Canela & Karfa

 Throughout this course, Food for thought, we were able to dive deeper into food. Where did it come from? How did it get to our local grocery store? Is it better to forage for your food or create an agricultural society? We were able to look into these questions deeper by going on some FEs. The first week we went to Metropolis where we were able to see how they roast coffee beans and where they originated. We were able to taste test some of the countries depending on their origins and find what we liked and didn't like. We also made some tortillas with PA's mother. She came and we were able to use a tortilla press and make corn and flour tortillas which was fun to see the difference. Lastly, we went forage around Lincoln park with Odd Produce. We saw what we were able to eat and what was maybe something to stay away from but I feel like I was able to make more of a connection with the community and neighborhood that I live in and how we care about the way things look and what we are able to use.

I created my own family tree. In this family tree you can see at the top you have my two grandparents from my Mexican side, sadly I couldn't use my Moroccan grandparents because they don't live in the U.S. We can see the variety of the foods because my family loves trying new foods. This also creates a background to culture and my family getting to experience the different spices and ingredients used in these different foods.

NBE. Family Tree 2018

For my AP, I had to find one ingredient that my family uses and write about it in the perspective of the ingredient. I decided to use cinnamon because it is used in Moroccan and Mexican cuisine. Read my essay on cinnamon to find out where it originated and how my family uses it:

                               

To conclude, we were able to explore the origin of cinnamon and how it made its way to the Mexican and Moroccan Bedda family. This was an interesting experience and it only makes me feel more connected to both of my cultures. Connecting to the origins of something can have an effect on the way you think about the world and the people who are around us. It makes us think about how aware we are of our background and not just the background of food but also the background of our ancestors.

Citations:
NBE. Family Tree 2018.
Bedda, Hicham. Personal Interview. 26. April 2018.
Carla Rahn Phillips. "The Growth and Composition of Trade in the Iberian Empires, 1450-1750" in James D. Tracy, ed., The Rise of Merchant Empires: Long-Distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350-1750 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 51.
Gonzalez, Guadalupe. Personal Interview. 25 April 2018.
Protoplasmakid. Ponche de fruta navideno. 24 December 2015. 30. April 2018