Reading your essay, I get the sense that you are describing how you grew up in a Spanish household, but as you grew older you experienced different foods, cultures, etc.
For example, in your first paragraph, you talk about pork cooking maybe you could be more vivid about the smells, the sounds of your mom and aunts cooking and even describing the games, the kids are playing.
In paragraphs 2 and 3 I feel are more summary than scene. I understand what you are saying, but with a bit more detail, maybe pick a particular time ( a party, holiday, etc.) you can make the reader feel like they are there with you.
I enjoyed your paragraph 3. I can tell in this paragraph that the potato salad had a very special meaning to your family. Maybe in this paragraph, you could explain how your sister’s children were splitting images of her. Maybe a little more commentary how making the potato salad now made everyone feel.
The time frame makes sense, I can see how it started from when you were young to now being an adult.
I like your reflection in the end on how brings it all together, but think that maybe using a few more vivid and descriptive words will make the reader feel like they have been on that tasting journey with you.
Overall, I really enjoyed your draft of your essay.
Hot Portuguese bread and a cup of tea make for a delightful combination, but in my household, we never just had a cup of tea, it was always served in some type of colorful soup bowl, this helped bring together the flavors and traditions of our home in Ponta Delgado. Portuguese bread, known for its crusty exterior and soft, fluffy interior, was a staple in my Portuguese household. It was often enjoyed fresh out of the oven, with its warm, comforting aroma filling the air it was like being hugged buy your favorite fluffy blanket.
But you might ask, what is the big deal about hot bread and a cup of tea that is so special. To most it is no big deal, but to our family it was a little of home that we left behind. Let me start from the beginning!
We moved to the United States in winter of 1970. We were a family of 7 which consisted of my dad Viriato, he was a firefighter in Portugal and plumber and continued to be a plumber when we moved to the United States. He was a storyteller; you could always find him sitting in his favorite chair with a cigar or pipe telling a story of back home, I can still smell the fragrance from his pipe, chocolate which was my favorite. I would often ask him to make shapes with smoke and he always did. My mom Natalia, she was a stay-at-home mom and was the most loving and nurturing person I knew, one hug from her and any problem you thought you had went away (my mom lost one of her legs when she was 17 and was probably one of the strongest women I knew, she did not take any crap from us 5 kids). Four brothers. Joe, who was the oldest he, was the serious one, Victor who was the second in line was the jokester and was always getting in trouble, Mario who was third in line, he was the smart one, and the only one who graduated from high school, and Fernando he was the one who had the biggest heart and still does and also he was the only one in the family who had light blonde hair so he was the pretty one….he would kill me if he knew I said that. And then there was me, the baby of the family, the one who got spoiled by everyone. I came late in my parent’s life, 8 years difference from my youngest brother. He used to pick on me and tell me my parents found me behind a trash can, I didn’t think it was funny until many years later.
At the airport on our way to the United States
Moving to the United States was quite the experience for my parents and brothers, I was still a baby, so it wasn’t as hard for me as it was for them. We moved in with my mom’s brother and wife and the 7 of us lived in their finished basement. Of course, none of us spoke English so communicating was hard in the beginning, but I remember the story my dad would tell us about him walking to the bakery every day to pick up Portuguese bread. He said he would point to the glass display then point to his arm and measure from his elbow to his wrist and this is how he would tell the counter person what size bread he wanted.
Our first Christmas in the United States
Dad would come home with the bread and mom would cut it up, slather it with lots of butter, the kind of butter that when you took a bite it would drip down your fingers and chin, cut up some Portuguese cheese slices to accompany the bread and of course the bowls of steaming hot Lipton tea (it always had to be Lipton) and always with milk and lots sugar. When you took that first bite of bread and sip of warm, creamy, sugary tea, it was like a party in your mouth, it was like home. Now when I think about how sweet the tea was it makes laugh that we didn’t all have tons of cavities.
As the years went on, mom and dad were finally able to purchase their own home. It wasn’t much but it was ours. It was a yellow two-family home in a middle-class neighborhood, with lots of families with kids and other Portuguese families. The first thing my dad made sure to put up was two flag poles, one for the American Flag and yes you guessed it the other was for the Portuguese Flag which we flew every day. Even though we were now in a bigger home the tradition of hot bread and tea continued.
