McAllester, Pollan becoming clearer to me...

As luck would have it, this break the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha happened to fall on Friday, just a day after Thanksgiving Eve. Unfortunately, being away from my family this time, it was never going to be a particularly fun event. In any case, this is what I did on that day:

Eid al-Adha is essentially a festival that occurs on the 10th day of the month of Dhul Hijjah of the Muslim calendar, as a commemoration of the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God. It also marks the end of of the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca (the Hajj). Traditionally, the prayers are followed by an animal sacrifice, usually a goat, sheep, cow or camel and ritual charity.

Kaifi (a good friend of mine) picked me up at around 8 in the morning and took me to the mosque in order for me to offer the special Eid prayers. We drove around downtown Atlanta (which was very beautifully decorated) and visited a couple of places. For lunch, we had some traditional lamb stew and vermicelli, which reminded me painfully of what I was missing back home with my family. For the first time since I came here, I felt an aching, burning feeling to go home.

I guess it could have been 'delayed homesickness', but I think it was just the association we have of culture and "mom" (using Pollan's terminology here) with food. We've touched upon this in class, but the magnitude of food's association with culture and family is only becoming clear to me now. I did not believe in the ability of food to evoke such a strong response in me until now, especially since I'm away from home. McAllester and Pollan were right all along: they capture the essence of our association of food with culture and family through their personal experiences and research. I feel it's not something we give enough credit to, as a society.

I don't know if you guys will be able to relate: maybe if you had your Thanksgiving dinner alone in say, Kuwait, you would find yourself inexplicably thinking of home.