Food Values

Bryce Rothenberg

Denver Modified Southern Dining

My relationship with food and the food choices I now make is drastically changing due to the completely different food culture I have been placed in being a college student in Denver, Colorado. Growing up in Nashville, Tennessee molded the relationship I had and still moderately have with food to this day because of something called Southern Cooking. The food culture in the South is one of indulgence and leisure, while the food culture I have now been thrown into, as a college student, is one based off fast-paced, healthy snack-size meals that can be eaten 4-5 times a day and on the go. These two eating cultures are polar opposites and have thrown me into a food limbo, unable to completely abandon my Southern roots or completely assimilate into the on-the-go Denver eating culture. To give you a better understanding of what a food limbo is like, limbo itself has been defined as  “a place of oblivion or neglect, a prison” (4), “a state of uncertainty” (4), not something pleasant to be experiencing regarding food. This restraint or confinement of my previous food values developed and rooted in family Southern dining, are not applicable to the situation I have been placed in being a college student in a westernized food culture. I am in a food limbo. Caught in-between two contradicting food cultures in a very important transitional period in my life, but what I am beginning to learn is that I am very capable of mixing the healthy, small portion sized college and western food choices with the enjoyment and richness that comes from my Southern rooted food values.

Grabbing a fruit or vegetable for the road had never been a viable option for me until coming to Denver and being introduced to the plethora of healthy organic snacks the cafeteria and C Store have to offer. The article, ‘Eating on the Edge”, illustrates how food, has become "an additive to a situation, such as a cigarette would be, rather than being definitive."(2) This idea of food becoming an additive to a situation rather than a definitive shows the complete disconnect of the meaning of a meal between dining as a college student in Denver and Southern dining culture. The food choices being made as a college student in Denver are based on the nutrients, availability, efficiency, and utility of the product, while in Nashville choices are based upon how full the food will get you and how much you will enjoy the food:

“Southern cooking at its most traditional tends to be abundant and rich - not a bad thing if you happen to be good and hungry. But the California palate, more often, is wary of food that you can pile on a plate, no matter how tasty and artsy it is. We tend to value beauty over bulk, and freshness over a flavor wallop.”(5)

This California palate that Mott describes is a very good representation of dining in the Western states, especially Denver; more worried about freshness and presentation, than richness and abundance, which is what is expected out of a hearty home-cooked Southern meal.

             Before coming to college my perspective on food was very relaxed and enjoyable. I use to view food as more of leisure in Nashville, eating substantial meals when placed before me and snacking very little in-between these gargantuan feasts. One of the main differences I have seen in the way I consume food in Denver compared to Nashville is that now in Denver I don’t necessarily eat to enjoy the food or to get full as I use to Nashville. Being on the crimson meal plan, I am not allowed to enter the cafeteria before 11 o’clock in the morning, yet after 11 and until 7 o’clock at night I am allowed to get as much food as I want as many times as I want. “Lighter meals are the most popular option for on-campus diners, with sandwiches (61%) leading the pack as most ordered for the on-the-go lifestyle of students.”(3) This being said, my eating patterns and my appreciation for a specific meals such as breakfast, lunch, or dinner have diminished drastically due to my inability to fully experience or indulge in a specific meal, yet I am still trying to keep my “Southern way of thinking” as Blount puts it.

“The way folks were meant to eat is the way my family ate when I was growing up in Georgia. We ate till we got tired. Then we went "Whoo!" and leaned back and wholeheartedly expressed how much we regretted that we couldn't summon up the strength, right then, to eat more. When I moved to the Northeast, I met someone who said she liked to stop eating while she was still just a little bit hungry.”(1)

When I lived in Nashville, food wasn’t about the ingredients or how healthy it was for me, it was about the quality and quantity of the food being consumed. Growing up in a household that was against snacking in-between meals, it has been very difficult for me to acclimate myself to the college student eating culture. I still to this day don’t feel that I have appropriately assimilated, trying to enjoy the richness and abundance of each meal while eating smaller and healthier portions.

