eat your roots

So I am about to attend my first Christmas party of the season in the Center for International Education at Loyola, where we will congregate with the international students. After reading Bayou Farewell, in which the Vietnamese crabber shares with Mike Tidwell Vietnamese gumbo, or "sour soup" according to Tien, I was reminded how different cultures have their own variations on the same dishes, perhaps related to what kinds of foods were most accessible to them in their region and they are therefore accustomed to eating (culture derivative of place/the land), as well as how different cultures celebrate the same holidays with different traditional dishes. Here are some variations of "Christmas food."

http://www.ivillage.com/christmas-foods-around-world/3-b-301021

I will be spending my Christmas in Puerto Rico visiting and friend and staying with his family, and am excited to experience the new foods and customs of a Puerto Rican Christmas. I found this website that gives an overview of some of these practices:

http://www.elboricua.com/pr_christmas.html

and also found this:

Eat Your Grapes New Year's Eve in Puerto Rico is appropriately called Año Viejo, or "Old Year," and it's a fun time to be outside; fireworks, honking cars, and the cacophony of celebration can be heard everywhere. At the stroke of midnight, local tradition demands that you eat 12 grapes for luck. You'll also find some people sprinkling sugar outside their house for good luck or throwing a bucket of water out the window to expel all the negatives of the old year and get ready for a fresh start.

I could not find the history behind the grapes practice, and was wondering why they had chosen that particular food to symbolize luck. Speculatively, perhaps grapes were associated with the wealthy and upper classes (image of royal prince being fed grapes and fanned with palm leaves) and therefore good fortune. I think its interesting when you look into the history of food, and how the eating of a food at a specific moment in history could have been the "last resort food" of an oppressed group of people, but has carried through today to be a preferred food that allows one to identify with a culture, however conscious or unaware of its origin. Another example I can think of off the top of my head is the infamous PoBoy, which came out of a national transit worker's strike that included New Orleans in 1929. Two brothers that were former streetcar conductors until they opened a restaurant and coffee stand showed their solidarity to the workers ("poor boys") by handing out these sandwiches, which featured a new modified size of French bread. And it stuck.

http://www.poboyfest.com/history

So for this holiday season, I wouldn't say we should necessarily throw the Food Rules out the window, but perhaps lean a bit more heavily on the "exception" rule, and hopefully easily fulfill the not-eating-alone-rule. We don't want to miss out on the bonding that happens over food, and the rich cultural history that our most common plates may inconspicuously suggest. I say know a thing or two about what you are eating and why, and dig in.
Cheers.