Breaking Bread: Recipes and Stories from Immigrant Kitchens by Lynne Christy Anderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I was mostly interested in the story told by the immigrant from Italy, and I was not disappointed. The woman’s words were very compelling to me. She talked about the difference between growing up in Italian culture, as she did, and growing up in American culture. She talks about American society as linear, and Italian society as more disorganized, messy. She concludes that this affects our neurological development. The example is shopping in supermarkets here that are laid out neatly in lines, and shopping for food in the Italian outdoor markets that are like noisy mazes. She feels that she, who grew up in Italy, has had a great benefit to her cognition that her son, who is growing up here, has not. She longs to take him to Italy. It made me long to go there too. This chapter alone made the book completely wonderful and worth reading for me. It essentially gave me a perspective on growth and development that I had never thought of before. Check this book out. Find YOUR chapter.