Category Archives: Fall 2015 Issue V: Tastes

Fall 2015 Issue V: Tastes

Hops and Heart: A Love Letter to England’s Drink of Choice

November 9, 2015 emooney

Let’s get one thing straight: I don’t like beer. You won’t find opinions on microbrews, top notes, or the proper way to pour yourself a glass here. No, not even six months at Queen Mary University of London, where I spent the spring of 2015, could turn me into an ale-appreciator. So it may seem a bit strange that I am, self-professedly, writing a love letter of sorts to the barley-brewed beverage, but over my time in the United Kingdom I came to value beer for far more than its taste.

The pub, short for public house, is undoubtedly an English institution, and has been since Britain was Roman. In small English towns, a pub is often a community focal point, serving not only as a place to purchase food and refreshments but also as a kind of meetinghouse. Here, a pub might be referred to simply as your “local” – your local pub. The terminology has carried over to the big city, where “local” denotes your favorite pub, the one you frequent most often. In either case, from the country village to the metropolis, the local is the place to be.

MOONEY.Beer.IMG_8628 — A “Guinness and Black,” a pint of Guinness mixed with blackcurrant syrup. Yes, that is my hand.

I mention pubs because they are, of course, the absolute best place for patrons to buy and consume beer. And consume it they do – my local while at Queen Mary, a JD Wetherspoon franchise called The Half Moon, or, often, just “Spoons” – stocks nearly 50 varieties on any given day [1]. The English relationship to beer in the public house is an interesting one, and very different from American drinking culture: across the pond, it is completely normal to stop by and have a pint (or a few) after class or during lunch, whereas stateside, regularly drinking at two in the afternoon might be cause for a bit of alarm.

But the regularity with which beer is consumed in England lends it a special function not found elsewhere: it is an entirely social drink, and a unifying one at that. The English, as a whole, take real pride in their beer, in how it’s brewed and aged, how it’s bottled and served, how it looks and even how it feels [2]. Its continuous presence in the daily lives of Britons – at meals, at parties, in the garden, anywhere – gives your average pint a strangely comforting quality. There’s a familiarity to the ritual of pouring a pint, especially from the tap; a familiarity to the aroma and the way the foamy bubbles settle. Pouring or buying a pint for someone is an act of love – it’s a shared history, an acknowledgement of kinship, and a mutual point of pleasure. Even better if you do it in your local pub, because sharing a local means sharing a bond: you are family there.

While I never learned to love lager, an anguishing fact for most of my British companions, I certainly learned to love what it stands for. And if half a year of bonding over beer happens to leave a better taste in my mouth than the drink itself, well – that’s alright with me.

[1] If you are interested in English pub culture, I highly recommend a sojourn into the world of Wetherspoons – with nearly 1000 distinct locations across the UK and Ireland, the idiosyncrasies of a Wetherspoons pub are fascinating.

[2] Investigate the English tradition of Real Ale if you’re curious!

Emma Mooney is an Art History major and Landscape Studies minor in her final year at Smith College. She enjoys writing and editing, graphic and interior design, and dissecting the inner workings of the pop culture world. After she graduates from Smith in May 2016, she tentatively hopes to begin a career in publishing.

Fall 2015 Issue V: Tastes

From the Archives: Dinner Table Diplomacy

November 5, 2015 khiggins

In the summer of 1946, 43 eager college juniors set sail for Geneva on the S.S. Washington to partake in Smith College’s study abroad program. If they felt apprehensive about embarking on a trip to the center of recently war-ravaged Europe, they gave no visible indication in the cheerful newspaper photos that documented their departure. Sailing to Europe allowed these American women to interact with the diverse amalgam of people who washed up in Geneva after the storm of the war. In this multicultural environment filled with refugees, immigrants, aid workers, and diplomats, the women on the Smith program attended an inordinate number of parties and formal dinners at which serious political discussions concerning the outcome of the war took place. Food was a significant aspect of their experience, from the cafés they frequented with local university students to the lavish balls they attended with members of the international elite.

HIGGINS.IMG_2974 — The departure of the 1946 study abroad group was covered in the New York Sun.

At one notable dinner, the students contemplated the “pros and cons” of free trade with their professors and the “conversation was carried on in “French, German, English and Russian.” Students did not remember the food so much as the lively debate that followed. Despite the reverberations of tragedy and destruction, these dinners provided a forum for cultural exchange and signaled a return to relative normalcy.

HIGGINS.IMG_2973 — Students occasionally encountered sights like this one of destruction and rubble in rural Germany during their extracurricular travels.

The cultural exchange of tastes also took place on a more casual level. With the help of their friends Ivy and Malcolm Addischechiah, fellow international students from India, the Smith women hosted a “’real’ Indian dinner” at their hotel on November 3, 1946. The students knew it could not be entirely authentic because they had to substitute barley for rice due to continued rationing restrictions, but they did not let this circumstance ruin the atmosphere. With the cold winter wind battering the chalet windows, the group worked together to peel potatoes and enjoyed the meal of fried cakes and curries that their friends prepared for them. Smith junior Barbara Ann Beatty recalled this gathering fondly in her diary and remarked, “Boy, was it good, but was it greasy!”

On the same night, Barbara learned a Russian recipe from another Smithie who had recently visited Moscow and jotted it down quickly before it escaped her memory. She writes,

HIGGINS. Main image.IMG_2971 — Smith Students and their Swiss friends enjoy dinner in a chalet.

“Take the white meat of chicken and pound it very thin, putting all the pieces together with a bit of water. Then lay out thin strips of frozen butter. Season well up and then dip in egg batter and then in crumb and fry in deep fat. When they’re all done, you eat it with jam.”

