The Diversity of Food

What do we, as American college students, know about the world? To be honest, we do not know much even though we are Macaulay students. Most of us would not be able to point out Armenia on a world map, much less talk about the traditions and culture of the people there. Living in New York City opens up many doors to diversity and learning about different cultures in the world. My high school recognizes the importance of diversity and places great emphasis and effort on events that promote it. One such event is the International Food Festival that is held annually in the cafeteria after school hours.

I attended the food festival for the first time during my sophomore year. The only reason I went was because my Russian foreign language teacher mandated the class to bring a dish and contribute to the festival. Most of us had no idea what to bring in and she had to help those unfortunate enough to be unfamiliar with their culture’s cuisine. I, being of Armenian descent, knew exactly what cultural dish I would bring – dolma.


Image adopted from http://kronbergskrattarochler.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/dolma.jpg

I arrive at school the day of the food festival with the dolma cooked by my grandma. The time has come to bring all the food into the cafeteria and eat to our hearts’ content. I enter the cafeteria and my sense of smell goes crazy. Everything ranging from avocado to zucchini fills my nose and the feeling is nothing short of overwhelming. For the next hour or so, I walk around the gigantic, but crowded, room with my friends and go to each table and ask them “what’s this?” There were approximately forty tables representing countless different cultures and each group spent a minute or so happily talking about the food they brought in to people who they have never met or seen before.

I think that was the first time in my life that I really understood what the value of diversity is. There were probably more than sixty people representing the different cultures in that cafeteria and we were all unified by one thing in those few hours – food. Something as simple as food brought us together and left a huge imprint on me. The thought of being brought so close to other people through something as common as the food we eat really inspired and changed me to admire and connect better with people of different ethnicities. Now, whenever I go out to eat, I always try to go for something new and cultural – whether it is the Halal food on the corner of 25th and Lexington, the Chinese restaurant on 23rd, or Mike’s Due Pizza down the block from the Vertical Campus.