Gardening in NYC tells a great story through victory gardens, community gardens, and the fight to keep gardening in the city. How did gardening in NYC reflect the history of the people planting the crops and what they had gone through? How did this cultivation of land influence the development of the city?

The neighborhoods discussed, which are currently undergoing “gentrification” were not known a few years ago as even remotely upscale areas. Harlem especially, to many people, still conjures up an image of a typical low income, low class area, even though Harlem of today is moving away from that reality pretty quickly. How long do you think it will take for the reputation of the neighborhood to catch up to the reality? Do you think neighborhood reputation changes quicker or slower than does actual change in the neighborhood? Does this process depend on whether the neighborhood is gentrifying or decaying?

Question on the Reading:

On the article “New Retail Capital and Neighborhood Change: Boutiques and Gentrification in New York CIty”

How do you think residents of Harlem feel about the commercial gentrification of their neighborhood? Do you think they welcome the change or see it as a disturbance to their community? Is it possible that people of different ethnic or socioeconomic backgrounds feel differently about the commercial gentrification occurring?

As Manhattan’s Chinatown is slowly changing because of gentrifying pressures, where will its current inhabitants go? While a migration to Sunset Park or a new ethnic enclave is possible, will they migrate to Flushing and form a new, mixed Cantonese-Taiwanese neighborhood? Will a gentrified Chinatown see a rise in wealthier Chinese moving there?

Just by the title of the chapter, I knew the reading would be very familiar to me, considering I knew of the food customs of Chinese culture. It was interesting to see that it was not that familiar at all; aside from the few dishes, the evolution of many dishes and the types of dishes served at Chinese restaurants are completely different from the ones seen today. Unlike the Chinese restaurants in the past, most restaurants do not explicitly appeal to American audiences by adding steaks to the menu, but rather have Americanized dishes that Americans are used to. What struck me the most was when “family style” dinner was an individual dish for each person, rather than the traditional sharing of entrees between a family. With this in mind, where exactly does the Americanizing begin? Does it stem within the restaurants with the Americanized foods or with families in general feeling the need to assimilate?

Samantha Chiu

On page 135 of “Gastropolis” (Chow Fun City, chapter 8), it is stated that in the late 1800s, the Chinese were prejudiced against by European immigrants in the U.S who took the Chinese cuisine as repulsive. However, the actions of the Chinese immigrants that seemed to repulse Americans were the actions of the Americans just 50 years earlier. Also, any odors noted of the Chinese cuisine could be equivocated to odors of other nationalities. The Chinese immigrating at that time were prejudiced against even though they did the same as immigrants before them; is this because the Chinese were “new” and the “old” immigrants needed a group to dislike? Also, are Chinese immigrants still a group to dislike although they are no longer the “new” immigrants? If not, which group (or groups) is the current group (or groups) to dislike by “old” immigrants?

Lisa Heldkes states that there is no cuisine that’s “untouched by ‘foreign influence,'”. Yet people seek food that’s “authentic.” Heldkes urges the reader to redefine “authenticity” as  a transaction between the dish and  the eater. How can we avoid this dogma of cross-cultural food as being unauthentic?