Edgar D Campos Castro

English 21002

December 9th, 2024

Peer Profile Essay

For the love of food

 

Redwan, who is a fellow classmate, ended up as my partner by mere coincidence since partners were chosen by random. While we meant i did realize he is about the same height as but needless to say i don’t even know my own height since I feel like my height has always been different and i was never able to get an actual definite answer. However, during are conversation i did learn a few things some of which that he watches football but not american football real football or what they call it in america soccer, and his favorite team happens to be real madrid and if i do say so myself that right there was a red flag if i’m being honest since i never like real madrid like that as a team but it was nice to know that there was a fellow peer who shares the same love for the sport. I was also able to learn of his obsession that we chose which happened to be food, and honestly speaking that was very surprising since looking at him he didn’t seem like the type of person to like food because compared to me he actually is skinny and i can tell that he probably balances out what he eats or when he eats and maybe even how which could mean the way food is prepared or if he has a schedule depending on what is eaten one day and what is eaten on the other day. When we started working on the paper officially I did feel like on both sides there was some lack of communication since we didn’t really do the interview as fast we should have or as soon and the way the interview happened is actually funny for me.

When the day come for the interview, it was actually a full free day of school for me but without my knowledge because technically speaking, it was a monday and on that day i didn’t have a class in the morning and i also didn’t have english that day either but i didn’t know but the day prior Redwan tells me we’re gonna have the interview during class which i found kind of odd since i believed we had class, when i got to school for class I recall seeing  Redwan outside the class and me being confused i go up to him to see what going on and he informs me that there was no class today and i just look at him with disbelief but also with respect because if he said there wasn’t class i probably wasn’t gonna go and i would have missed the interview and that would’ve been on me of course and once I sat down the interview had finally started.

When the interview started,he joking said that he was muhammad ali which I of course found a hysterical because it was a funny thing to say out of the blue and to match that energy i of course said i was a massive fan, but the first question i had asked him honestly was pretty basic but it was more to get like a standpoint on where he was with food and that was “ what foods you would say you are most obsessed with?” When i asked this question i was kind of already expecting i got which was like he likes pretty much all foods like tacos, empanadas, rice, chicken and it kept going but what he did wanna specify is that he doesn’t like moroccan or egyptian food which did come to shock not because of what he didn’t like but of the fact that it was as a whole that it was something he didn’t like and i’m not gonna say i dont hate things cause i do like ketchup for example i can’t stand it but i love tomato sauce, but i always felt like there has to be on thing from every culture that’s good but for me to hear that it was something and very interesting to know because i did regret not asking more question on why or what is it that, he doesn’t like about their type of foods you know. However, we did move from there since it was meant to be a straightforward answer that I was gonna get, which then brought me to my next question which was” Are there certain food cultures that you are disgusted by?” When I asked this question I 100 percent thought that he was gonna speak about the hatred he has for the food in morocco or even egypt but the answer i got was “ bugs”. He stated the he hated the idea of certain food cultures eating bugs and how he found the idea of that disgusting  and it was a funny thing to hear cause in my culture and me being mexican there is a dish that i honestly forgot the name of the whole thing but it’s pretty much crickets and i find them pretty tasty since they have this like sour/sweet taste and i started laughing after witnessing his face since i could tell he was disgusted by that but i also wonder what would’ve happened if he gave bugs a try like would the hatred go or would he actually start to love it instead but that is something that we can’t know for sure. However, he did mention one other thing that also made sense to me was that he would eat animals that just sounded messed up and by that he meant domesticated animals like dogs, cats, guinea pigs, and etc but for him it just eating the more common animals like chickens, cows , pigs and etc. After we talked about this and had a few laughs here and there about the whole idea of the conception of bugs and not eating of domestic animals i asked him” does your mood determine what you eat.” and the reason I asked this question because all over  the world we see this constant idea that when your in your feels like all sad and depressed you start to eat ice cream and when your all happy you go out for drinks and steak and stuff like that but what i learned from him is that this isn’t how he acts and the best way to describe it is that he specifically said “ when i’m mad and annoyed i want something sweet” which does make sense i feel like i also for this in my angry days but he also states that in a general sense the wayne determines what he eats is first by just what he is feeling that day but he also tries to change it up since he says that if he had that food already he wouldn’t want to eat that food again the day after. Which might I add is nothing like me at all. I usually on  a daily basis always eat the same thing if there is still left, like breaded chicken with mashed potatoes. If I wanted to, I’d eat that every single day in my opinion. After this whole conversation though I then asked him” are you protective about your food?” when i did ask him this question he was a little confused on what i meant by “protective” so i pretty much was telling him like do you like it when people just take your food from your plate without asking and etc because i know a lot of people who find it annoying when people are always wanting to just take your food or always asking to try even though they have their own food and i’m one of those people, however Redwan isn’t he actually doesn’t mind giving them food since he loves the idea of sharing which is a beautiful trait to have, but he does understands everyones ick on the situation because there could be germs on people’s hands or what not but for him as a person he does the idea of sharing and being able to i guess build a relationship with said people. I also ask him about his journey with fasting since i know that in his culture fasting is a thing you do and he was telling how amazing it feels and how it just makes you feel good and, i could tell from the way he was talking about it, that fasting is a good thing to implement i would say because he even told how i could start and he was saying how water could be start and also with a schedule tithing where if you eat at 6:00 am, you don’t eat anything until 6:00 pm and it was to a point where i was actually considering doing it since it felt like something that could help as well in ways that I can’t do on my own.

