Writing Prompts About Food, Family and Culture

When you think of your cultural or familial traditions, do you think of food? The meals that are part of your holiday celebrations? The special dishes your parents or grandparents have prepared for you? The flavors that remind you of who you are and where you’re from?

Why does food mean so much to us? Here is what one student had to say:

I think cultural food symbolizes identity and culture. Especially with immigrant families, recipes that have been passed down through generations have symbolized a taste of home. I am a first generation American and the majority of my extended family lives 3,000 miles away. The thought of an Irish shepherd’s pie makes me feel safe and nostalgic, reflecting on memories of spending time with my grandparents. Cultural food is a reminder that wherever you go your identity and values follow. — Ella, W.T. Clarke High School, Westbury, N.Y.

How do you celebrate, honor and remember your culture and family through food?

Below, we’ve compiled questions that we’ve published over the years in our writing prompts column to encourage you to reflect on and explore your own food traditions and memories. Use them as writing prompts or as conversation starters.

The links will take you to the original prompts, which include a New York Times article, essay or photo that inspired the question, as well as a comments section in which teenagers from around the world share the foods and traditions that are most meaningful to them.

Food culture, of course, starts in our own families, at our own dinner tables. What is dinnertime like in your household? With this prompt, explore a typical weeknight dinner for 18 families around the world and then tell us about your family’s usual dinner.

Or, in this one, share the most popular dishes you eat at home. Daniel, from Poly High School, says tacos de chorizo is at the top of his family’s list because “it’s something that we grew up with and it’s one of the few foods that everyone in my household loves.”

2. How Is Food a Part of Your Holiday or Cultural Celebrations?

What special cultural or holiday traditions do you have that involve food? On Lunar New Year, for example, people eat and give fruit as a symbol of luck and prosperity. For Ramadan, Muslims around the world fast, eating each evening after the sun sets and squeezing in a predawn meal before it rises again.

Share how food is a part of a holiday your family or community celebrates.

3. What Foods Remind You of Where You Come From?

Are there foods, that, every time you smell, see or taste them, immediately remind you of someone or some place close to your heart?

In this essay, for example, a writer shares how making chickpeas and spinach, or revithia me spanaki, reminds him of his Greek father. And in this piece, a journalist who is Syrian but grew up in the United States writes about what Syrian food means to her.

What foods remind you of the people and places you come from? How does making and eating these dishes help you connect to and preserve your heritage?

Food heritage can be found not only in what we eat but also in how we make it. For example, the smoking method pictured above is one technique that Indigenous cooks and scholars in Canada are reclaiming and popularizing as part of a growing culinary affirmation of identity.

Are there certain types of foods or ways of preparing meals that are specific to your family’s way of life or culture? What does participating in these traditions mean to you?

5. Who Are the Notable Cooks in Your Family?

“The notable cook in my extended family would be my Aunt Tracy,” Chloe from Chicago writes. “I grew up doing homework in her kitchen after school. She would always be making something that made you drool, and have your senses crave it.”

Who are the best chefs in your family? What are your favorite dishes of theirs? What memories do you have of eating the food they make?

Does your culture, religion or family have any rules around food? For example, do you keep kosher or eat halal? Are you vegetarian? Or, is meat so central to your diet and traditions that you would have a hard time giving it up?

Share how your culture influences the way that you eat and whether you ever have gone, or would go, against the way you were raised.

7. Where, When and for What Reasons Do You Gather to Eat With Loved Ones?

Are large gatherings part of your family traditions? If so, is food involved? Describe your most memorable family gathering and what makes it stand out. What role did food play in the celebration? What did it mean to you?

Here is part of a response by Jack from Hoggard High School, Wilmington, N.C.:

I enjoy large get-togethers because I don’t have any relatives in the United States apart from my immediate family. These get-togethers, therefore, are almost always with other families in the local Chinese community. The community is effectively an extended family when the real relatives are on the other side of the world … The food is always a potluck, with many Chinese dishes coming together to satisfy the hunger for the children and to remind the adults of their home. We always eat together, and I think this is one of the most important things connecting us.

8. What Are the Essential Foods to Eat Where You Live?

What foods best represent your hometown’s people and culture?

Korean fried chicken in Los Angeles’s Koreatown, paella in Barcelona, mashed taters in Cartersville, Ga., and green chile in New Mexico were just a few of the dishes students shared in response to this prompt.

If someone were to visit your hometown for a day, what foods or restaurants would you recommend? How would these meals help the visitor know you and your community better?

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.

Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.