This dish sounded sufficiently delicious to Beatty, who must have returned quickly to her chalet room to make note of it. The photo album that accompanies her diary features a few blissful scenes of dinners and picnics. However, other photos feature the remains of bombed stone buildings emerging from the earth like jagged tombstones. Given its proximity to Germany and France, Switzerland was often accidentally bombed by both Axis and Allied powers despite its neutrality. This post-War environment tainted Beatty’s experience but, as the many remarks that these students made in their letters home or their journals highlight, food offered some comfort.

References

Smith College Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. 80. Class of 1948 Individuals. Beatty, Barbara Ann. JYA Geneva. Box 2164.1. Diary (August 1946- July 1947).

Smith College Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. 80. Class of 1948 Individuals. Beatty, Barbara Ann. JYA Geneva. Box 2164.1. Newsletters. (September 1946-June 1947).

Smith College Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. Class of 1948. Coe, Jean Winans. “Junior Year in Geneva, scrapbook and photo album, 1946-1947.” Box 22E6.

Kathleen Higgins is an English and History double major at Smith. Her work mainly focuses on the recovery of women’s voices from popular historical narratives. She can frequently be found lurking in libraries and archives and hopes to continue doing so after she graduates in 2016.

Fall 2015 Issue V: Tastes

Taste of Grief

November 5, 2015 lcrimaldi

Jonathan Dos Santos, 16, had only been dead a few short hours in June 2015 when the Boston home where he lived with his parents and 9-year-old sister began to fill with relatives.

His mother, Laura, was inconsolable, crying out her only son’s name over and over again: “Jonathan! Jonathan! Jonathan!” The boy had been fatally shot while riding his bicycle to a relative’s house just a few blocks away.

In the kitchen at the Dos Santos house, a mercy meal that would go on for days had started to take shape. It was simple, just a box of pastries from Dunkin’ Donuts. Mourners were probably also served coffee, if they felt up to tasting it.

My job as a reporter for The Boston Globe brought me to this sad scene. As often happens, I was dispatched to the home to try to interview a family who had been plunged into indescribable grief by an act of street violence.

The scenes inside these homes share some common threads. There’s lots of anguish, and there’s also a lot of food. The act of gathering around a table to share bread is basic to human beings, and in times of grief, food can help heal the wounds inflicted by loss and violence.

But what I’ve learned in my years covering crime and the people it touches is that sometimes taste has no bearing on food’s ability to alleviate pain.

Several days after Dos Santos was murdered, I returned to his family home, because two teenagers had been arrested in connection to his death. The kitchen table that had once held just a single box of doughnuts was now crammed with plates of couscous and tins of fried foods.

Mourners told me about who had been at the house to pay their respects since my last visit, and the food and drink they brought with them to ease the heartache.

At every turn, someone asked me if I wanted something to eat. I demurred. But, at some point, I was presented with a plate of food and felt I could no longer decline. It wasn’t about food anymore; it was about connecting with a family in their grief.

The elements of the plate made no sense: there were room temperature chicken nuggets with dipping sauce, slices of cheese, and a slice of peanut butter pie, drizzled with chocolate and caramel, for dessert.

I couldn’t even remember the last time that I had tasted chicken nuggets.

After I finished my interviews, I retreated to my car. Raising the hatch of my Ford Escape SUV, I climbed into the back so I could file my story before deadline.

One of the Dos Santos cousins passed by and told me she was en route to get more food. She returned a short time later with a fresh tray of sandwiches and asked if I’d like to try one.

I politely declined. I had already had my first chicken nuggets in years. They had hit the spot and will always remind me of Jonathan Dos Santos.

Laura Crimaldi ’01 is a Metro reporter for The Boston Globe who has been covering news in New England since 2001. She is graduate of Smith College where she majored in Comparative Literature and spent her junior year abroad studying in Geneva. Crimaldi lives in Winthrop, Mass., with her husband, photojournalist, Mark Garfinkel.

Fall 2015 Issue V: Tastes

The Importance of Intentional Smell

November 5, 2015 hcrockett

Last summer, through the Sustainable Food Concentration and funding from an International Experience Grant, I interned at the Spannocchia Foundation in Tuscany, Italy. I was a tuttofare (literally, “do everything”) intern on the farm and primarily tended to the vineyard. One of many incredible privileges my fellow interns and I experienced was a weekly education program— covering everything from pasta to my personal favorite: wine. Jessica, our education director, had carefully constructed a wine tasting in order to expand our knowledge and appreciation for the seemingly infinite tastes of the wine world.

Jessica’s final words before we started smelling were, “And, remember, it’s just grapes.”

Shot glasses were on the table, but, instead of being filled with nocino or lemoncello, each shot glass had an object intentionally placed in it. One had a burnt match; another had fresh juniper; another had soap. We were paired up and told that one partner would be blindfolded while the other partner chose which shot glass would be gingerly sniffed. As I went into this exercise, I thought, “These are all scents I have smelled many times. This will be easy.”

I was incredibly surprised with how few scents I could detect, and, of those I could detect, how few I could accurately identify. Many scents were familiar, yet hard to place. Juniper was pine; soap was nothing; cinnamon was nutmeg. Smelling before tasting added an incredible depth to the experience. We can taste sweet, bitter, sour, salty, and umami (savory), but how can we further develop our palate? Recognizing and identifying smells prior to tasting wine can help detect those flavors. Wines can smell and taste woody, earthy, nutty, floral, fruity, or herbaceous. Within those broader categories exist specific smells and flavors such as freshly cut grass, mold, diesel, asparagus, soy sauce, violet, coffee, oak, or… wet dog. These smells we detect end up being the flavors we describe.

When tasting superb wine, it is possible to detect differences in flavor year to year depending on how much sunlight the vines received, how much rainfall, whether there was a frost, and soil quality (there is even a French wine that requires a specific mold to grow on the grapes).

