The fellow JETs in my town and I enjoy eating a variety of foods, not just typical ‘American’ food. During our previous cooking classes, we promoted food that we generally thought was considered ‘American,’ but after discussing what we wanted to cook for our final class of the financial year, we wanted to broaden the idea of what Americans eat daily. For this class, we agreed on tacos, Spanish rice and beans, and churros. All our families have had experience in making tacos time and again, along with other foreign countries’ foods, and when we didn’t make the food ourselves, we had the availability to eat at restaurants that prepare foreign foods like Indian, Japanese, Chinese, etc. The American diet isn’t a ‘fixed’ diet because of the many cultures that inhabit the country. Each American’s diet is different because of their ethnic background, where they live, what they like, their religion, and many other reasons. Therefore, this class’s purpose was to expose the participants to a broader idea of the American diet by understanding the many cultures of the people who live in America.
In the morning of March 2nd, 20 members of our community gathered around the CIR in our town as she gave a presentation about American culture and why we were making what seemed to be a different country’s food. After answering some great questions, we started the cooking portion of our class.
The children who came to the class were put in charge of the churros, while the adults took over the rice, beef, and chicken. After both groups seemed to have everything under control, we took a couple children and adults and had them start making the tortillas.
After everything was completed, we constructed our tacos and ate to our heart’s content, asking and answering questions about our culture.