The best thing about the location of our house was that right next door was a Portuguese bakery. So not only were we able to buy hot bread everyday but we could also purchase other Portuguese staples, like goat cheese, bacalhau (salted codfish), and pastéis de nata (custard tarts) that my parents missed from back home. I remember my mom sending me to the store with a list of things to pick up with no money, which I thought was pretty cool to tell the clerk “just put it on our account”.
One of my fondest memories when it comes to the simple staple of hot bread and tea is when the weekends would come. The bakery would start making bread at night and I knew one of my brothers, usually my brother Victor, the jokester, would be going over to the bakery to get some hot out of the oven bread. The smell of cooking bread would blow through our windows and the whole house would smell like heaven, I can sometimes close my eyes and I am right there in that two-family yellow house, my dad sitting in his usual chair with the remote control, you know the one that there was only 10 digits and it was attached to the TV with a telephone wire, my mom sitting at one of the kitchen table chairs and me on the couch trying as hard as I could to keep my eyes open because I knew soon the bread would be on the table. But as hard as I tried, I always feel asleep but that was ok, because I knew my mom or brother would wake me up and I would walk over to our big family dining room table still half asleep, and we would sit and eat our bread always with butter and cheese and of course the hot bowl of tea.
Being a young Portuguese girl, I wasn’t allowed very far from home, so of course my parents enrolled me in a Catholic School across the street from our house. One of the benefits of this was that at lunch time, while all of my classmates where eating cold bologna sandwiches and some stale chips, I would walking across the street for a hot lunch which would consist of a hot sandwich made in a Portuguese roll of bologna a cheese, I couldn’t wait to get home to take off the shiny aluminum foil and crumble it up into a tight shiny ball, my mom would cut the sandwich in half for me and all the gooey cheese would fall onto the plate. The first bite was always the best, the crunch of the bread with the melted cheese, it always brought a big smile to my face. And of course, no cold chips for me it was always french fries.
Many years have now passed since I have been able to sit with my family and enjoy some hot bread and tea. My mom and dad have since passed and so have my 3 older brothers. Sitting here writing this blog brings sadness to my heart but it also brings me tears of happiness being able to remember these moments that mean so much to me and now that I am grown and have a family of my own, I still carry on the tradition of getting hot Portuguese bread on Sunday mornings and when my husband and I sit down to eat it always brings a smile to my face knowing this is home.
In Portugal, the combination of hot bread and tea is not only about taste but also about the sense of community and tradition. It is often shared among family and friends, fostering connections and creating cherished memories.
So, next time you have the opportunity, treat yourself to a slice of hot Portuguese bread and a cup of tea. Allow yourself to savor the flavors and immerse yourself in the rich culinary heritage of Portugal.
The essay “Corn Tastes Better on the Honor System” is about how the indigenous people viewed corn and how the Western world views it. The indigenous people view it as sacred as we can see from the many names it is called by the indigenous people in the following paragraph: This remarkable plant has been known by as many names as the peoples who have grown it: The Seed of Seeds, Our Daily Bread, Wife of the Sun, and Mother of All Things. “Bringer of Life,” became the word maize in English. These indigenous names honor maize as the center of culture and reflect a deeply respectful relationship between people and the one who sustains them.
This is completely different to how the Western world see it as seen from the following paragraph: The term used for the modern crop carries none of this feeling and is rooted in intentional blindness to the original meaning of the plant. Rather than adopt the reverent indigenous name, English settlers simply called it corn, a term applied to any grain—from barleycorn to wheat. And so it began, the colonization of corn.
In my opinion, the purpose of the essay was to better educate the modern world that there was more to corn than just being consumed as food, that at one time and still in some parts of the world corn was and is viewed as sacred and had many more benefits that just nourishing the body.
There were no places in the essay that I did not understand but did find interesting.