While in Italy, we were able to visit a biodynamic winery that did not amend their wines at all. This is risky because not adding sulfites and other stabilizers could mean that a whole batch of wine is terrible one year. Sulfites are the main contributors to headaches and hangovers after drinking red wine. Biodynamic farming practices rely on only harvesting, trimming vines, and amending soil when the moon is in specific phases of its cycle. Diversity in color, flavor, consistency, acidity, alcohol content, and sweetness is usually frowned upon in modern wines, but biodynamic farming embraces and strives for interesting differences.

In Italy, unimaginable care and pride goes into winemaking. If you are privileged enough to taste excellent wines, you should mirror that commitment and artistry while tasting. Jessica taught us that when tasting wine, first you must smell and then swirl the wine and examine the color. Contrary to popular belief, this swirling has a purpose other than trying to impress your date. Swirling the wine oxidizes it, bringing out the flavors. When tasting the wine, you want to makes sure to swirl it around your entire mouth. While tasting the wine you should slowly suck in air to continue to oxidize it. Finally, try to determine which aromas and tastes you pick up from the wine. The mouthfeel of the wine is equally important: for example, if it makes your mouth feel dry, those are tannins at work! Tannins exist in the skin of grapes, and since the skins are left on in the process of making red wine, red wines are often much more tannic than white wines. This all looks ridiculous, but embrace it.

While it is important to appreciate handcrafted wine, few of us have had this experience. I like to remember that inexpensive table wines also have value in bringing people together. Some of my favorite memories at Smith occurred when sitting in my room with a bottle of cheap wine talking about “the big issues” with my friends in Lamont. Wine brings people together, and it does not have to be of the highest quality in order to spark memories and create new ones. I find myself very present when I am drinking wine in a group, yet there is something comfortingly familiar with the experience. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the science and art behind wine. Remember, it is just grapes.

Haley Crockett graduated from Smith in 2015 with a Major in American Studies and a Minor in Sustainable Food. She is currently a fellow at Jones Valley Teaching Farm in Birmingham, Alabama. She works in a middle school where she teaches sixth, seventh, and eighth graders about food and nutrition using a school garden. Her major interests in global issues revolve around food justice and sustainable practices.

Fall 2015 Issue V: Tastes

The Pistoiese Pedagogy of “Buon Gusto”

November 5, 2015 mchinn

“‘Lo spazio esprime valori, pensieri, ha un suo linguaggio silenzioso.’” [1]— Space expresses values, thoughts, and has its own silent language.

While studying abroad in Florence, Italy, I interned as a teaching assistant for an early childhood education center in Pistoia. I cared for children aged 4 to 18 months. I helped them in the beginning stages of language acquisition and acted as a role model for positive social behaviors.

As I reflect on my experiences in Italy, I am still moved by the principles I learned, particularly the notion of la pedagogia di buon gusto, “the pedagogy of good taste.” The Italian expression buon gusto refers to good taste in all aspects of life, from fashion to decor. Being courteous, being a great cook, and making a good impression at a meeting or a dinner party also exemplify buon gusto, as does the Pistoiese approach to early childhood education. The notion of buon gusto is what makes the Pistoiese approach to early education stand out from the rest. The pedagogy of buon gusto is part of a Pistoiese teacher’s service of providing for the harmonious development of children. Students have a need for beauty, as well as a right to it. The attention to aesthetics is also a very Italian way of being and doing. “This special care for the look of the environment and for living space …. with the design of spaces that encourage social interaction, are essential elements of Italian culture ” [2]. The teacher honors a child’s right for beauty in their care and choice of materials. All schools make their own culture and possess a unique essence, which is influenced by philosophical, political, spiritual, and moral forces.

@Michaela Chinn — Newcomers are asked to make their own chain from everyday materials such as bolts, wires, and jewelry, and to write a message. Once the chain is hung, they are welcomed into the school community.

Pistoia’s strong emphasis on community engagement is reflected in its school systems. An attention to aesthetic is part of a Pistoiese teacher’s service.

Space

School is a place where children begin to formulate their understanding of the world. So, it is very important that they feel a sense of security and freedom to move in an environment that is not home. Pistoiese teachers understand the importance of the classroom as a learning instrument, and they orchestrate this space in a way that provides the children with the comfort to explore. In the Pistoiese model, the learning environment is cited as a third teacher– after adults and children.

The first observation visitors would make upon entering the classroom in which I worked at Il Lago Mago would be the friendly and tranquil energy of the space. Plants are interspersed among the many books on tiny bookshelves, low enough for the students to grab their own books. Documentation of students’ play or work (play is work), as well as their photos and quotes of their own words decorate the walls around the room. Visitors notice the organization of the environment and how it evokes a sense of order, harmony, and tranquility. There is minimal plastic. Instead, there are musical instruments, wooden building blocks, items to play pretend house, books, and old cellphones. The predominant colors of orange, green and yellow instead of black, red and white is no coincidence:

I visi famosi (le aree bambini): This is one of the games for children; these large blocks put over the head; children can be Jaxon Pollock, Andy Warhol, or another famous face. There is a balance of imagination but also representations of real people. @Michaela Chinn — One of the games for children with large blocks that they can put over their head to be Jackson Pollock, Rousseau, Andy Warhol, or another famous person.

These colors energize but also calm the spirit. The natural light from the large windows does not have a draining effect like artificial ones and saves money for the schools. In the corners of rooms children can play away from the watchful eyes of adults. The beauty of this classroom design is that children are encouraged to choose the space that best suits their type of play, whether it be alone, with another child, or in a big group. The large windows in the corners of the room are low enough for the children to look out beyond the classroom, giving them visual access to the outside world. Children can sit with others or by themselves, watching the leaves fall from the trees. They can watch and wave to the people walking their dogs in Park Puccini. Thus, the children are not hidden behind the walls of the school, but rather can participate in the surrounding community. Visitors might also notice the soft pillows around the school, and how elements like these encourage the teachers and students to relax and sit comfortably together while reading stories.

