Have you ever thought what you eat every day can tell people about your home town? Have you ever ____why people from different parts of the world eat ____ kinds of food? Have you ever asked yourself ____certain food plays such an important part in your culture? There is ___of a connection between food and culture than you may think.

On a personal level, it is the food of our ___which we eat while growing up that ____us as who we are. Many of us associate food from our   ____with warm feelings and sweet memories. ____a special yet personal value, it relates us to our families.

After we grow up, the food from our families often ___us in times of frustration and stress.During my childhood, I couldn't eat rice when I was sick, because I was too ____. My mother would then bring her homemade soup to my bed. The smell and taste of that soup left a deep impression on me.Now, ____I'm tired or stressed, I think of my mother's ____and _____for it.

In the ____sense, food is a significant component of culture. ____cuisine is passed down from one generation to another. Moreover, it serves as a reflection of ____identity.

Immigrants bring the food of their countries with them wherever they go. To them, ___traditional food is a way of preserving their cultures when they move to new places. Continuing to make food from their cultures for family meals is a ____of pride for their ethnicity and a means ____cope with homesickness. Besides, many open their own restaurants and _____traditional dishes in places far away from their home town.

Cecilia Chiang died on Wednesday at her home in San Francisco. She was 100. Her San Francisco restaurant, the Mandarin, __________American diners in the 1960s to the richness and________of authentic Chinese cuisine(菜系).

Ms. Chiang was born in a__________family. When she was little, children were not allowed in the _________, but she paid close attention on trips to the __________ markets with her mother and listened carefully as__________ instructions were given to the cooks. After her parents died, she __________the family business in her teens.

After the Japanese occupied Beijing in 1939, she was__________to join relatives in Chongqing, where she married Chiang Liang, a professor.

Ms. Chiang sailed to San Francisco in 1960 to help her sister. There she met two women who wanted to__________ a restaurant that __________Chinese diets. Later, when the two women __________, Ms. Chiang decided to open a restaurant herself. The early days were __________ . But little by little, customers came__________for hot and sour soup and pan-fried potstickers. One evening, Herb Caen, the popular columnist(专栏作家)for The Chronicle, __________at the restaurant. In a __________column, Herb Caen__________it “a little hole-in-the wall” that was offering “some of the best Chinese food east of the Pacific.”

Overnight the __________filled. The Mandarin was on its way. In 1968, Ms. Chiang moved the restaurant to __________quarters, where she could__________300 diners. “I think I__________what average people know about Chinese food,” Ms. Chiang told The Chronicle in 2007, “They didn’t know China was such a big country.”

My husband Sajan is an Indian with a vegetarian heritage. Since I met him, I’ve been a vegetarian, too. Getting older, I wonder if I ignored my parents’_________. After all, they are more _________ with meals where meat is the centerpiece.

Whenever Sajan and I come home, my mom starts _________ our meals weeks before we arrive. She researches new _________ dishes and stocks up on beans and yogurt though she _________ both. So often, even though we’re all _________ at the table together, we’re eating _________ meals. I’ve never really _________ with my mom about the food tension in our relationship. But earlier this summer, I _________ asked her about it.

“It is sometimes a(n) __________to cook your food,” she admitted. “But it is important for us to __________ your and Sajan’s Indian vegetarian diet.”

She also had her question, “You don’t miss the __________ you grew up with?”

I do. And I don’t.

My mom still makes my favorite cookies. But because I’ve been away from home for so long, I’ve __________ lots of new foods, and Indian food has become my food. I always assumed she felt hurt by that, but talking to her, I __________ I was wrong.

Love can be shown through food in different ways. Just make a little room for what our loved ones choose to__________.