Write a FOOD Autobiography

Most autobiographies include information about where the writer was born, where he or she went to school, and other details about the writer’s childhood. A twist on that approach is to write a “food” autobiography. With a food autobiography, the writer tells the story of his or her life as it relates to food.

Write your own food autobiography. Look over the questions in each item below. What memories do they trigger? Choose one or more of the items and answer the questions as thoroughly

as possible.

•What are some of your earliest memories involving food? Do family members tell stories about you and food when you were a baby? Did you love squash? Spit out spinach? Throw your peas on the floor?

•What have been your favorite foods at different times in your life? What foods have you hated? Why? Have your opinions changed over time? If so, how?

•What are some food traditions in your family? Do you always celebrate birthdays with seafood lasagna? Do you have pie instead of cake on birthdays? Do you always ask your uncle to bring his special pickled beets to Christmas dinner?

•What food have you felt very brave trying? Did you like it or hate it? Why?

•Are there any foods you will absolutely not eat, no matter what? If so, what are they?

•What funny stories in your life have involved food?

•Has food been involved in any embarrassing situations you have experienced or observed?

•Do you pay attention to what foods are good for you? Do you try to “eat healthy”? Why or why not?

•What is your biggest weakness when it comes to food?

•If you could change something about food in your life,

•If you had to describe your life thus far in terms of food, describe your life? Is your life more like a sandwich or a

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bits and pieces

After Dalton gorged on pigs-in-a-blanket.

The mouth-watering beef jerky display.

Aunt Samantha’s awful pumpkin and sausage soup.

The green and purple cottage cheese in the forgotten bowl at the back of the refrigerator.

The items above look like sentences. They start with capital letters. They end in periods. They contain information. However, they are not sentences at all. They are sentence fragments. Each sounds incomplete because something important is missing. After Dalton gorged on pigs-in-a- blanket, what happened? What about the green and purple cottage cheese in the forgotten bowl at the back of the refrigerator?

Here are some ways the sentence fragments might be turned into sentences:

After Dalton gorged on pigs-in-a-blanket, he drank a quart of orange juice.

The store owner put the mouth-watering beef jerky display right beside the cash register, hoping customers wouldn’t be able to resist.

I hate Aunt Samantha’s awful pumpkin and sausage soup.

The green and purple cottage cheese in the forgotten bowl at the back of the refrigerator was so disgusting that T.J. felt sick just looking at it.

Add information to the sentence fragments below and turn them into sentences. You may add information to the beginning, middle or end of the sentences.

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Copycats

When sentences are all constructed in about the same way, they tend to put readers to sleep. Look at the following paragraph:

We celebrated Mom’s birthday last night. We ate at a fancy restaurant. It was called Dominique’s Cottage. We did not like it at all. We did not like the snooty waiter. We did not like the stuffy atmosphere. We did not like the music they played. We did not recognize anything on the menu. My brother and I wanted hamburgers. They did not have them. We had to eat chicken cordon bleu. We did not like it. Mom did like her shrimp scampi. Dad liked the steak he ordered. He did not like the price. My brother tipped back in his chair. He fell over. Everyone looked at us. We did not like that, either. The waiter helped him up. He was very mad. You could tell. He didn’t say anything, though. We will not be going back.

Rewrite the paragraph above and add some variety. You may combine sentences, leave out words, and rearrange, but don’t leave out any of the information. You might try using some of

these ideas in your rewrite:

•Start a sentence with an -ing phrase (a participle).

Example: Putting a fake smile on her face, Selena tried to be courteous to the very rude customer.

•Connect information with a transition word like because, after or when.

Example: We jumped out of the water and into the boat as fast as we could after we saw those fins.

•Start a sentence with the word “to” and make an infinitive phrase.

Example: To keep from strangling his son when he came home at 3:00 a.m., Mr. Fisher kept both hands on the cup of coffee he had been filling and refilling for the last three hours.

•Put in an appositive—an interrupting phrase that tells you

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Cool as a Cucumber

Food is everywhere. We see it sold on the street and advertised on billboards. It is the subject of hundreds of commercials. It is an important part of family traditions and religious rituals. We think about it whenever we’re hungry, and often even when we are not. It’s no wonder that food is a theme in all kinds of common phrases, proverbs, idioms, clichés, and similes.

Below is a list of 145 common food phrases and sentences. Normally, it is not a good idea to use a lot of such phrases and sentences in your writing. But this one time, as a challenge to your brain, write a story using as many of the items as possible. (You may also include other common food phrases that you might know.) Your story should make sense and use a minimum of 25

sentences or phrases from the list.

Here’s an example of one way to start:

I was raking in the dough at my new job and was cool as a cucumber. I ate like a king, lived high on the hog, and thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread. However, soon I found out that I had bitten off more than I could chew...

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Student Instructions

Cool as a cucumber, continued

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