Preview

Ecology of a Cracker Childhood

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
960 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
Janisse Ray wrote the book, "Ecology of a Cracker Childhood." In the story, the author describes how she grew up, the influences that her family history, culture, and nature had on her, and how she is an individual as well as part of a whole. The memory that I believe gives a very personal insight into the author's identity details her mother's down home, southern cooking and the imprints, that her cooking impressed on her. In this exert, Ray describes her mothers cooking.

My mother was a simple cook. She prepared foods she'd been raised on, plain Southern fare-rice, gravy, sliced tomatoes, turnip greens, cornpone, grits, eggs, chicken and dumplings, pot roast, ham, field peas, lima beans, potato salad, stewed okra, pumpkin pie, salmon balls. We didn't have fancy casseroles or lasagnas or spaghetti, and nobody had ever heard of a burrito or an egg roll. I didn't know what an artichoke or a parsnip or kiwi or papaya was-certainly had never taste them. We drank sweet iced tea and sometimes lemonade.

Mama made biscuits the old-fashioned way, hollowing a well in the bowl of flour and cutting the shortening in with her fingers, then pouring milk into the reservoir and stirring until she had a ball of dough. She pinched the biscuits off one by one, rolling them into small balls and pressing them out on a cookie sheet. Each biscuit bore the mark of the backside of her knuckles (page 198-199).

This passage reveals a personal truth because, throughout the chapter, Ray keeps repeating how she never wants to be her mother for the simple reason that her mother gives up all her desires for her family and their happiness, "Growing up I thought my mother was beautiful and loved her desperately, but I did not want to be like her" (page 203) but, at the same time, Ray thinks of her mother as "...superwoman disguised as a chaste Cracker house wife with four children and a husband ..." (page 199). Also, Ray did not want to be her mother

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Maya Angelou

    • 3060 Words
    • 13 Pages

    Pierce, D. (2005). Poet-author Maya Angelou blends recipes and memories in winning style. Retrieved Oct 07, 2012, from Chicago Tribune: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-126854571.html…

    • 3060 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Grandmother Profile

    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages

    My grandma makes the best meals. She cooks dinner every Sunday as if it were a holiday. This is something she takes pride in; it’s a time when the whole family gets together to eat a good hearty meal. Sunday meals usually consist of beef and mashed potatoes with the best mushroom gravy, homegrown green beans, homemade sauerkraut with bacon bits, fresh salad, and homemade cheesecake for dessert. This is her favorite time of the week because she can cook and catch up with her family.…

    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    "History, Old Favorites in Collection of Food Essays." The Washington Times 10 June 2007: B08.…

    • 2818 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    1. Lily’s goal throughout the novel is to understand her true mother. She does not understand what the presence of a mother would really be like, but she feels her mother’s absence constantly.…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hann, Callum. The Starter Kitchen: Learn How to Love to Cook. Sydney, N.S.W.: Murdoch, 2012. Print.…

    • 728 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Let us begin with Mamma, who is after all the narrator of the story. Mamma describes herself as “a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands… that her fat keeps her hot in zero weather” (161). Readers learn of Mamma’s practical prowess and pride in her abilities, she can “kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man, work outside all day breaking ice to get water for washing… and had the meat hung up from a bull calf she killed to chill before nightfall”(161). From this description, and a reference to her having no more than a 2nd grade education (163), it is apparent that she takes pride in the practical aspects of her nature and that she has not devoted much time to the contemplation of abstract concepts such as heritage. Even so, her lack of schooling and refinement does not hamper her from having an inherent (innate) understanding of heritage based on the love and respect she has for those who (have come and gone) came before her as evidenced by her ability to trace the origin of her eldest daughter, Dee’s name, her association of the fabric in the quilts to various family members’ clothes, and the butter churn dasher’s characterizing sinks she associated with its previous users.…

