LESSON 2: CULTURAL TIES TO FOOD
In Chapter 2, students learn about celebrating New Year’s through the eyes of Midori Kono Thiel, a Japanese American who was born in
California, and raised in Hawaii.
This chapter addresses food and how it’s strongly connected to family and cultural celebrations. Food can be seen as a “family tree” of
delicious cuisine, an important legacy of food that can be passed down from one generation to the next, connecting the past and present.
Pre-Reading Discussion
Have students take 10–15 minutes to write a journal entry for the following questions:
1. In your own family traditions, when are special meals prepared for close family and friends? What do you remember about the meal(s)
you had during these events? What made them extra special?
2. Food is powerful. It brings people together, connects cultures, ethnic identities and good memories. What are the smells in your family’s
kitchen that bring back the most memories? Why?
3. Write a list of “all-American” foods? Why are they connected to being American (for example, hot dogs at a baseball game)?
4. Why are family and food connected?
5. What are your favorite family foods? Are they made frequently, or are they prepared only on special occasions? Are they connected to
your culture?
6. Are there any special recipes that have been passed down from elders in your family? What are they?
7. Interview a family member about what they remember about the special foods they ate when they were young.
• What smells can they still remember?
• What were their favorite foods that were prepared?
• Did they bring that tradition to their own family and continue to have these same foods in their home now? Why or why not?
READ CHAPTER 2
Compare & Contrast Activity
Have students make a chart labeled “New Year’s Cultural Cuisine Comparison Chart” with separate rows or columns for Hmong, Japanese,
Vietnamese and My Own Cultural Foods — with space to list the different foods and what traditions and symbols the food has, if any.
Hmong
Thirty dishes are prepared for the three days of New Year’s cerebration. After the dishes are prepared, no one works for the three days.
Families enjoy papaya salads, sticky rice, boiled eggs, crab, steamed fish and steamed chicken.
Japanese
Japanese Americans eat special foods for the New Year — such as ozoni, a warm soup featuring pounded rice cake (mochi) that melts
in your mouth. Several places in the Seattle area still make mochi traditionally, pounding the rice with a large, blunt wooden mallet and
a stone or wooden mortar. Other special food and drink for the New Year include sake (rice wine), soba (noodles) for long life, beans for
good health, and fish roe for prosperity.
Vietnamese
Visitors are served tea and mú
’
t (special sweetened dried fruits). Families also eat Bánh Chu
’
ng, a sticky rice with mung beans and pork
wrapped and cooked in banana leaves in a perfect square shape. This food represents the Earth.
Bánh Dày (“baan zay”) is a round cake made with rice flour. This food represents the sun.
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