The Italian Lunch

When it comes to their food philosophy, Italians emphasize variety and the use of local produce in making healthy creations that still satisfy the tastebuds. Everyday in my school, teachers and students sat together for their meal. A beautiful table cloth was placed on the table. Actual utensils and glass cups, not of plastic, were given to students. The one-hour lunch at school followed the same sequential plate order the Italian children follow at home (first course, main course, side dish, something sweet, and then, coffee for the teachers). The staples of bread and olive oil were always present. In all early childhood centers in Italy, the children are fed hot delicious meals from their on-site kitchen. The children know the cook of their school very well because she frequently visits them during meal times to see if her food is popular. Lunch is a very important ritual where Italian traditions are preserved and learned. The children begin to construct a bond between appreciating food, learning not to waste, and only taking what they need to satisfy their hunger. They internalize the standards they learn, which follow them throughout their lives.

I was given a unique opportunity to reflect on a country’s investment in its future generation and also compare and reflect upon my own early childhood education experience in the U.S. with that of the Pistoiese pedagogical philosophy in Italy. What are the desired societal and adult outcomes? For Italians, the preparation of life as a citizen begins in early childhood education centers for these children. Might applying this philosophy of buon gusto in our American schools guide our own children to become engaged citizens?

[1] A.L. Galardini (2003, p. 49) qtd in T. Terlizzi (2013), “Il pranzo all’asilo nido: tra alimentazione e convivialità ” in E. Catarsi e E. Freschi, (2013) Le attivitá di Cura nel Nido d’infanzia (pp.57- 76). Parma, Italia: Edizioni Junior. pp. 62.
[2] L. Gandini (1998), “Gli Spazi Educazionale e Curati”, in C. Edwards et al. I Cento Linguaggi dei bambini [100 Languages of Children] (pp. 161-178). London, UK: Ablex Publishing. pp. 168.

Michaela aims to be an international instructor and impart knowledge for her students’ lifelong learning. She hopes to teach global values and global topics in her classrooms, so that her students are prepared to be conscientious citizens of the world. Michaela’s next international experience will be teaching women’s reproductive health in India in J-term 2016.

Fall 2015 Issue V: Tastes

On Maglebjerg

November 5, 2015 mhoot

For a very long time, I have been an indoor person. Like one of those indoor cats, that has been so tamed and domesticated. When every other cat will rush an open door to become the feral being that it was always meant to be, I sit at the window, preferring to look longingly outside than actually venture into nature. From that vantage point, I would rather reminisce on the good old days when I was the king of kittens, hunting lightening bugs and rolling in the grass with innocent fragility. At some point in my young life, I decided I would be a grown up and do grown up things. And for some reason, playing outside didn’t feel adult. So I lingered inside, staring at computers and watching movies. I forgot the softness of grass or the excitement of looking at the curious body of a bug.

When I arrived in Denmark, it took me a while to notice that something was different. I spent my first week with my head down in a map, just trying not to get lost, and really hoping that I hadn’t misread the bus schedule. But as I became more confident in my ability to navigate this new country, I started to truly take it in. Somehow, in the first weeks of jetlag and confusion, an inkling began to nudge at the back of my brain; I started to feel a long forgotten energy beckon to me.

I began sitting on the porch, wrapped in blankets in freezing weather just to feel the early morning wind on my face or watch the sun drop below the roof of the house. Sometimes, I would work on homework, or read a book, but more often than not, I just sat and breathed, almost meditation, almost communion.

Through the deepest part of winter, I simply just sat, but slowly, the ever-present snow began to decline and the trails through the wood behind my house cleared. Finally, the feeling that had nagged at me for weeks began to clarify, but I still couldn’t comprehend it. I felt so restless, that in the space of a moment, I became that feral cat again, and sprang for the door, called to nature and into the woods. Though I didn’t know where I was going, I just walked. I approached a divide and quickly decided to take an uphill path.

My host mom later told me that what I had climbed was called Maglebjerg, and it was famous because it was the highest point in northern Sealand. In a country that is primarily flat, that didn’t mean much: Maglebjerg is just 91 meters above sea level. At the time, though, the only thing that mattered was that I had reached the top of this, what can most accurately be described as, hill. The small plateau was bare except for a few young trees and a waist-high stone marker. I promptly did an awkward double hop to hoist myself onto the marker. Sitting there, my mind started to settle. I simply looked around, thinking about the trees and snow and dirt, feeling on top of the world yet inseparably part of it. I don’t know how long I was up there, but eventually the sun began to set. It was achingly fast, but brilliant and colorful in the bare trees. I walked back down the hill in the fading evening glow.

I returned to that spot again and again as the months turned and the trees thrust tender leaves into the still too cold air. Sometimes I wrote during these intermissions, occasionally I sang silly nonsense songs or drew pictures in the dirt with a stick, though usually I simply sat and observed the world around me. The forest called my soul, reawakening the girl who would let bugs crawls on her hands just to watch them move. I was that feral cat, running to claim her stone throne, perched and waiting to catch the sunset and the taste in the air that is indefinably Denmark.

Maggie Hoot, an Art History major and Museum Studies Concentrator in the Class of 2016, had never truly immersed herself in a foreign culture before she studied in Denmark. During her time abroad, she not only fell in love with Denmark, but also developed a deep appreciation for new ways of life and thought. She hopes to return to Denmark, and also travel to new places in order to better understand the world and her place in it.

Fall 2015 Issue V: Tastes

My Home, My Tea

November 5, 2015 tmweu

I stand in my room and gaze outside the window as large snow flakes gracefully find their way to the ground. “Can we just have some warmth?” I think to myself, irritated by the temperature fluctuations. At this point, my heater has been failing, and the dropping temperatures have not been doing my situation any good. I begin wishing I were back in the tropics, adorned with my shorts, tank top, navy blue sandals, sunglasses, and the overhead March sun. “If wishes were horses…” I sigh and drink my warm cup of tea. At least this will make me warmer, and also remind me more of the desirable weather in the tropics.

