Culinary Tourism Introduction Reading Response

Why do we go where we go?

At the beginning of this reading, Lucy M. Long helps us understand an apparent connection between her and the Memoir we read, Eating Buddha’s Diner. She starts off describing the connections between food and culture, what reminds her of what, and how food almost speaks to her soul. Although Bich doesn’t exactly explicitly say this right off the bat, this is the sense we get throughout the entire memoir. Food gives people this connection between culture and memories, which sends feelings and comfort/ discomfort through taste buds. It’s really interesting how food can trigger such memories, which reminds me of the very first reading of the year and also everyone’s beautifully written memoirs for class. This idea of food making one feel as if they belong in a culture or community or distancing them from the culture they are assimilating too connects to how changing eating habits can essentially fix these problems, but how it seems as if it is only gluing broken pieces together with Elmers’ glue, the kind that is dried out and you’re given as a child because it is not nearly strong enough to really do any damage, or fix any of your emotional problems.

Afterwards, this idea of tourism and why we do it becomes very apparent in her thesis and throughout the reading. Traveling to different places and tasting things we’ve never tasted before excite us. They show us a little bit about what the rest of the world is like. It’s the same reason we try anything new, to feel something out of it. Long describes this statement by a quote from John Urry; “A crucial feature of tourism… [Is that the] potential objects of the tourist gaze must be different in some way or other. They must be out of the ordinary. People must experience particularly distinct pleasures which involve different senses or are on a different scale from those typically encountered in everyday life.” The idea of tourism can be expanded through food and through actual travel, but the point of it is to extract ourselves from our everyday lives and show us change or show us differences that we had never experienced beforehand.

At this point in the very beginning of the reading, I started thinking about why people travel to different places that may not be comfortable to them? When people go on mission trips and such, they of course are 100% going to help the people, economy, or land (I definitely commend anyone who has gone on one, it’s something I would love to do) but, I’m essentially wondering if visiting a place for pleasurable purposes that is significantly different can make people see how good they have it at the place they initially came from… Their sense of home. I’m also wondering if this, in its own way bestows a sense of pleasure. I’m not implying that it would make people enjoy seeing other communities have it slightly worse, but that it would force to them appreciate where they came from. Knowing how wonderful things are in the place that they live, possibly in terms of first amendment rights or even how clean the streets are give them a different kind of feeling. When we think of travel, at least, when I think of travel, I think of going to places I’ve dreamt about going my entire life. Places that seem almost magical to me because they are so foreign and so different. But, I wonder if going to a place where I was uncomfortable, or emotionally upset me would make me appreciate where I live more. We always hear stories about how the “grass is always greener on the other side”, but what if travel can also make us more content with where we live now? Even if subconsciously, I wonder if this is another reason why people travel.