'm going to do the bare minimum on an assignment. 8 pages. 2 of which I already have.
But: the beginning of my Women, Food, and Literature paper.
Thanksgiving in Two Places:
Food, Belonging, and More Relatives Than You Can Shake A Turkey Leg At
I have never eaten a Thanksgiving meal in one place-- no that I can remember, anyway, and my memory stretches back quite a bit. I essentially grew up in two households. Two sets of rules. Two dinner-time menus. Two bedtimes. This is because my parents were never married. They were high-school sweethearts who split before I was even a glint in my mama’s eye. And so, each year, as the holidays approach, I begin to feel the telltale clench in the pit of my stomach. It’s pumpkin pie anxiety. I remember the blissful days back when I was four or five, before I was expected to decide with whom I would be sharing a ritual turkey leg. Those days are long gone-- for most of my life, relatives have made sly “Hi, how ya doin?” phone calls, sweetly slipping in the question I have grown to dread. “Will I see you at the table this year?”
You see, though my parents love me, they don’t so much even like one another. I’ve always gotten the feeling that for my families, my choice of venue has been a subtle competition, a popularity contest in their minds. Who gets to have me over for dinner, and who gets – gasp! – just dessert? There’s the inevitable guarded look of welcome when I sneak in the door at half-past five when only brown meat is left and the gravy boat is half empty and starting to congeal. It’s as though they’re covertly looking for some type of invisible infection-- is she acting like more of a Bowles this year? Or is she still ours? Maybe I just had a massive guilt complex and an overactive imagination, but in my experience, I have never had a comfortable Thanksgiving dinner where I felt like just one of the family, like one of the other kids. I always felt like the in-between, the outsider, the unblended element in two otherwise perfect nuclear families. According to Charles Camp in his article, “The Food Event,” ritualistic meals “designate the event as an instrument of cultural continuity, a marker of time passed but more important things unchanged.” Especially at a meal as iconic as the Thanksgiving meal, it has always made me uncomfortable to be the changing element in the cranberry sauce that binds my family together.
But: the beginning of my Women, Food, and Literature paper.
Food, Belonging, and More Relatives Than You Can Shake A Turkey Leg At
I have never eaten a Thanksgiving meal in one place-- no that I can remember, anyway, and my memory stretches back quite a bit. I essentially grew up in two households. Two sets of rules. Two dinner-time menus. Two bedtimes. This is because my parents were never married. They were high-school sweethearts who split before I was even a glint in my mama’s eye. And so, each year, as the holidays approach, I begin to feel the telltale clench in the pit of my stomach. It’s pumpkin pie anxiety. I remember the blissful days back when I was four or five, before I was expected to decide with whom I would be sharing a ritual turkey leg. Those days are long gone-- for most of my life, relatives have made sly “Hi, how ya doin?” phone calls, sweetly slipping in the question I have grown to dread. “Will I see you at the table this year?”
You see, though my parents love me, they don’t so much even like one another. I’ve always gotten the feeling that for my families, my choice of venue has been a subtle competition, a popularity contest in their minds. Who gets to have me over for dinner, and who gets – gasp! – just dessert? There’s the inevitable guarded look of welcome when I sneak in the door at half-past five when only brown meat is left and the gravy boat is half empty and starting to congeal. It’s as though they’re covertly looking for some type of invisible infection-- is she acting like more of a Bowles this year? Or is she still ours? Maybe I just had a massive guilt complex and an overactive imagination, but in my experience, I have never had a comfortable Thanksgiving dinner where I felt like just one of the family, like one of the other kids. I always felt like the in-between, the outsider, the unblended element in two otherwise perfect nuclear families. According to Charles Camp in his article, “The Food Event,” ritualistic meals “designate the event as an instrument of cultural continuity, a marker of time passed but more important things unchanged.” Especially at a meal as iconic as the Thanksgiving meal, it has always made me uncomfortable to be the changing element in the cranberry sauce that binds my family together.
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