What I did find interesting was male and female flowers are on different parts of the plant, making it possible to influence the parentage of the seeds. The male tassels shed pollen from the top of the plant, and the female flowers, sheathed inside the ear, are connected to the outside world only by the corn silk, the long tubes that are the conduit for fertilization. Each strand of corn silk leads to a waiting ovary, which if pollinated, becomes an individual kernel. The astute farmer can cross males of one type with females of another to get new varieties. With whole cobs of different offspring to choose from, the farmer selects the best genetic combinations every year, gradually improving and changing the plant through artificial selection. Whether open-pollinated or the result of careful matchmaking, maize is a plant of extraordinary genetic diversity. Modern corn of industrial agriculture grows a uniform, homogeneous product, so unlike the riotous variety of indigenous maize.
An ear of corn represents an entire family of seeds anchored to the cob. No other plant packages its energy-rich seeds so efficiently. This is good for the plant and good for the people. Singly borne seeds are each vulnerable to pests, disease, and hungry birds, but corn protects them all together in sheathing layers of husk. It’s much easier to harvest seed-packed ears than individual seeds. This efficiency means a single plant will generously fill the soup pot for its caretakers. With all those offspring wrapped in a husk blanket, maize embodies her name, the Corn Mother.
These same traits that make maize so valued by humans also make it impossible for her to survive without us. With all those kernels packed tightly together and completely enclosed by the husk, the seeds are trapped. They can’t disseminate themselves. They need human hands to liberate them from the husk, to twist them from the cob and to sow them in fertile soil. They need us to poke them into the earth every spring. People and corn are linked in a circle of reciprocity; we cannot live without them and they cannot live without us
The many uses of corn!
I really enjoyed the following paragraphs because they author gives a “scene” of how different here planting method is compared to her neighbor, and she sees it as a sacred process and his is very mechanical.
As spring progresses my neighbor’s sprouting corn inscribes glowing green lines against the dark soil, drawing the contours of the land, like isoclines on a living topographic map. Its hypnotic evenness makes it look like it was planted by machine, which of course it was. I smile at the occasional deviation where the lines go askew for a few yards. Maybe the driver was distracted by an incoming text or swerved to avoid a groundhog. His distraction will be written on the land all summer, a welcome element of humanity in a food-factory landscape.
My garden looks different. The word “symmetry” has no use here, where mounds of earth are shoveled up in patches. I’m planting the way I was taught, using a brilliant innovation generated by indigenous science: the Three Sisters polyculture. I plant each mound with three species, corn, beans, and squash—not willy-nilly, but just the right varieties at just the right time. This marvel of agricultural engineering yields more nutrition and more food from the same area as monocropping with less labor, which my tired shoulders appreciate. Unlike my neighbor’s monoculture, Three Sisters planting takes advantage of their complementary natures, so they don’t compete but instead cooperate. The corn provides a leafy ladder for the bean to climb, gaining access to more light and pollinators. In return, the bean fixes nitrogen, which feeds the demanding corn. The squash with its big leaves shades the soil, keeping it cool and moist while also suppressing weeds. This is a system that produces superior yield and nutrition and requires no herbicides, no added fertilizers, and no pesticides—and yet it is called primitive technology. I’ll take it.
I will base my essay around a food that always brought our family together. How it was a simple inexpensive meal but yet brought us together at any hour of the day.
In writing, there are two primary methods for conveying a story or a series of events: scene and summary. Both techniques have their own advantages and are used in different situations to effectively engage readers and convey information.
Scene: A scene is a vivid and detailed portrayal of a specific event or moment in a story. It uses descriptive language and sensory details to immerse readers in the setting, dialogue, and actions taking place. Scenes are meant to be experienced in real-time, allowing readers to witness the events as they unfold. By focusing on specific details and engaging the senses, scenes create a more immersive and emotional experience for the reader.
For example in the essay “Meatballs” the writer brings us right along on the journey of making the meatballs, from the moment their mother grabs the pot with the broken handle, the feeling of mixing the meatballs, the smell of the sauce cooking the sound the pasta makes when it plops into the water and not only do you feel like you in the kitchen but you also feel the emotion of the writer, their happiness of that particular moment but also their anxiety of what will happen once dinner is finished.
