Week 6 Progress and Current Event

This week I have continued my research on food inn other spanish speaking countries and I have researched Peru and Honduras. For Peru, I found out that their staple ingredients are corn, potatoes, amaranthaceaes, and legumes, which are beans. The Peruvian cuisine incorporates both ore inca and Inca ingredients, but mainly it's country cuisine is set apart by thee geographically different parts. the three parts are; the jungle, the Andean highlands, and the coast. Though, each Peru region has it's own special dishes based on it's culture background and location and weather. As far as Hinduras, the main ingredients are rice, beans, and tortillas. The main dish for the morning is called the "baliada", and is a tortilla with beans and sour cream, and sometimes vegetables. The afternoon dish is called the "pastelito", which is also a tortilla, but with chicken or beef, and spices, and then it is deep-fried. 

My current event this week is from the country of Peru, and is debating the issue of eating cuy, which is a guinea pig, and they also have a festival for the creature before they eat it. The article is mainly about why certain animals should not be eaten in countries, and how it making many species become extinct, because of illegally killing them and trading the meat. This relates to my topic because it talking about Peru having the odd delicacy of guinea pig, but also about it’s festival for the animal, and how other countries use odd meats too

Current Event   <------ website link

Peru resource:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peruvian_cuisine
http://www.limaeasy.com/peruvian-food-guide

Honduras resource:
http://www.honduras.com/foods/

Week 5- Progress and Current Event

This week, I have been very successful I continued my research with the countries of Guatemala, and Costa Rica. I found out that in Guatemala, the foods are heavily influenced by the Mayan culture. Their main ingredients are corn, rice, beans, and tortillas. The foods in Costa Rica also have the same staple ingredients as Guatemala, such as black beans and rice. Their main, and standard dish is called the comida tipica. A difference in the Costa Rica cuisine though, is that they focus on healthy foods, like fruits and vegetables as part of main ingredients. Also, this week I have heard back from my spanish contacts! I have talked to Ana Marin, Estela Gomes, and Beatriz Cenci. They have all helped a lot with my research and projects by telling me about the food where they live or have lived in the past.  My current event this week is about how Mexico City just made the largest enchilada, and they celebrated it at the second Enchilada Gastronomy Festival. The new enchilada was measured to be 85 meters long! They wanted this to boost the economy and promote family life. This relates to my topic because I like hearing about how the other countries incorporate food into their many traditions and festivals.

My current event also provided a video: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11063786/Mexico-City-makes-biggest-enchilada.html

And here are some of the websites that I learned about Guatemala and Costa Rica foods!

http://gocentralamerica.about.com/od/guatemalaguide/p/Guatemala_Food.htm

http://www.frommers.com/destinations/guatemala/274604

http://www.vivacostarica.com/costa-rica-information/costa-rica-food.html

Week 4 and Current Event

This week for my project I was very successful I found spanish contacts I can contact, and researched other countries. I researched this week, more on Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela. In Colombia I found out that they deep fry most of their food, and their popular foods are meat. rice, and beans. One of their popular dishes is Ajiaco, which is a potato based soup that also has shredded chicken, corn, and cream. In Venezuela I found out that their food is very tropical, and has European influences. I think this week I have managed my time better, and found a lot more research than I have in past weeks. My current event this week comes from Venezuela. It is about the president, Nicolas Maduro, wanting to have a specific office to oversee food distribution out of the country. The goal of this project is to cut down on price speculators, and smugglers. Another goal of this is to have a more efficient system of distributing food. The country hopes that this will raise their distribution from 130,000 tons to 200,000 tons a year. The other purpose of this is to influence government decisions from a more rural agriculture perspective. Next week, I hope to finish researching my countries and hear back from my contacts so that I can start putting together a final presentation and cooking some of the meals I have lean red about through my research. 

Current event: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Venezuela-Revamps-Government-Responses-to-Agricultural-Development--20140907-0026.html

TED talk- public speaking

For my TED talk I watched a speech by Jarrett J. Krosoczka, about why lunch ladies are heroes. In wikipedia's definition of public speaking it says "….Intended to inform, influence, or entertain a listening audience…." Jarrett did a good job of all three of these key points. He informed the audience about his book series, entertained the audience with personal stories, and influenced the audience and changed the way they look at lunch ladies. Another thing wikipedia says about public speaking is that you should incorporate hand gestures, humor, eye contact, and visual aids. Jarrett exceeded in all of these areas, and another plus of his presentation was that he was never mono-toned he kept a steady and constant voice but always kept the audience interested.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jarrett_krosoczka_why_lunch_ladies_are_heroes

Week 3- Progress

This week in spanish culture, I have got a lot accomplished. I have researched Mexico and did more additional research on Argentina. I also made a poster for my pitch that I will be presenting tomorrow. I selected the countries I know I want to research so my use of time is much more efficient. Now that I have chosen the group of spanish speaking countries to research I will be able to focus more time on the research rather than thinking about what to do next, and the next step. The countries I have chosen are Mexico, Spain, Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Peru. This week I have not learned anything new about myself besides the fact that I need to have better time management, which I have known for a while. Next week, I want to further my research and hope to research at least three or four more countries. These are some the websites I have visited so far:

www.everyculture.com

www.foodbycountry.com

www.facts-about-mexico.com

Week Two Progress

This week I continued with my progress on my project and continued with my note taking. So far I have researched Argentina and Spain to find out their cuisine types and what their typical ingredients are when making traditional dishes. As far as learning about my myself I learned that I need to start managing my time a little better, and making myself due the work periodically instead of waiting until the last minute. For next week, I want to continue my research and try and get more contacts for my project so I can have input from people who actually cook these types of food, so I will have other information other than what I can fin on the internet. 

About my 20% project- Week 1

I have decided to focus my 20% project on the cuisine of other spanish speaking cultures. I’m not just going to focus on food itself, but more on how the other countries prepare their food differently than Americans, and what other different ingredients they use that might be specific to their country or region. This topic isn’t necessarily important to me, but it is something that I would generally like to know more about. I like knowing the food culture of other countries and how they differ from our own, I feel as though our country eats a lot of other types of foods but we never know anything about the foods so we can never really appreciate them. My goals for this project are to expand my knowledge about other country’s food customs so that I can appreciate the culture more. My other overall goal is to teach everyone else in the class about what I have learned so that they may learn the differences too, and be more understanding about the culture. I will be measuring my progress by writing down my information in my composition notebook, writing these blogs about what I have learned or achieved in the past days or weeks, and making deadlines for myself so I have a definite schedule of when I need to complete my work. So far in this project, I have only completed learning about one country, Spain, but I really want to learn about as many of the spanish speaking countries that I can so that I can not only see the differences between them and America but also see the differences between the many spanish speaking countries.