Have you ever had food so good that you can still taste it on the tip of your tongue and still feel your stomach rumble just at the smell? Cause I have. The food that I eat, is what makes me and is crucial to defining who I am. Food can be an awesome way of evaluating who you are and the characteristics you have acquired as a result of your geography.

I find it fascinating that people rarely think about the food they are eating. Not for it's ability to fill you up or for it's lack of meat or if it is USDA approved; I'm talking about experiencing the food that you eat and recognizing the flavor, art and history that is stacked behind it. Traditionally, almost all food in the U.S. can essentially be traced back to three groups of people: Native Americans, European Americans and African Americans. Today, food is not just sustenance and a way to survive, it is an experience that everyone has both individually and together that can make or break a person, nation or entire culture. Instead of giving in to the struggles they faced, people adapted to their unique situations and gave us the foods we know today in new and rethought combinations.

I love fried chicken as much as the next person, but what I have never even considered is how fried chicken varies from place to place, the origin and more importantly the way that it has affected me. I have lived all over the East Coast of the U.S., but I consider North Carolina my home, and the diversity of food is often mind-boggling. All of the Southern dishes that I love, I was introduced to simply because of where I call home: rural Johnston County. Southern style food is the "when you are sad and need a warm belly" food, and it is also the "barbeque out back with a lemonade in your hand" kind of food.

I love biscuits and gravy, Eastern barbeque, homemade chowders, and pies; the list goes on and on, but I was also raised in an Italian household where different kinds of pasta and traditional dishes were what was for dinner at least three times a week. Peas and macaroni, steak pizzaiola and homemade spaghetti and meatballs are some of my comfort foods, the foods that tell me "I'm home." Garlic bread and the cheese that you eat with wine are all staples that come from my dark skin and hair, green eyes and the coasts of Italy I hope to see one day.

But, we also used to live in Florida and Charleston, South Carolina. The biggest thing that I took with me from these places is my love of seafood and anything that reminds me of the sea. Here, oysters and clams, shrimp and crab and calamari and tilapia, all come together into one big boiling pot and are reminiscent of sitting out at the beach and eating ice cream while trying to catch crabs that scuttle along in the tide pools, skin turned a glowing brown and the warmth of the sun. The memories that are ingrained in my mind, are only sustained so vividly, because of the food attached to it. The functions of food are so crucial to the human experience, that the ability to maintain and have food, are what shaped the world today.

In all of these foods that I mentioned above, I have drawn from all three major groups of contributing ethnicities: African Americans, European Americans and Native Americans. It is nearly impossible to sample one descended ethnic food, without, in turn, experiencing them all here in America. As a melting pot country, food plays a large part in each succeeding generation, and as a result, each comes up with a revitalized version of an old tradition. Take chicken and waffles for example. But in all this, the food certainly has a large impact on who you are and where you have been. I would consider food a cultural artifact that not only defines the individual but the whole as well and tells both the origin story and the evolution of humankind.