Culture Cooking: Being More Cultured

I love the idea of the group Culture Cooking. The only question I had was this: is tasting another countries food really make one person "cultured"? That is a big question to answer because my grandmother and others have said that America is a big boiling pot of many cultures, and one way to being different backgrounds in, that we will all enjoy, is food. Food is the primary source of survival; therefore, learning about how other countries survive with certain foods, cuisines and pastries allows people to realize that we have bountiful sources to get food from. For example, my coworker is Latina. She is from Mexico, and she always brings in something from her home, which is authentic. Every time I bite into empanadas, carnitas, chimichangas and more I feel the spice and vegetables. When I taste that in her food, I get a feeling of my own culture and how they are similar. Hispanics and African-Americans both favor spice, bread, meat and deep-frying, so I get a sense of the culture. I feel the vibrancy and the homey feeling of family because bread is always in abundance so we have to get creative with bread.
On the other hand, is all of that made up? Can you really taste a country's culture from their food? Culture Cooking has the answer for that because they will put a pamphlet that let us know a little about the country and what events that might be going on in that country at the time. This is really good because I do not have money to travel outside of the country, let alone the state. Having a few meals come to me allows me to expand my horizon and learn something different, and learn about a different country a month. So, it is keeping my brain waves active and my stomach full. The only thing I would have to say is this: in order for Culture Cooking to have authentic vegetables and foods it is not going to be affordable for most people. That box would have to be a couple of hundreds a month, probably. However, the idea, goal and passion is there!