American Literature
3-1-12
9th period
Extra Credit Essay

There are multiple influences on culture that perpetuates stereotypical “black” and “white” cultures. One of the many influences on these two cultures would have to be food. Food is a major influence because it is known amongst both cultures that only certain foods are appropriate for a culture to eat or cook in their particular group.
In the black culture the most famous of foods that they are known for is fried chicken, soul food, and watermelon. It has been known of black culture to eat majority of these foods hence the reason why they have been given the name “black people food” by the African American community themselves. With the black culture accepting this it will now be expected for the black community to eat these foods which starts to raise of yet another stereotype that all “blacks” in black cultures are the only ones to eat these foods.
White culture on the other hand is supposedly more into the disgusting and flavorless foods. According to the stereotype this is the type of food that’s accepted by the white community as “normal” because supposedly the white culture can’t cook anything good. And when we speak of flavorless foods we mean things such as caviar, spam, all types of casseroles, and basically anything canned because according to white culture they white community can’t cook.
The Media is no better than the people who accept these facts. The media is constantly showing these ideas