The European immigrants had spread out on the tiny land of Manhattan, the better-off living in uptown and Lower East Side being the symbol of the poor yet serving also as the place where traditional culture thrived. Seeing as how uptown visitors came to the Lower East Side to intake either their own traditional foods or try new cuisines, I wonder what would have happened to the culinary map of Manhattan had there been no transportations available between the uptown and the downtown. Without carriages and even subways later on, would food still have traveled the same way as the present day?

As I was reading Chapter 4 of Eat the City, I could not help but reflect on how rightfully we think of the presence and use of sugar in modern society. Our mentality is that sugar is a staple in virtually every meal we consume, whether it is available in a container on our tables or already added into our food. From the perspective of laborers who toiled their childhood and even adulthood away to produce sugar, the refined crystals are result of their sweat and tears that do not affect their profit much.

I wonder how the lack of return from working for sugar companies affected the mindset of the laborers, particularly those from Central America, regarding the food that the rich ate, adorned with sugar, and the food that they themselves ate, more likely with less sugar.