Comments | bandgeek: What the World Eats

bandgeek

What the World Eats

Jun 06, 2007 10:30

What the World Eats, a Time photo essay by Peter Menzel, excerpted from his book Hungry PlanetEach photo shows one of fifteen families with their food for a typical week laid out in their living room/area, tells what they paid for it, and tells their favorite food or family recipe ( Read more... )

social justice

Comments 3

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bandgeek June 6 2007, 11:50:29 UTC

Heh, sadly, the gift was for himself and not for me. But I can borrow it from him if I like.

Yeah, of course the eating habits are going to vary, but way to pick a family that fulfills the stereotype, you know? At least, the stereotype a lot of Americans hold about Germans. The other thing is, you know the Americans have alcohol too (unless they picked some religious conservatives), it's just that they keep it locked up in the liquor cabinet and probably wouldn't be open enough about it to put it in the photo. Americans are so weird about alcohol, I tell ya.

spiffarific June 6 2007, 15:50:38 UTC

I really enjoyed that actually. It was horribly stereotypical, but it also showed something I was surprised about regarding commercial globalization. I bet you had the same experience, knowing what you'd find ahead of time and still being surprised at the amount of familiar brands.

I saw several things I hadn't expected to find here in some of those other countries (Like Pringles! Which should not have been surprising. But sometimes I am very obtuse. When my mother was here, she refused to do any conversions of the exchange rate because she's pants at math, but I made her buy me them, because what are mothers for if not occasionally manipulating, and suddenly she knew enough to give me the eyebrow and a "Why am I paying $5 for you to have these ( ... )

bandgeek June 6 2007, 18:54:59 UTC

I agree that it plays into some stereotypes, but when you've got one family per country, and not even every country represented, that's gonna be hard to avoid. I suppose it's best if we just try not to think of each family as representing their country, and more of them just as individual portraits. (Although I'll admit that that isn't my initial instinctive reaction ( ... )