Moving on from that, that since we did venture off into a different topic after that, i asked if there is any value in the food he eats and he straight up looked at me and went “ hmmm..NO” and that honestly made us laugh cause it was such a nonchalant response that i wasn’t expecting but he also didi explain that he doesn’t see like food in that way and it was more just for him to enjoy and not think about anyone else in that moment. Honestly it just sounds like they needed to have their one-on -one in this scenario since food is a very important thing and I would know when it comes to food I also gotta be locked in and focused since I can’t be distracted out here. The next question looking back at it now seems like a throw away at this point since it was about table manners and not more on his obsession of food but he did give an answer and he did state that” just don’t eat with your mouth open, cause it makes you look like a pig,” and hearing that makes sense since you should be respectful at the table. When i started getting down to my last few questions i started to pick out a few things and i leonard that even if his obsession is food he doesn’t really have a different on food since it feels as though he’s like everyone else who likes food, which of course is okay but i was honestly expecting something more of course and if anything it actually sounds like i was more obsessed cause of that whole protective thing. The second to last question I asked was “ do you prefer home cooked food or outside food like deli’s , restaurant etc?” He answered saying” oh 100 percent outside foodside food since I can get some high quality food that I can’t get at home.”  This was a bit hysterical since for a long time i felt the same way but recently i felt more in tune with home cooked meal and he did make sure to let me know that he does like having a nice home cooked meal but he chose outside food more because it allows him to get more of a variety that he believes he can’t get from anywhere else. This next question is a close relation to food in many ways and it was about vegetarians. Everyone knows what it means to be vegan, it’s pretty much the elimination of consuming food that includes animals, and it’s not for everyone of course and those who choose to be vegan of course are open to be what they are and to eat what they want but is that it? So I asked him” what is your opinion on vegans?” he goes on to tell that eh does respect what they are doing since they are doing something that they believe in but he f course goes to say that it’s something that he could never do began for him it will take away form all the delicious things that he likes and it’s something that he could never stop eating and i’m in the same boat as that ngl. However he did mention one more extra detail about something he hated about vegans and its when vegans try to push their beliefs onto other people, i did ask him to clarify more and he was talking about when they say “oh that eat that, your hurting the animals,” and he then went on to say” sometimes i wish i could just say shut up,” and we both just started to laugh.

It was fun learning new things about Redwans. Looking back there was something that I wished I could’ve changed or maybe even built on more like about his hatred when it comes to Moroccan and egyptian food. Right as we were ending i asked him if his obsession would still be as strong as it was before and he said “ i can’t be for certain because of outside factors that could come into play, but if it’s all on me it wouldn’t,” and i was expecting something like that since i feel the same way for most things.