Welcome...and initial guidelines...

This blog will be used in the spring of 2008 by 80+ students at Drexel University to investigate the effects of Iraq on culture and the reverse. Our goal will be to better understand why the US is in Iraq, and to question whether literature can help us on this journey.

Weekly plans and other materials will always be posted in Vista, not this blog. So go to Bb Vista to get the discussion prompts and other instructions.

I intend this blog to manage our discussions and track our collective investigation.

You should have received an email from me inviting you to become a contributor to this blog. The email was sent Monday afternoon to your official Drexel email address.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Eat Cornbread - Get "Thicker"

It's actually funny. As an African American, there are a lot of foods that are staples at my family gatherings, without them, the meal isn't complete: collard/mustard greens, beef/pork ribs (depending on who is attending because there are some Muslims in my family), chicken, baked macaroni and cheese, potato salad, and cornbread amongst other various things. My grandmother grew up in Georgia for the majority of her childhood and then her family moved to New York when she was about 12, so she still holds onto many of her southern beliefs. One southern African American belief is that females who eat a lot of cornbread, being that it is a daily dinner staple, gain a lot of weight but only in the hips, thighs, chest, and butt. It's called being thick, but if a female has this body type, they are not considered obese, just 'thick in all the right places'. It's hard to describe the body type image wise, because the stomach is still slim, it's something that you would have to see in person, but its believed that it comes specific body type comes from eating the starchy, moist, buttery food. Whenever she sees one of my cousins or I reaching for seconds or third helpings of cornbread, she always says, 'now, you know what eating all that cornbread gets you, now go ahead and eat up'. I always laugh, but my grandmother is serious, but when the thought runs across my mind I always think twice about taking that second piece of cornbread from the warm pan.

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