    • 393 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    This connection that I have with my mother is a dime a dozen if you look at our entirely culture here in America. Less and less families these days actually cook or sit down to eat a meal together which has left many Americans searching for something they have lost. This lost feeling is being capitalized on by television networks by the vast amount of cooking and food related shows that are being broadcasted. Frank Bruni asks in “An Experts Theory of Food Television Appeal”, “For these young people, does the televised cooking have have the appeal of a missive from a lost utopia” (Bruni 111)? I believe he hit the proverbial nail right on the head with this line of questioning and he couldn't be more correct. Young adults who lead busy lives,…

    • 170 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Qualities of a Great Mom

    • 645 Words
    • 3 Pages

    my mom was such a great woman that she starve thane see her girls starve. She has always been a great cook and a great cook can always prepare something even i they just have beans and potatoes…

    • 645 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Unpolished Gem

    • 468 Words
    • 2 Pages

    THIS IS A MEMOIR SO vivid that images from it linger behind your eyelids - the pig's blood jelly that Alice Pung's father remembers wistfully; the festive paper chains made of cut-up Target catalogues; the fate of the chocolate eggs that the seven-year-old Alice hoards in a drawer.…

    • 468 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    At my house there was always an emphasis on nutritional health. From an early age I had a vast amount of knowledge about which foods to eat and which to avoid. My dad is very particular about the food we eat. He puts a lot of emphasis on eating healthy and makes us eat lots of fruits and vegetables, even if we don’t like it. Often we would grow our own produce in our yard so my mom could use fresh vegetables and herbs in her cooking. Although…

    • 422 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I would like to file a professionalism complaint against Stetson Autumn in London Program participate Kristen Bracker. Her conduct violates Stetson University College of Law Code of Student Professionalism and Conduct sections V(a), V(b)(13), and V(b)(14).…

    • 651 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Part I. Response Journal (four passages and responses = four points). Divide the book into four equal parts (four quarters), and select four favorite passages, one from each of the four quarters of the book. Follow the guidelines shared for the grade 7-10 response journals (see above) in terms of format, length of responses, and content. Here is a sample response: Chapter/Page: “Evacuation Order No.19” page 6 Passage: "She wiped her forehead with her handkerchief.…

    • 1708 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    When it comes to raising a child, families fall into the category of either emphasizing concerted cultivation or accomplishment of natural growth. In Annette Lareau’s first chapter of, “Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life,” she talks a bit about the different families she researched and the various methods the parents are categorizing in about raising their child. Through her observations of these families, she noticed middle-class families practice a particular parenting style known as concerted cultivation, where the parents believe they must promote the growth and development of their child’s abilities and skills. These types of parents often push their kids to join a variety of activities and are very active in their child’s…

    • 1412 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Opening her article, Miller describes her family’s breakfast habits to relate herself to the people.…

    • 1032 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    good man

    • 3912 Words
    • 9 Pages

    wrote this paper for my Honors Food for Thought class in Spring 2012. The class focused on analyzing how food is a part of our culture, and it was one of the most interesting and unique classes I have taken. For this research paper, we were asked to pick any food topic and form a thesis/argument while incorporating both memoir and research. This was a different assignment than I was used to, because for most other research papers, we never combined the creative writing aspect of memoir. Combining creative writing and research was difficult at first, but I ended up loving the combination of the two at the end. I chose to write about artichokes and their cultural significance, because they are one of my favorite foods and a large part of my family’s food traditions. Because of my own relationship with artichokes, the paper was fun to write. I also found food is one of my favorite topics to write about. wrote this paper for my Honors Food for Thought class in Spring 2012. The class focused on analyzing how food is a part of our culture, and it was one of the most interesting and unique classes I have taken. For this research paper, we were asked to pick any food topic and form a thesis/argument while incorporating both memoir and research. This was a different assignment than I was used to, because for most other research papers, we never combined the creative writing aspect of memoir. Combining creative writing and research was difficult at first, but I ended up loving the combination of the two at the end. I chose to write about artichokes and their cultural significance, because they are one of my favorite foods and a large part of my family’s food traditions. Because of my own relationship with artichokes, the paper was fun to write. I also found food is one of my favorite topics to write about. wrote this paper for my Honors Food for Thought class in Spring 2012. The class focused on analyzing how food is a part of our culture, and it was one of the most…

    • 3912 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays