Food Culture

As summer is winding down, and I am actually getting time to thoughtfully read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle a very interesting topic stuck with me, the idea of a food culture. Coming back from a camping trip and being secluded in a car for hours on end I began to think about it. Do we have a food culture? It is easy to think of other food cultures, we eat them here all the time; Indian, Thai, Greek, Italian, Chinese (sort of). It begs the question, what is "American Food"? Greasy McHamburgers made from more high fructose corn syrup than anything else? I hope not.
Can we come up with a food culture for ourselves? I know as a kid a big part of my food culture was hotdish and potlucks. Meat, potatoes, and greens were present at every dinner, even when potatoes or peas weren't growing in my grandpas garden or anywhere else within 500 miles for that matter. Is it even possible to eat seasonally in Minnesota when we have long, cold winters? This is what I am hoping to find out through the Wendell Berry House and experiment with the other guys who have decided to cook their own meals. Barbara Kingsolver relates how they were able to eat seasonally and locally for an entire year, but is it feasible for a college student living in a smaller community to do the same? If I haven't reverted to Easy Mac and Ramen by the end of the year, I think it will have been a worthwhile experience.