The way I was born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, breakfast was a great part of my life. Black tea was—and still is—particularly notable in all the breakfasts I have had since my first memory. At home, it is always black Kenyan tea. I simply do not remember a breakfast without tea. We had it sometimes with milk and sugar, and sometimes with just sugar. I learned the art of making Kenyan black tea, which is grown in the Kenyan highlands, from watching my mother make us breakfast on Sundays. From Monday to Saturday, she would always wake up before us to make sure that everything was prepared for my brother and me —and later on my sister, too—to get ready for school. Yes, we had Saturday school. This was one of the prices we had to pay for going to a private school in Nairobi: sacrifice all Saturdays that fell within the academic terms. At least that guaranteed that my brother and I would have our tea much earlier than our friends. What little joys this Kenyan tea brought!

“Thatcher, get me the matchsticks from the table,” my mother would always say, on the Sunday mornings I would manage to get out of bed in time for tea preparation. Her voice, though taking on a commanding tone, would gently coerce me to go get the matchsticks so she could prepare our green kerosene stove for some tea making. Or maybe it was just my desire to rush the process of making breakfast, simply to get to the drinking and eating part of it. Whatever the drive, it got the tea making started.

My mother would light the stove, put on water to boil, add milk into the water, add the loose tea leaves, and then finally add some sugar. She would sometimes add spices—mostly cinnamon or ginger—but these sometimes did not go well with the taste of our breakfast (bread and eggs, for example). I would be her audience, waiting for the tea to boil, and when it almost spilled over, I would smoothly say, “Mum chunga chai isimwagike.” To date, this has been the ultimate warning to the tea-preparer in our house: do not let it spill.

My mother would then take a sieve and pour the tea into two 2-liter thermoses, and leave some in a jug so that it could be used as a coolant. As she sieved the tea, the aroma was euphoric. I could smell most of the ingredients, simply because I knew what was in there; I had trained my nostrils to selectively detect the components of the tea. The earthy smell from the tea, the sweet smell of the sugar, and the milk that gave off a soothing sensation crept into my nasal tract, and finally to my salivary glands. Even if I were to be blindfolded, I would still salivate; I could not mistake the tea’s aroma—it had the smell that comes from wet ground after it rains, mixed with that of fresh maize and roasted chestnuts. The tea had managed to borrow—and own—this distinct smell from its former home, the Kenyan highlands.

Flying out of the country, I could see those much-revered highlands from my window seat. They looked much smaller than I had imagined; the images on television clouded my idea of the Kenyan highlands. I pondered this for a while, as I flew from Nairobi to go to school in the USA. I transferred high schools, and found myself at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, CT. The idea of breakfast there was quite foreign to me. A lot of things were served everyday. It was not simply tea and something else like bread, or pancakes. There were always eggs, pancakes, and things that I had never set eyes on—such as hash browns. I still did not change my breakfast style; tea was always present. It was not Kenyan tea, but it was black tea. While there, I learned the art of making tea from my American roommate who drank it occasionally; coffee agreed more with not only her taste buds, but also with her need for alertness. The art? You take a tea bag, place it in a cup, press the hot water button, let the hot water fall into your cup, and viola! Your tea is ready. You could add milk or sugar, if you pleased. This was easier, but the taste was different. The cups were small, and I was my own audience. I was almost always the only one drinking tea at my table in the dining halls. Thus, the joy of drinking tea slowly dwindled.

Making tea in the school’s dining hall became a somber affair; there weren’t any sieves, or loose tea. The Lipton tea offered by the dining hall reminded me of concoctions that I used to drink at my grandmother’s when I was sick, and at some point, I became sick. Homesickness was what I was suffering from, according to my advisor. I was losing my touch of home, but not completely. I did not forget about home; I longed for home. When my advisor asked what she could do for me, I asked if she could get me some Kenyan tea. “I will try, “ she assured me. She cupped my hands in her large manicured ones, with a sad look in her eyes. She tried to be comforting, but she did not have the tea. Yet.

It was not long after my advisor’s sad eyes looked into my own that I found tea sitting on my desk. I came back from soccer practice and saw the tea leaves carefully placed on the light brown piece of furniture. “For you, dear!” a piece of paper beside it said. “ I hope this makes you feel better.” I held onto the tea as I sat in my bed, and cried myself to sleep.

I stared at the cup of tea as I tried to figure out how many hours it had been since the plane had left New York. I was on my way to China, taking a break from my high school’s campus. After seventeen hours of drinking a lot of tea and water, and frequent trips to the bathroom, I was finally in Beijing. I had never understood why people said, ‘I love you more than the tea in China,’ until I lived in Beijing, Shanghai, and Zhangjiajie. I had always associated the abundance of tea with Kenya, because it is one of the country’s main sources of income. In China, however, I drank a lot of tea too, much more than I thought I could ever drink outside my home. I did not find much black tea where I lived in Beijing and Shanghai, but green tea was plentiful. I learned to love the taste of green tea, first with sugar, then with honey, then without anything at all. When served, the green tea smelled like freshly steamed corn, and sometimes bamboo shoots. It had a woody taste, maybe because of the containers in which the leaves were stored.

In Zhangjiajie, I witnessed the locals of the little village pan-fry green tea leaves using oil they extracted from tea seeds and some plants that were native to the region. The cups there were smaller than those at Choate, but at least a teapot came with them. This was the art. The cups were small so that you could drink the tea without letting it become too cold, while the much bigger pot would quench your thirst for more tea. “At all costs,” one of the villagers told me, “avoid big mugs.” I understood. With a big mug, there was a tendency to leave the mug, simply because the tea was hot. I had previously been guilty of that: make a delicious cup of tea, find out that it was too hot to drink, then leave it there for what would count as eternity for the tea, if tea had its own years like dogs do.

