Blog 4

Arlington Meets Las Vegas

I moved to Las Vegas, Nevada my freshman year of high school, the food in Vegas is pretty much a variety, Vegas is a variation of all types of food rather than just one, it is culturally diverse food wise and people wise. I feel Vegas is a place to test your taste buds on different types of food from different cultures that are foreign to you and it's a place to get into new things. It's also the place of take out, or eating out in a way, I feel while living in Vegas I've ate out rather than an home cooked meal. Ivory-Anna, moved to Arlington, Texas during her second year of middle school she is now in her junior year of college at UT Arlington. Ivory-Anna tells me that in her city the majority culture is African type food, BBQ, and Soul food. Ivory-Anna stayed in an apartment across the street from the campus, and she ate out more that at home, but she ate homemade type food, food from the place she worked at called Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen, a southern food, Texas based restaurant. I asked Ivory-Anna if she was willing to try new foods out of the ones she's been exposed to since she's pretty limited to certain foods unlike I am in Las Vegas. She answer that she maybe be is but she feels we are both limited since I lack the authenticity of the food she has and vice versa, there is certain types of food she wouldn't try due to the high standard that she holds to food that she is already aware of, for example she wouldn't eat KFC over Popeyes. I asked Ivory-Anna if the African cultured food she’s had compared to African American cultured food?  She replied yes, African American and African food compared to each other are basically comfort food yet in different way, due to how they are prepared. I asked Ivory-Anna if now that she is away from Arlington, if comfort food has herder her from trying different foods here in Las Vegas or Reno? She followed with yes in a sense, when she tries other places she tries to find food that closely resemble the foods in Arlington if not she doesn't have a need to try it and tries to stir clear from that. I asked Ivory-Anna when she thinks back to home in Arlington what was the first food that comes to mind. She replied with country fried chicken which is chicken fried twice. I asked if that was considered a general/basic food, traditional? She replied with yes it's a go to, something they could have on the regular that is considered to remain the same. Ivory-Anna is still opted to revert to her comfort food while in new areas, she tries to introduce herself to new things but is in a way picky, she finds herself trying to find food similar to home to remain close to home while away, ironically for comfort.