Food as a Language to Connect Wo

Culture is “food”, and less powerful cultures are “eaten” by those in power. Food is therefore a type of universal language through which people express themselves. In other words, food is an integral part of peoples’ identity. The author, bell hooks, tells us that eating food symbolizes culture. Furthermore, minority cultures are consumed by people with power because otherness is both romanticized and feared. With this in mind, bell hooks says, “Exploring how desire for the Other is expressed, manipulated, and transformed by encounters with difference and the different is a critical terrain that can indicate whether these potentially revolutionary longings are ever fulfilled” (367).  Through the lens of hooks, it is easy to understand the importance of food as culture as seen in Monique Truong’s The Book of Salt.This book is about a poor man named Binh, who is a gay man and cook from Vietnam. He is an immigrant who ran away from his hometown to France in search of personal identity and a better life. He feels lost in France, but food reminds Binh of his identity and home. Binh struggles with his sexuality because his dad and other people from his hometown do not approve. Even though he distances himself from this discrimination, he still feels like an outsider in France due to the language barrier. Food, however, is a form of language that connects him with the community. In terms of culture, Binh cannot speak English or French, but he uses food to communicate and express his identity through cooking. Similar to the language problem Bihn faces in The Book of Salt,  The other main character Charging Elk in James Welch’s The Heart song of Charging Elk experiences challenges with language in unfamiliar territory as well. Charging Elk is an American Indian man who joins the Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show and travels to the France. Along the way he falls off a horse and hurts himself, so he stays in the hospital can no longer travel with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. In this situation, Charging Elk finds himself alone in France without any help, and he cannot speak French or English. After leaving the hospital, life on the street becomes very difficult because he has no food, no shelter, no money, and no way to communicate to obtain any of these basic needs.

As we know, language and food play a large part in communication. All cultures have huge rich histories, and each culture has different identities. For example, people can tell from the food, and language how different people identify. All cultures have their favorite foods,which helps determine where people originate. In fact, food as a language helps people adapt to new social systems.Language is therefore the bridge that connects different nations and different cultures. In people’s daily lives, we use language every day to communicate with each other. Language is a part of culture, race, and everyday life, which makes it important to identity as well. Behind each language is acomplex history for us to learn. Language is a powerful tool to help people connect to each other, as well as to their own culture. Most of the time, however,different races have conflict with each other because they hold prejudices against each other and cannot communicate. In Monique Truong’s The Book of Salt the main character Bihn is trying to become a chef and survivor in an unfamiliar country. Binh must crossover his own Vietnamese culture to fit into the new culture of France. To adapt to French culture, he needs to learn French and English. This seems impossible,because he knows only a little French, and no English. Since cultures connect through language, he worries that without speaking the French language he will be isolated. Culture groups must find other ways to practice language if they cannot speak it in order to reduce the problems associated with lack of communication. Through food Bihn practices language to help connect his Vietnamese culture to that of France. To explain how different cultural groups see one another, bell hooks says:

"Mutual recognition of racism, its impact both on those who are dominated and those who dominate, is the only standpoint that makes possible an encounter between races that is not based on denial and fantasy. For it is the ever present reality of racist domination, of white supremacy, that renders problematic the desire of white people to have contact with the Other. Often it is this reality that is most masked when representations of contact between white and non-white, white and black, appear in mass culture "(bull hooks).

The main character Binh looks for a job as a chef in France and is grateful when two women from America give him a job to be a cook in France. He lives in Paris, but without understanding French and English language, he cannot fit into French society. Of course, without knowing French or English, finding a job in France is very difficult. Culture, language,class, gender, age and ethnicity are important aspects of people’s lives.Monique Truong’s The Book of Salt in many ways leads us to think about what life is about. From her story we can see how people from different culture groups accept each other in France. Compared to the two American ladies who live in France, the Vietnamese character Binh is more outside the system. Two Americans in France are foreign, but they can speak English and blend in. It is more difficult for the main character Binh to stay in France because more people can understand the English language than the Vietnamese language. In other words, English is more powerful in the world. Because England had so many colonies, the world has a lot of countries that speak the English. Even in France, many people still speak English. In this story two American ladies and one Vietnamese man, Binh, are all foreign people living in France, but the two American ladies can still help this Vietnamese man because they know English, which is just as prevalent of a language in France. Truong writes about the importance of language when acquiring a job by saying:

"Two American ladies “wish”? Sounds more like a proclamation than a help-wanted ad.Of course, two American ladies in Paris these days would only “wish” because to wish is to receive. To want, well, to want is just not American. I congratulate myself on this rather apt and piquant piece of social commentary. Now if only I know how to say “apt” and “piquant” in French, I could stop congratulating myself and strike up a conversation with the beau garcon sitting three park benches away. The irony of acquiring a foreign tongue is that I have amassed just enough cheap, serviceable words to fuel my desires and never, never enough lavish, imprudent ones to feed them. It is true, though, that there are some French words that I have picked up quickly,in fact, words that I cannot remember not knowing (Truong 11).

Truong writes this story to point out serious problems about race, culture, gender and class, to let readers think about “acknowledgment and exploration of racial difference can be pleasurable represents a break through, a challenge to white supremacy, to various systems of domination”(bell hooks). Her story argues race and culture to show people’s identity. In many ways her story clarifies for readers the nature of Binh’s gender identification with white culture. However, in his life Bihn always struggles to find his identity.He looks back to his youth in French-colonized Vietnam and remembers the “old man,” his dad, which always make him sad. Binh hears his dad’s voice shouting at him, even after he moves to Paris.