Pictures of food

This day in age, in America, it is very common to take a picture of the food that you are eating and post it onto some sort of social media. Why is this? It is because we want to make others jealous by what we are eating? To show people amazing food you get to indulge in? Is it just a trend? Whether you are at a restaurant, ice cream shop, café, or even at home, everyone at one point or another is guilty of doing this. I admit, I do this pretty frequently. I guess the reason why I do it is to show people the amazing food I get to eat, but let’s be real, no one actually cares. However, coming to Spain, the reason I took photos of my food changed a little bit. I began taking picture of my food more for myself than for other people. I do it because I want to look back at my photos from my time here and see all the things I have done…and ate. Even though this is a common occurrence in America, it is not very common in Spain.
My host mom cooks me very good food and presents it very nicely at the table. I decided that I wanted to start taking pictures of the food that she makes so that I can remember it after studying abroad, and possibly attempt to cook it while I am at home. She did not appreciate this. She was okay with it the first couple times but then she started to get annoyed. She would always ask me why I felt the need to take photos of her food. I would tell her the reasoning and she thought it was very strange. She never understood the concept. She would say, you taking pictures of my food is equivalent to you giving a presentation in front of your teacher (given that she knows I hate presenting). I did not see how it was the same or what the big deal was. She explained to me that she does not come across Spaniards doing this and it is not something she is used. I did eventually stop doing this because she really did not like it at all