At the very beginning of the "Eating White", Nicholson directly wrote that he missed his mother when he was eating lunch, because the meal he was eating consisted of a cheese sandwich, made with white Cheshire cheese on white bread, along with a glass of milk. These pure white food is exactly what his mother would like to eat. Nicholson stated that his mother had a strong preference for pure white food, such as milk, cream, Cheshire cheese. She even added milk and cream when she was cooking vegetables and making desserts. The author thought the reason that his mother had such crush on white food is just its pure color. Because she was a catholic, and "she might made some connection between food and purity: white food meant a white soul." Nicholson recalled a lot about the memories that his mom cooked for him and his father, and the days with his mom. Obviously, the author talked these memories in order to express his love and respect to his mother.
In terms of the "Home Run: My Journey Back to Korean Food", Ahn introduced his childhood and the life when he was teenager. His parents took him to America from Korean when he was four. His parents seem not to get used to American life, especially American food. However, as a person who had been taken to American when he was a kid, Ahn indeed got involved in American life. For instance, comparing to Korean food, he preferred American food. But he realized that he was gradually losing his national features and forgetting his Korean background; he felt that he lost his ethnic root. So at the end of this article, the author mentioned that he and his wife started to cook Korean food, learn Korean and were trying their best to offer a sufficient Korean background for their child. I think that the memories of those days the author spent with his parents and these Korean food the author talked about are both representation of Korea and the author's national root.
In fact, I also have similar feelings with Nicholson and Ahn sometimes. For example, on Chinese new year eve this year, the downstairs dining hall of our residence hall had a celebration dinner. I still remembered the moment I bit the dumplings, I felt excited, sad and lonely. Cause I indeed ate traditional dumplings as most Chinese eat on our new year eve, which made me excited; meanwhile, I was thinking that my whole family probably were gathering together and celebrating the new year but except me. So I also felt sad and lonely.
