Ordeal by Meal Blog Assignment (due 10/16)

Foodways define us-- nations, regions, families have their own preferred foods and social rituals that go with them.  In the Odyssey, much of what Odysseus learns about the minds of men comes from his encounters with strangers over food.  Telemachus reveals  his maturity when he is embarrassed by the suitors' poor treatment of his guest, and when he is able to 'eat with the grown-ups', i.e., negotiate his way through adult conversation at the dining table. In some cultures, it is considered deeply insulting for a guest to leave anything on his plate; in others, an empty plate is a signal to the host that the guest is not satisfied.  Dietary rules vary greatly according to nationality, region, and religion.  Your assignment:  describe a food-related incident in your own life in which food plays a meaningful role and  has led you to some insight into another culture or person, or in which you feel others have judged you over food.  Is there a Thanksgiving dish in your family that no one likes, but which has to be made every year?  Have you embarrassed yourself in a foreign country by your reaction to foreign food?  Or proven your savoir faire by taking strange foods in stride? 

My brother now, exercising his diplomatic skills over food.

My brother showed signs of his future diplomatic skills early on in an ordeal by meal.  When he was an exchange student at the University of Bologna, he made friends with a student from Sicily, who invited him to come home with him for Easter.  There was an enormous Italian family gathered for an enormous Sicilian feast whose centerpiece was a lamb slaughtered for the occasion.  When the meat course came in, my brother was ceremoniously presented with the greatest delicacy, as was appropriate for a family showing its respect for its foreign guest.  To my brother's dismay, the greatest delicacy turned out to be the lamb's eyeballs, which were set in front of him with a flourish.  The whole family watched in silence to see if he would respond properly.  The pressure was intense.  He knew he would not be able to eat the eyeballs, and that his hosts would be deeply insulted if he did not.  He came up with the perfect solution-- he thanked them for the honor but said that the best of the feast should go to the person most deserving of respect (or as close as he could come to saying that in Italian) and with equal ceremony, he presented the dish to the oldest man in the room.