Summary: On the other hand, a summary is a condensed version of events that provides a brief overview or explanation of what happened. It focuses on the broader picture and skips over the specific details and individual actions. Summaries are useful for covering large periods or concisely conveying information. They are often used to provide background information, explain transitions between scenes, or quickly convey information that is less crucial to the main plot.
I feel the essay “Apples” is more of a summary. Even though the writer does give us a scene of the apple picking, “Imagine a crisp autumn day, the sun shining through the colorful leaves, and the scent of fresh apples filling the air. The birds are chirping their happy songs as the sound of kids having little discussions arose in the atmosphere. it is more of a broad explanation” I feel like it is a broad description that summarizes an autumn day, which helps us to see that it would be a great day to do an activity like apple picking but doesn’t bring us along on their journey of apple picking like the essay “Meatballs” does..
So, in my opinion the essay “Meatballs” does a better job of developing a scene than does “Apples”.
Because I don’t like bugs and they do give me the “Icky Feeling” I thought this would be a good topic for me to explore. As the video “Should I eat Bugs” brought out: “Eating bugs, also known as entomophagy, has been practiced by various cultures throughout history and is still common in many parts of the world today. In recent years, there has been growing interest in promoting the consumption of insects as a sustainable and nutritious food source.” I was surprised to learn that there are almost 2,000 different kinds of species that are turned into food and that almost 2 billion people are feed with bugs! Because I did not know there was a nutritious value found in bugs as a food source, I thought this would be something to look deeper into.
Nutritional Value: Insects are highly nutritious, often rich in protein, healthy fats, vitamins, and minerals. I was surpised to learn that insects can contain up to 80% grams of protein, are high in fat, minerals, vitamins and fiber.
Let’s take a look at the meal worm, crickets and locust. They contain vitamins, minerals and the meal worm contain up to 50% protein, almost as much as beef.
Meal Worms taste like roasted peanuts
Locust taste like shrimp
Smells like making popcorn
Farming insects also has an environmental impact as it requires significant less land, water and feed compared to livestock.
My Favorite!
Lobster is my favorite seafood and after watching this video I will never look at it the same again (but I will continue to eat it :)…. I never thought of it as a large insect that was once thought of as in inferior and repulsive food and is now a delicacy.
In conclusion
While eating bugs may not be a common practice in many parts of the world, it is gaining attention as a sustainable and nutritious food option. Incorporating insects into our diet can have environmental benefits and contribute to food security. So maybe the next time I visit Mexico or the tropics I will be brave enough to try one of the many bugs they offer, hopefully it will be covered in a lot chocolate.
Growing up in a strict Portuguese home, where girls didn’t go outside and play, I loved reading books, in middle school I couldn’t wait for the book fair, my mom would give me a $10.00 bill (which back then was more like $50.00) and I would have my checklist of what books I wanted. My favorite where the Judy Blume books, “Are you there God, it’s Me Margaret”, “Forever”, “Summer Sisters” just to name a few! I loved the feel of a book in my hands, flipping through the pages I couldn’t wait to read the next page to see what happened. I would find a quite spot at home which oddly sometimes would be behind our couch or in the closet….lol! Reading books took me into another world where I could really use my imagination.
Writing was not my strong suite, I did love to write in a notebook or notepad, I would have several different colored pens and highlighters and loved putting my words down on paper but never new how to organize my thoughts. I tried journaling for a little while, but I also felt like my thoughts were everywhere.
Now as an adult I occasionally still read an actual paperback book, but 90% of the time it is electronically. I still love reading but unfortunately don’t have as much time as I used to. When it comes to writing the only writing I do is at work when I am replying to an email or typing up a contract.
When it comes to Paper vs. Screen I definitely lean towards screen. Everything I do, whether it be checking on a friend or family member, sending a thank you note, sending and invitation it is all done electronically. I don’t do much if any personal writing. I don’t do any journaling, nor do I write letters so do a writing class and blogging is all very new to me and I look forward to the challenge.
Writing was not my strong suite, I did love to write in a notebook or notepad, I would have several different colored pens and highlighters and loved putting my words down on paper but never new how to organize my thoughts. I tried journaling for a little while, but I also felt like my thoughts were everywhere.