Culture and Food: a Research on Hamburger

Introduction

Food is vital to our feeling of character. The manner in which any given human gathering eats because of it affirm, its decent variety, chain of command and association, yet in addition, simultaneously, the two its unity and the otherness of whoever eats in an unexpected way. Food is likewise key to singular character, in that any given human individual is built, organically, mentally and socially by the foods he/she chooses to consolidate. In this assignment I would talk about a famous restaurant I once visited in Chicago; Au Cheval.

Topic analysis

I came across one of my favorite foods till today, the hamburger. I had visited my cousin who had been living in Chicago for almost three years. That very first day after arriving in Chicago, he had told me we should visit this new joint for brunch. We had to wait for hours before getting a table, I was wondering why we couldn’t just go another place. But after eating a hamburger from Au Cheval, it surely answered my question. The hamburgers from that restaurant still haunt me. As Richardson M. (2015) stated that the goal of eating isn’t just fill one’s stomach but to create a memorable experience, that one can link time, place or memory to the diner. The food brings the best memories and great associations I had spending with my cousin.

The hamburger is a commercial food or snack as some may put it but nowadays it’s a domestic food as more people tend to cook them in their homes just by looking for the recipes online. With the name hamburger originating from a city in Germany called Hamburg. It tends to link itself to various things. According to Giddens, A., et. Al (2018), culture is the values, material good characteristics and norms of a particular group. Eating hamburger tends to links us to the German culture due to its originality. Due to the increase in industrialization in the US, the food has grown among the middle and working class because it’s affordable to maintain their industrial and labor production. Industrialization societies have grown.

According to Giddens, A., et. Al (2018), industrialization societies are developed nations that most of its people live in the urban cities and they mostly work in offices and factories. Thus, hamburger is associated with the middle and working class. hamburger has been spreading from one continent to another creating a global culinary culture and lead to globalization of food. Over the years, hamburgers have grown with different ingredients which were made with traditional cuisines from various ethnic groups over the world such as hot dogs.

With research done in the USA, Centre for Disease Control (CDC) stated that the young African-American tend to eat more fast foods than other culture. Taking hamburgers while am on recess or during lunch breaks brings me closer not only to the German culture but also the African-American ethnicity thus, enabling cultural appropriation whereby I tend to borrow some elements from the other cultures. With this it enables me to do more research on these ethnic groups and understand better their different cultural values and respect them.

Also, while eating this, it doesn’t make me any different but am associated with different age groups as they are the highest number of people consuming fast foods such as hamburger. Eating of hamburgers isn’t associated with any religion whereby there are different types of people from different religions that consume hamburgers. The only difference that arises is the ingredients and type of meat that is used. For instance, Muslims cannot eat a hamburger made out of pork, but eat the other types of hamburgers. All other religions from Christianity to Hindus.

References

1. Bly, Robert W. (2007). All-American Frank: A History of the Hot Dog (1st ed.). New York: PublishAmerica. ISBN 1-4137-5062-1.
2. Fischler Claude (1988). Food, self and identity. ARTICLE in SOCIAL SCIENCE INFORMATION MAY 1988 Impact Factor: 0.6 DOI:10.1177/053901888027002005
3. Giddens, A., Duneier, M., Appelbaum, R.P., & Carr, D. (2018). Introduction to Sociology, Seagull 11th edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN: 978-0-393-62395-6 (pbk)
4. Maze Jonathan (2018). HERE’S WHO EATS FAST FOOD, ACCORDING TO THE CDC. Available at: https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/who-eats-fast-food-according-cdc
5. McDonald, Ronald L. (1997). The Complete Hamburger: The History of America's Favorite Sandwich. Carol Publishing Group. ISBN 9781559724074.
6. Richardson M. (2015). Savor the Moment: The Peculiar Connection Between Taste and Memory. Available at: https://www.brainfacts.org/thinking-sensing-and-behaving/learning-and-memory/2015/taste-and-memory