Edible story group discussion

We think that the main character Robert was hit in the head and that is how he lost his memory and his sense of taste and smell.Aguesia is the lost of taste and anosmia is the loss of the sense of smell. The main character in the book has this, he loses his job and he becomes a food critic. He is losing feelings for his wife and she him. 

Then there are fitness freaks who are obsessed with muffins with a substance in them. They created a muffin club that are obsessed with losing weight. 

 There is a politician that leaves his fiance who is a mexican woman whose slow cooking apparently holds him hostage from his politics. -- He had sex with her and she will not let him leave until he has tried menudo which is a soup that takes a long time to cook. 

There is a couple who have very different food tastes -- he likes fancy things, and she like beer and hot dogs. They are very in love but it seems to bother Emma that she has a different food taste than Howard. 

There is a woman that is afraid of cremes brulees and she thinks that everyone in the world is trying to poison her with them. 

Edible stories

When I started off reading the book Edible Stories by Mark Kurlansky I felt very lost and found it hard to get into. When reading the first 50 pages I felt that they weren't connected in a way. I think that the "novel in 16 parts" is a lose way to tie a bunch of different stories together very loosely. The common theme through the first 50 pages was food, as it should be seeing as we are in a food related class. The main character is Robert. In the first few pages of the book they explain that Robert has lost his memory and wakes up with his foot in a hole. He also lost his sense of smell and sense of taste. I could not imagine losing my sense of smell and taste, I love food so much. I mentioned the large relationship with food in my first blog post. When he works on retaining his memory and making a life for himself, he decides to be a food critic, and everyone values his opinion. How would they value his opinion because he can't taste the food that he is eating. This seems to confuse me.
In another chapter there is a woman who is dating a man who  is seemingly perfect for her. The only problem is that this man loves fancy food, while she would prefer to have a hot dog and a beer. I do see why this can be a problem because this would make it hard for th
em to go on dates to get food. I think that to some people this difference wouldn't be a huge deal. Yet if you have a large love of food then it will be very hard for you to share something that you love with someone who doesn't understand why you love it.
I think the book can get better but I am not sure if I like it or not yet.

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games.... where do I begin? Katniss, the narrator, the main character, when she describes herself to us through the book you can't help but root for her. Although as a class we discussed that we knew she was going to be in the hunger games. I find it interesting that as readers we can't help but root for her, but through the whole story Haymitch is telling her that she needs to be personable for people to root for her. The idea of having the hunger games is just awful to me, is man that self centered that they cannot remember a war, or what happened to district 13? That is like forgetting what happened in World War 2! Forgetting what we did and the things that happened to people. The hunger games is supposed to symbolize everyone fighting against each other and that no matter what almost everyone dies. Katniss Everdeen decides that in the end she can go against the system in the hunger games, which are set up by the capitol. There is usually only one winner in the hunger games and it goes to those who have trained their whole lives for this. This would symbolize those countries that work all their lives to be warriors. To me this takes you back to Athens and Sparta, where they trained boys all their lives to be warriors. This was thrown out because this didn't work, so why would we bring this type of society back to districts. In the end Katniss will throw off the system by trying to save not only herself but the boy from her district as well. No one in the history of the hunger games has shown compassion, it is because so many are trained to kill. To the capitol this is not seen as an act of compassion, it is seen as an act of defiance. 

To me this one act of compassion inspires people. It obviously is going to inspire people. People are sick of watching people they know die at the hands of the capitol. This act of compassion shows just how wrong the capitol has been. They see that this is used as a tool to keep the down in fear of the capitol.