Melissa K. Nelson's The Pleasures Of Eating

The summers I’ve spent in Tonga were full of good natural foods that were either picked from the backyard or somewhere local. Ingredients used to make this delicious beverage called otai contains; watermelon or mangoes, crushed pineapples, coconut, milk, water, and sugar. The combinations of these different components made in Tonga gives a unique taste, but otai made in Tonga compared to how it’s made in America are the same. The texture and sweetness of this beverage is different and isn’t as satisfying as it is made in Tonga.

Unfortunately, not only one of our traditional foods were changed while living in America, but my family’s daily meal changed. Over time we’ve eaten way more processed foods, fruits, and vegetables that contain many

Nelson’s article because of two different reasons. Both author’s embark a relation to my stories based on their argument that were made in their articles. Melissa K. Nelson is a writer, researcher, educator, media-maker and cultural and environmental activist that argued in her article that over time there has been a change in our cultural foods in America. She magnifies the another part of an issue of Wendell Berry, from his article called “The Pleasures of Eating”. According to Nelson our act of eating, even if they’re traditional foods, in America is another agricultural act which is something that Berry states in his article. “Most cultures and ethnic groups in the United States--whether they’re African American, Chicano, Hispanic, Latino, native American, Asian American, Pacific Islander, or European--are identified with particular food traditions” (183). The different cultural foods of the particular ethnic group is a piece of identity because they all have their own significances. The traditional foods that the diverse communities in our society has brought to America isn’t the same as how they are made in their native country. The items that are brought together to make the foods in America contains chemicals from the corporations that they were brought from. So, the situation with the otai and my family’s daily meals have been affected by the change that Nelson claims in her article. It also re-emphasizes one of her claims of how the importance of the ethnic foods forms our ethnic identities (183). Experience with the change in the otai would be aligned with Nelson’s experience she notices a difference in the American Indian native foods. My story can just be another example of a change in America with other culture’s food. (bring in my