I poured the cold tea down the kitchen drain and turned on the water heater so that I could make a new cup. Several years had passed since I was in China; now, I was visiting Switzerland as an exchange student in college, and had been in my apartment for most of the weekend, and had gone out only when it had been absolutely necessary—such as going to buy milk downstairs. The cold wind from the Swiss Alps discouraged me from going outside. I do not have any respiratory problems, but that wind made me doubt my lungs’ functional capabilities. To keep myself assured of my good health, I stayed indoors with my roommates. We participated in our own indoor activities, which included watching movies, cooking, eating, and most importantly, drinking tea.

My Spanish roommates were astonished by how much tea I drank. “Ai, you finished the whole box already!” one of them exclaimed, with his then-heavy Spanish accent. It had not even been three weeks since we had bought a whole large pack of Tetley English Breakfast Tea. They just did not understand why I seemed to consume gallons of tea. That was until I made them tea during our habitual afternoon snack time. They were amazed by how good it tasted. It was shocking to me, really. I had gotten so used to the sweet toasty smell and taste of the tea that I had forgotten how wonderfully alarming it could be to one who had been used to the taste of coffee, as my two Spanish roommates had been. And there it began, a journey of tea sampling with my roommates. We bought all sorts of tea that Tetley had to offer us. We settled on English Breakfast and Earl Grey; they were the best, we decided. I was proud, for I had shared my home with these strangers who had just moved into the apartment, and would become my closest of friends. Maybe the tea had something to do with it. After all, their taste buds agreed with my choice of drink; their souls accepted my home and me.

I still make tea the way my mother taught me. At Smith, I meet with my Kenyan schoolmates every Sunday afternoon to make tea. During the week, I make tea the way my American roommate taught me; this has stuck with me too. It is not hard to keep up with this method, given that there are hot water dispensers and tea packets in our dining halls too. I sometimes bring my own loose leaf tea to the dining halls. The smell of loose leaf Chinese green tea still brings me back to Zhangjiajie.

In each of the places I have been, I have kept my tea drinking habits, refined them, and even gotten other people into this habit. Those who have spent a lot of time with me have undoubtedly suffered many occasions where they had tea simply because I generously offered the cup, slyly poured it for them, and tenderly talked them into drinking it. They have slowly grown to love tea too; they have slowly integrated into being my home. This is the joy of internationali-tea.

The snowflakes accumulate and make me wonder if classes will be cancelled tomorrow. I take the last sip of my tea and get back to working on my assignments. I am certainly not in the tropics but my warm slippers and my pink robe will be my sun, while my tea will bring me back to those Sunday mornings in Nairobi. I am undoubtedly at home.

Thatcher Mweu is a Government major and alumna from the Class of 2015. She has been blessed with the opportunity to travel, and meet people from all walks of life. She is interested in finding the interconnection between all these places, and how they add to her personal life.

Fall 2015 Issue V: Tastes

Tasting Community Solidarity with Hands

November 4, 2015 myao

When I was first served ojja, a deep red, Tunisian-style spicy tomato-based stew, at a small street food restaurant in downtown Tunis, I was immediately caught off guard. How would I eat this dish without a knife and fork, a spoon, or chopsticks?

I innocently posed the question to my roommate, Fidaa, who was with me. “Yadik!” she replied, and repeated it twice while laughing (yadik means “your hand” in Arabic). She sensed my dumbfoundedness and asked whether I had ever eaten anything with my hands. I told her that besides pizza and chicken wings, I had not. In America, I’ve even seen people eating pizza and chicken wings with silverware in restaurants because of the social stigma attached to eating with your hands– it is seen as rude and uncivilized.

“Mish mushkila,” Fidaa said (that means “no problem” in Arabic). She brought me to the washing basin near the entrance of the restaurant and let me wash my hands thoroughly. Fidaa told me that a meal in Tunisia begins with washing your hands, and that, therefore, we would be able to find a washing basin near the entrance of almost all restaurants. I dried my hands with napkins and returned to my seat.

In most Muslim countries, people only eat with their right hands because their left hands are reserved for cleaning their bodies. Fidaa said, however, that Tunisians would not be very strict with this rule, and that most of the time eating with both hands was acceptable. She invited me to observe how she ate ojja. Hers had two very runny eggs on top. She first ripped off a chunk of bread, not too big or too small, and then used it to stir an egg into the piping hot stew. She dipped the bread again into the stew-and-egg mixture, twirling and twisting it until it was soaked through, and used her thumb to push the bread into her mouth.

Then it was my turn, but I hesitated. When you think about it, our fingers are much more nimble than silverware and we waste less when we eat with our hands. Eating with my hands was not difficult at all and it seemed so natural, so why did I hesitate? What did I worry about?

Since moving from China to America, I have become assimilated into Western culture, and used to its codes of conduct: I always dress formally when going to a concert; I refrain from talking loudly in public, and I eat according to the “proper” etiquette: I learned how to position my napkin and how to hold a knife and fork correctly. I felt ashamed many times during this process when I thought that my performance was not up to standard, because deep in my heart, I was afraid of being judged by others and labeled an “uncivilized Chinese woman.” I carried this sense of fear and restraint with me to Tunisia, and I never imagined that I would have to confront it in front of a hot plate of stew. I looked around me and saw that everyone was eating with their hands. I told myself, “If you don’t eat with your hands now, you will become the odd one out. Just try it.”

