In this week’s assignment we were to come up with a food we feel an affiliation to in terms of identity. When talking about identity, it really is a very broad term that can encompass anything from generation to class, and from national identity to ethnicity. I started thinking about the foods I consume, and if there’s anything special about them.
I like wine. In my food profile I attempted to find out where wine came from, and how it evolved over the years. Wine plays a very significant role in society today that has been passed on from generation to generation. It is perhaps the oldest alcoholic drink out there! As I also mentioned in the food profile, wine was consumed by certain classes (noble and merchant classes). I think that today this still applies. Although a product like wine today is more accessible for people, and wine can be bought in different price ranges, I think that wine is still consumed in large numbers by middle and upper classes. At the least, wine is considered a “classy” drink, something that is consumed at dinner parties. And, of course, there are the wine tasting events, special wine bars, etc. that really showcase what this drink is capable of. Wine has grown more popular, it seems. Or perhaps it has only occurred in the Washington region where I am able to witness what is happening in the industry… Whatever the case may be, wine is a versatile product that can be linked to identity in quite a number of ways. To me personally, it’s a way to identify myself with Washington state wine. I have a pride in where I live, and I want to learn as much about it as I can. Given that the wine industry is prevalent here, it is a major part of the state, and my life. So perhaps it is not a national identity, but more of a local identity.
Wine also brings back so many memories for me. I still remember one time when I was visiting my mom in Germany, where she lives, and we were having a glass of wine with dinner. I was maybe 10 years old at the time, and I always found it exciting to drink with her. She opened a bottle of German red wine, and started pouring. The word for “red” in German is “rot,” and “rot” in turn is a Dutch word for “bad” or “rotten.” Given my limited knowledge of the German language at the time, I remember asking my mom why they would put “bad wine” on a bottle, and I wondered who would actually buy that… (aside from my mom, of course…) 
My mom introduced me to wine, so she essentially passed on her enthusiasm for the drink to me, which I can hopefully do one day for my own kids.
