Rudy

This reading is an essay written by Jill Terry Rudy. Rudy has a Ph.D. in folklore it is an associate English professor at Brigham Young University. Rudy is a Mormon and wrote this essay based on her own personal accounts from when she lived in North-Central Guatemala from 1984 to 1986 and those of folklore students who are also Mormons at Brigham Young University. The information was collected through essays and tape-recorded conversations.

This essay talks about the many different food experiences that Rudy and other Mormon missionaries encounter along their travels throughout the world. The reading explains how Mormons have had a unique perspective on the foodways of other cultures and compares the Mormons to tourist to make the distinction. Rudy explains how people who are subject to extended stay eating have to somehow become familiar with the exotic food around them. Mormons living in someone's home may be subject to many exotic meals every day for more than a month. Tourists on the other hand, have brief encounters with exotic food and experience these foods mostly for the novelty.

Mormon missionaries are very disciplined when away, they are not allowed to date, watch television, listen to music, or watch movies. Most Mormon missionaries are male so most but not all of the encounters are from a male perspective. Rudy theorizes that familiar foods comfort missionaries when they are away from home but how new exotic food experiences whether pleasant or unpleasant leads missionaries to gain a better understanding of themselves and the culture they are facing.

This also leads to many missionaries to change their perspective on what they once considered exotic or strange food or what they considered edible or palatable. Through this change missionaries gain acceptance into the culture which they are immersed in, and vice versa.