If you truly are what you eat, then I am several thousand burritos.

The first food culture most people are exposed to is the one that they get from their parents. My mother’s family background and food history is almost entirely eastern European. On my mother’s side, everyone cooks pastries, kielbasa (pronounced ko-baw-see) and a dozen dishes featuring noodle dough, potatoes, cabbage and butter. Over the last decade, I have grown much less connected to family, and have consequently strayed from a regular diet of these foods. I still love pierogies, though.

As an Athens native, I have always associated myself with the local food scene. While far from a strict locovore, I much prefer fresh food and familiar restaurants to the supermarkets and chain eateries. Work has kept me from the Wednesday meeting of the farmers’ market for years, but I have been known to stop by on a Saturday morning to buy a few salsas and vegetables while consuming at least double their weight in free samples. There are at least seven restaurants in Athens that have, at one time or another, started preparing “the usual” when I walked in the door.

Personal preference has drawn me to the world of American Mexican cuisine. There is little I enjoy more than a plate of chips or rice with spiced meat, cooked vegetables, cheese and a salsa that demonstrates there is a difference between “salty” and “spicy”. As with any widely popular food, the burrito is one of the more versatile vehicles for food presentation, as well as one of the most delicious. There are of course the traditional fillings of rice, beans, peppers and possibly meat and cheese, and beyond the vast assorted types of those there is a world of possibility waiting to be wrapped in a tortilla.

Despite my association with the so-called geek and gamer cultures, I do not share their stereotypical affinity for sugary neon sodas or orange chemical laden corn chips (I am not above a root beer or cherry cola on occasion, though). For one thing, the sticky drinks and encrusted powders tend to stain comics and cards and gum up game controllers. I have tried to point out the inherently self-destructive nature of my subculture’s snack choices, but it seems that like Cassandra or, more accurately for my literary background, Jor-El my warnings are doomed to be forever unheeded.