            This assimilation into another food culture isn’t going to happen seamlessly because of my predisposition to the richness and abundance of Southern cooking. With this said I temporarily want to through out a word to describe the situation in which I feel trapped and imprisoned, limbo. I defined this word earlier stating that it is “a place of oblivion and neglect, a prison, a state of uncertainty”(4), but I didn’t relate it back to the situation I am facing as a freshman at the University of Denver. Growing up in Nashville I established very Southern food values and followed these food values closely as to fit into the society more comfortably. If this meant I was eating three huge meals a day of very rich, cholesterol packed, fried foods, it didn’t matter because everyone was doing it. Now coming to Denver these food values I have established in Nashville are holding me hostage and not allowing me to comfortably adjust to the different food culture I have been thrown into. Throughout the first three quarters of my college career, I have been struggling to suppress my Southern rooted food values, while learning how to eat smaller portioned healthier meals. The amalgamation of contradicting food practices I have to sift through is a process that has sent me into a state of food value uncertainty, which is to say, a food limbo. This has been an ongoing learning process throughout the year that has been difficult at times, yet rewarding when compatibility between contradictory food choices is found. I am developing a Denver modified, Southern rooted, set of food values that take pieces from both the food choices I made as a first year college student, as well as the food practices I was taught as a child. I can practice eating Southern, enjoying the richness and abundance of the food, while still eating healthy, small sized meals, I just need to learn to accept these food values I have presented, rather than rejecting or fully accepting one set in particular.

            So I’m in food limbo… Who cares? I do, I care. It has been difficult for me to speed up my eating style to fit that of the fast-paced and efficiency-based restaurants that surround the University of Denver. These restaurants draw in college students like bees to honey and come to think of it, ALL MY FRIENDS ARE COLLEGE KIDS. The restaurants that set up shop close to campus have been forced to integrate fast-service food into their layout and management of the store because of the growing demand for fast quality food. Both Chipotle and Illegal Pete’s are Mexican grills that service mostly college students, and in my opinion because of the proximity to the University of Denver and the youthful, fast moving culture, the unique efficient layout of each restaurant allows many different people to eat their meals in many different ways. Being able to eat my meal many different ways? Why would I want to do that? All I want is to sit down and enjoy the meal the way I use to in Nashville, savoring every bite and leaving my plate sparkling clean. But this ideal is impossible in the culture I have been thrown into as a college student. “I grew up eating with people who didn't just take a few of the most obvious bites out of a piece of chicken and decide abstractly, "Well, I have eaten this piece of chicken." They recognized that the institution of fried chicken demands a great deal of chicken, and they felt bound to hold up their end.”(1)

            There are many aspects of my food choices today that originated in Nashville and are not applicable to the life style I am living in Denver as a college student. While these characteristics may not be applicable or usable at this point in my life, it does not mean that I am abandoning these values; I am rather placing these values in the back of mind for some later date. Many of these food values I learned in Nashville have been pushed out of my conscious being due to the contradictory food values I am learning in Denver. I am beginning to look at food more as a utility than as food for the sake of enjoyment and fulfillment. This is a very utilitarian meaning of food I am developing as a college student, eating to be able to have enough energy to do a certain activity or to sustain my hunger for an hour while I go to class. I understand what I need to do to be able to assimilate into the fast-paced college diet, yet it goes against every food value I ever learned growing up. I know that this is a transitional period in my life; not only for my food values but also for me as an individual, and because of this I am taking these food value decisions very seriously as to establish some concrete set of rules that can be applicable in almost every situation.

Being in this state of limbo and transition both geographically and life course wise has placed me in a very interesting position in which I am the soul decision maker, yet am torn between multiple options. While moving to Denver has signified a geographical switch from the South to the West, it has also signified a monumental point in my life being a college freshman at The University of Denver. I have geographically moved away from my Southern roots in Nashville, but the Southern values I established while living in Nashville are values and fundamentals that cannot be uprooted. These food choices that are being made around me by friends and classmates are those based off a Western-styled, college student, health-conscious mentality that I understand, yet do not agree with. The food values and cultures I have experienced my first year away from home are those completely and utterly different from my Southern rooted values, and because of that shed a different light on why people eat the way they do. Experiencing these different food practices for an extended period of time has allowed me to develop and hone my own values, taking practices from each culture and making them one. This will mean making healthier choices both ingredients and portion-size wise, yet still enjoying the richness and abundance of taste in each morsel of food. Let’s begin!

Work Cited

1.     Blount, Roy,Jr. "The Way Folks were Meant to Eat." Southern Living 1996: 84-. ProQuest Central. Web. 30 May 2012 .

2.     Horwitz, Jamie. "Eating at the Edge." University of California Press. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/gfc.2009.9.3.42 .>.

3.     "Study Examines College Dining Habits. " Food Management  : Online Exclusive 27 Apr. 2012: ABI/INFORM Global, ProQuest. Web.  30 May. 2012.

4.     "limbo 1 or Limbo." Chambers 21st Century Dictionary. London: Chambers Harrap, 2001. Credo Reference. Web. 29 May 2012.

5.     Mott, Patrick. "Great Southern Cooking." OC Metro Business (2004): 126-. ProQuest Central. 29 May 2012 .