A look into China and a San Francisco Jail

Both authors offer very different looks about the importance of meals.  O’donnell offers a look into the foods that eaten in China.  In the north beef is much more prominent while in the south seafood is more common.  Cate shows a look into how people in a San Francisco county jail eat when it is not during a meal time. 

                Cate talks about how inmates make “spreads” as a way to make life better while in jail.  Starting with a Ramen noodle base the inmates create meals from items that are available when other is not being served.  These spreads act as a way for prisoners to spice up the monotony of prison food and as a way to socialize.  While most people choose to share spreads so that they aren’t eating alone, spreads separate prisoners into different classes.  The class that is able to afford the ingredients and those who cant. 

                O’donnell starts out by explaining the differences between northern China and southern China.  She says that in the north beef is a major part of most meals.  She then relates the northern beef eating people to being socialist and not as quick witted as people from the south.  People in the south are more associated with being quick witted and capitalistic.  This can be attributed to the difficulty of catching the food.  It is easy to farm cattle because they aren’t that agile and the government supports the cattle farmers.  Fishing is different.  The fishermen would need to rely on outsmarting the fish and catching enough to eat.  The government isn’t able to supply the fisherman with extra fish if they aren’t successful.  This creates a capitalistic situation where the best fisherman catches the most fish and makes the most money and the worst fisherman makes the least.