Cate and O'Donnell Readings

          There's a saying that goes, "one man's trash is another man's treasure," the meaning being that what one person may consider invaluable or distasteful, another may consider useful or perfect.  Sandra Cate and Mary Anne O'Donnell both speak to this old saying with their recounts of their experiences.  Cate spent time talking to many prison inmates about special prison foods they call spreads, while O'Donnell addressed cultural and social changes in China by learning about different eating habits in different regions.  

           I found Cate's writings about prison spreads to be very compelling.  She explains how many inmates have certain snack-type foods they can purchase in prison and how some of them learn to combine them in special ways to make what is considered a prison delicacy.  Generally, the spreads are based around ramen noodles, a food us college college students regard as a rather low-quality dorm room necessity, and incorporate such things like crushed red hot Cheetos for spicy flavor, or chili beans that they purchase from the jail.  Inmates make the most of what they are allowed by inventing these culinary masterpieces out of what most people on the outside would consider junk or cheap food.  They do this for lack of resources, but in China, O'Donnell learned that the differences in what is considered good food lie more with cultural necessity rather than a simple deprivation of supplies.

           In China, explains O'Donnell, people in southern provinces, many people ate fish often because it was readily available, whereas in northern provinces, beef was a much more common meat to have at a meal.  This is due to the fact that cattle graze on the flat plains of northern China and are therefore not available in the south.  Because of this, Chinese southerners had to become wily, cunning, and quick to catch the fish that would be served on their plates.  Shenzhen, a booming city in China's south, is home to a capitalist revolution, regarded as being fairly corrupt by many Chinese socialists.  The fish, readily consumed in this southern region, is not held in high regard by many people that live in northern China, because they see it as a symbol for the corruption and trickery that is constantly going on in Shenzhen.  This is another situation where a certain culture may have disdain for another culture, simply because the second one relishes a food that the first finds distasteful.

           Both accounts were wildly different in their subject, but achieved a similar result.  They explained a cultural/situational difference that could have been seen as being bad or unfavorable, and brought to light the significance and value that would otherwise be overlooked.