I made up my mind and reached for the bread with my right hand. I tried to recall how Fidaa had torn off a small chunk of it and imitated her action. At that moment, the hot surface of the bread (which I would have never been able to feel if had I been eating with silverware) evaporated my stress and my fear of being judged against other’s expectations; it gave me a sense of relief and freedom. As I dipped the bread into the ojja, my head got closer to the plate and I inhaled a rich, spicy aroma. When I stirred the other runny egg, I could feel the piece of bread in my hand absorbing the nourishing meal, and the sensation evoked an alchemy of emotions, at once warm, gentle, and caressing. When I finally put the bread into my mouth, its taste, along with that of garlic, green peppers, coriander, cumin, and harissa started to blend together. I had to admit that I had never felt so connected to food before. I even felt blessed that I had chosen to eat with my hands instead of a fork and a knife, which I suddenly saw as a nuisance, alienating me from my primal connection to food and prohibiting a mindful and sensual experience.

While eating with your hands softens the formality of eating etiquette, it also creates a sense of community solidarity. Unlike in America, where each individual eats from his or her own bowl (even in American family-style meals, people take their portions of food out of the big plate or big bowl and eat from their independent plates), people share plates of food in Tunisia. On that night, I shared the same plate of ojja with Fidaa. We ripped off hunks of the same bread and dipped the pieces into the same stew. When I found a piece of merguez (goat intestine) close to me that was especially good, I shared it with her, and when she realized that I did not like olives, she ate them all for me. I also learned to be considerate, knowing that we only had one portion of bread to share. In this ritual, food became a new connection between Fidaa and me, cementing an organic bond and shared responsibilities. In this way, eating becomes much more than just the transfer of edibles to the mouth with some metal-pronged sticks — it’s an intimate ritual, connecting us to our food and to the people with whom we share it.

After the meal, I felt ashamed of myself for my ignorance and narrow-mindedness. It is true that eating etiquette is at the core of Western fine dining culture, and we should give our respect to that wholeheartedly. But when it comes to other dining cultures, such as those that involve eating with your hands, we should not impose our standards on their traditions. We see many Arab restaurants starting to provide silverware, choosing to abandon their traditional, homey eating rituals to avoid being associated with stereotypes of primitiveness. When immigrants choose to learn the host country’s culture and etiquettes, shouldn’t people from the host country also learn to respect other traditions and embrace diversity?

I felt that I had perpetuated a cultural misunderstanding by mistakenly equating difference with inferiority. Eating in Tunisia taught me a lesson: great food culture does not only come from the West.

Yvie Yao is an international student from Qingdao, China. She considers herself a third-culture kid and a world citizen after living abroad in Singapore, Tunisia, and the U.S. She is currently a junior at Smith College majoring in History and concentrating in Book Studies. She believes in the power of storytelling. She hopes to empower women through story-sharing and connect people across cultures through her writing.

Fall 2015 Issue V: Tastes

Talking to Strangers

November 4, 2015 Deborah Slavitt

Many years ago, a friend was visiting me in Paris. I wanted her to see the quotidian side of the area where I lived, not just the chic cafes and shops. We were walking down Boulevard Saint Germain, past the Cluny Museum, on our way to one of my favorite places, the Maubert street market, said to be one of Paris’ oldest.

All of the market’s producteurs (vendors) had crowded around the small, oddly shaped – maybe trapezoidal – place Maubert. The place was covered with their stands and tables of fruit, vegetables, cheeses, meats, bread, and products from the countryside, like soap and lavender bouquets. Other days of the week, the place was simply a paved crossroads where people went to and from the metro Maubert-Mutualité. During market days, it came alive in an entirely different way.

We arrived early, with the French shoppers, for more choice and less crowd. It was the ambiance of the market that I wanted my friend to experience: the bustle and lively chatter between the merchants and shoppers, the smells of roasting chicken and potatoes, of the fragrant fruits — fall apples and mirabelles — of the breads. And every stand arranged like a work of art, a “regal de l’oeil,” a gift for the eyes!

SLAVITT.fishmonger — Fishmonger on the Place Maubert

We chose some autumn specialties to cook with at home: the mushrooms — cèpes, girolles, and trompette de la mort for a fricassée or an omelet; apples from Normandy for a tarte tatin; figs, brussel sprouts, and fennel, some of my favorites; and a baguette, of course.

I noticed a particularly tempting fromagerie stand and took my place in line. I could introduce my friend to new flavors, too. When it was my turn, I greeted the fromager with the requisite “bonjour Monsieur,” a lovely acknowledgement that begins every conversation in France, and asked about the particularly strong-scented seasonal cheeses in his display: Roquefort, Fourme d’Ambert and Epoisse, called “the king of cheeses.” “Any others?” I asked. I liked new tastes and I liked to hear the vendors’ enthusiasm for and knowledge of their products.

I listened and the fromager talked. Realizing I might have left my friend alone for too long, I asked him to wrap my cheeses and paid for them, saying “au revoir, monsieur,” the ending of all conversations. I turned and walked toward my friend. I apologized for the time that had passed and launched excitedly into a description of the man and his cheeses and what she and I would eat at the end of that night’s dinner.

She cut me off abruptly, saying “Debby, do you have to form a relationship with everyone you talk to?” I can hear it even now. Confounded, I thought she was joking, but she wasn’t.

In the days, weeks, and years that have followed, I’ve thought often of her question. In that moment, I realized something about myself: that I had a taste — a fascination — for people, their stories and their uniqueness. And without my interest in those brief conversations, all that experience would be lost.

I look back now at how this aspect of myself has evolved. I remember asking directions from a tall policeman in a Florentine market using my freshman- year Italian, my father teasing me in the background. “I thought you spoke Italian,” he said, as I struggled for the right words. Then there was my apology in a Taiwanese market using gestures instead of words to a woman whose child I had photographed without first asking permission. Despite our lack of a shared language, I didn’t want to walk away having said nothing. There were failures, too: most notably trying, every week, to engage the people in the post office downstairs from my Paris apartment. Every week, I got a stony face and stamps.

