Have I told you about my thesis?  No?  My goodness!

The monstrous 50 page (single spaced!) project I’ve been working on all this semester, and that I’m hoping to finish in the next two weeks so that I can get my MS next month, is titled the Food Culture Comparison.  It’s a project to help introduce Caribbean immigrants (specifically Haitian and Trinidadian) to the cuisine of New England as an attempt to keep their fruit and vegetable consumption up and keep them from falling into the common environmental hazards surrounding American diet.

Some parts of this project are easier than you might think, because there are odd links between the cuisines of Haiti, Trinidad, and New England.  For example, they have a cream of celery soup that’s very popular in Trinidad.  Doesn’t that sound so New England-y?  And codfish is very popular in Haiti, especially with a side of potatoes.

The part that has been the hardest (aside from finding English language translations of some of these recipes) is something that I’ve never really thought about before and that I’ll wager you never have either.

Here’s an example: describe poaching.  Just take a moment and think to yourself what poaching is.  Good.  Now, do the same for boiling.  Great.  Now, take the palm of your hand use it to hit your forehead when you realize that you have to explain to a group of very intelligent immigrants who nevertheless have rather low literacy levels that the only difference between these two processes is what they are allowed to apply to.

I mean, how is it possible that we have a whole separate word from boil that means “boil these specific things.”  Why did it come to be that I can boil a rutabaga, but I have to poach meat, poultry, fish, or eggs?  I’d love to explore the history of this insanity further, but I don’t have time to right now.  Why not?  Because I also need to describe simmering and blanching and parboiling and explain how they are each unique from boiling and poaching.