< The 100 Member Meal | Main | No. More. Rutabagas. >

Family expansion

Posted at 2:17 PM on March 7, 2008 by Sareen Dunleavy Keenan (2 Comments)

I don't think that I have mentioned. Our family has temporarily expanded. In addition to myself, partner, and two babies, we now have an exchange student. She has been in the country a little while, and her stay is about 1/2 over. I only remember to mention it because we were laughing over some onigiri this morning.

We were discussing my childhood of swimming through lakes and thinking of these large masses of seaweed that were going to pull me under at any moment. In Japan, there is not the strong lake culture that we have here in the land o’ 10,000. She didn't experience this ever present fear that I am sure many of you can relate to. In fact, Brendan doesn't quite understand either, Nebraskan's must not get into the water much. As children, we were so keen on avoiding EVER touching seaweed that we hooked a section of chain link fence to a rope and dragged the section of lake near us. The process was very similar to the baseball fields we helped to groom in the summer time. This was a great solution if you are looking for one.

Anyway. It was a fun talk about the thought of eating local seaweed. I know just where to get oodles of the stuff. However, actually voluntarily trying some... that might take some convincing. I understand that they are totally different species and all that goes into it. But at 6 in the morning, eating my #1 childhood nemesis seemed revolting no matter how many sushi rolls I have eaten in the past.

Asako has given us the opportunity to explain the importance of our food choices to someone with a totally different perspective. To her, a lot of food is local. Living near the Sea of Japan (or Sea of Korea, depending on your national perspective) she can get fresh fish anytime. Rice is grown in her neighborhood. Vegetables? No problem! Even the sake is nice a fresh. One trip to the warehouse style grocery store seemed to explain how different food choices were from our two countries.

The American perspective on seaweed being something to shy away from was easily articulated in the children's book I Love You Stinky Face by Lisa Mccourt. The child has to ask the equivalent of “would you still love me even if I was covered in seaweed?” Asako laughed at this for two reasons. First, she wanted to know what the problem was with being covered with seaweed. Secondly, how did seaweed fit in next to asking if mom would still love you if you were a meat eating dinosaur, a skunk or an alien? Are they really equally horrible she wanted to know? When I was 12, seaweed was our summer enemy. It was worse than any of the other concerns. I could deal with stink or aliens but not something that grabs you while you are swimming by. Anything but that.

A long disjointed story when the point was: It is fun to share your house and your new food choices with a new person.

Comments (2)

Sareen - Love your story about seaweed and will ck out the Stinky Face book. We had an exchange student from China last year and it's an incredible experience. We learned a lot about ourselves that year - esp relating to resource consumption and the way we (Americans) eat. I'm not sure if this is true across the country, but here, some host parents talk about how much weight the students gain after being here just a few weeks. Does Asako like to try new foods?

Posted by Donna McClurkan | March 9, 2008 7:53 AM

Donna,
Sorry It took me a while to answer your question. It got lost in my mind of "who needs to be where when" I am still getting used to the baby, and having a teenager in the house sure changes the routine!

Asako has tried all kinds of new foods. While there is diverse food available in Japan, in rural Japan there is some catching up to do in terms of good representation of foreign food. She has been a huge sport. We have tried Mexican, Ethiopian, Italian, German, Chinese, and Kurdish food. This is in addition to all of the local foods we find at home.

She did say the other day, I think that my stomach is much much bigger.

Posted by Sareen | March 15, 2008 9:00 AM