Thanks to that angry comment 30 years ago, I recognize and appreciate something in myself. I see the many ways in which my life is richer for it, as it is populated by people I might never have known, had I not formed those momentary relationships.

Visit Maubert Market : Place Maubert, 7 am – around 2 pm, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays; Paris, 75005, along the Boulevard St. Germain and the rue des Carmes.

Deborah Slavitt ’69 developed a curiosity — a taste — for travel, languages and cultures from inventive family trips, planned by her SC 1936 mother, Mary Lewis Slavitt. After college she had a bee in her bonnet about going overseas and so began her peripatetic life. She has lived in Chile, France (twice), Germany and Taiwan and visited many other countries, about 15 years in all. Her languages and her taste for knowing people have led her to many surprising conversations.

Fall 2015 Issue V: Tastes

Cupcakes and Colonialism

November 4, 2015 gzutrau

He was looking for an intern. I was looking for a reason to stay.

I had just finished a semester of studying Mandarin in Beijing. I made friends with locals. I had pictures taken of me by strangers. I drank qsingtao by the half-liter. I produced a three-thousand character report on the conflict between environmental protection and China’s market economy. I was immersed. After my program ended, I traveled all over the country. Taking over night sleeper trains, touring new cities, visiting my host family from high school in Xi’an, and meeting eclectic characters from across the globe. Everyday that I traveled, I felt China’s magnetism pulling me closer and closer, while I simultaneously felt less and less of an obligation to return home on my flight to Boston at the end of May.

When one of the many people I met in my hostel-hopping in Shanghai offered me a translation internship, I knew that I had found my reason to stay. Less than 24 hours before my scheduled flight home, I made the decision to leave Beijing, and move to Shanghai to live and work in a new city for the following two months. I rented an apartment in a neighborhood riddled with brothels, gambling joints, and the best xiao long bao restaurants I’d ever had the privilege of eating at. Within hours of my decision to relocate, responses to my applications for English tutoring jobs were already rolling in. As a white-presenting native English speaker, I was a hot commodity.

My boss, on the other hand, was a Philadelphia native who had worked a few odd jobs in China but had had some trouble finding jobs that would hire him as a black man. He had decided to capitalize on his baking skills and started a small company called NE Cakes. He was the victim of anti-black racism imported from the west, but he found a way to make the best of it. He was my cake boss, and he was my ticket into Shanghai’s immigrant community, members of which because of their white, rich, or western identities were granted the social license to be labeled as “ex-pats.” Cake boss and I got along great, and I was happy to be helping him spread his delicious cream cheese frosting cupcakes all around the city. My charge was to translate his menu, attract new Chinese customers, and help him with marketing strategies to effectively make his brand appealing in the context of Chinese culture. My first tactic was convincing him that his American-ness was a commodity worth capitalizing on, a marketing technique in and of itself.

On the third of July, I chatted with my roommate in Mandarin as I spent hours turning paper and toothpicks into three hundred tiny American-flag cupcake toppers. What could be more American than spending hours creating things made to immediately be thrown away? The next morning, I delivered hundreds of red-white-and-blue cupcakes to vendors all over Shanghai. When my cake duties had concluded, I did what any reasonable American would do on the fourth of July: I headed over to the French concession with high hopes of meeting up with my American friends. We planned to stroll along the ex-pat-inundated bar streets, namely Youngkang Lu, a street infested with English speakers and craft beer. The concentration of American flag paraphernalia was overwhelming. As I walked through the crowds with my friend, I looked around at the mostly white faces. There were native English speakers, and there were a few Chinese people who spoke enough English to associate with Shanghai’s elite. The most salient feature of the Anglophone mob was my cupcake toppers hanging out of the mouths of so many of the revelers. People shot-gunned Budlight, listened to American pop, and haphazardly set off fireworks in the street. Happy Birthday, America.

This debauchery was a manifestation of all that I’d grown to resent about “ex-pats” in China. Throughout my six months in China, I grew to think of myself as separate from the “ex-pat” communities of the big cities; after all, I spoke Chinese, had Chinese friends, and loved Chinese food.

What amazed me most about living with and talking to my Chinese friends was that, not only was no one similarly resentful, but that people seemed happy and even grateful for it. So many young people throughout the country seem to want nothing more than to learn English and get out while they could. Meanwhile, Western imperialism continues to choke China. On China’s shores, Western factories produce Western products to be shipped to Western consumer economies, ensuring that those Western countries maintain their blue skies. 500,000 people a year die from air pollution in China.

My time in Shanghai forced me to reckon with my status as a colonizer. It is true that I love and am committed to the Chinese language, food, people, and culture, but I benefited from Western/American privilege every single day in China. And when I used that privilege to market an American product, to put Chinese money in American pockets, I exploited that privilege. I found myself in the cross-hairs of an international, interlingual, interracial, and intercultural diplomatic sociopolitical issue. I feel more committed now than ever to using my American privilege to preserve what is amazing and important about China. If I ever move back, I’ll surely have ex-pat friends, but I’ll go out of my way to refer to myself as an American immigrant. As a beneficiary of a long history of imperialism and exploitation, it was absolutely crucial for me to realize a simple truth: even though the medium was cupcakes, the method was still colonialism.

Gabriella Zutrau is a linguist with a proclivity for social justice education and organizing. Although much of her time at Smith has been taken up by organizing for fossil fuel divestment, she also has a keen interest in how language and culture affect each other. More specifically, she is interested in language as a tool and a metric that can be used to liberate or oppress, to humanize or objectify. As a language-learner and traveler, she has forced herself to examine her many identities as politically charged, shifting her views of her role to accommodate new contexts as she move from place to place. She will graduate from Smith in 2016 with a double major in Psychology and Linguistics and a concentration in Translation Studies focused in Mandarin.