Course Spotlight- “Bake Like a Pro”
We are thrilled to announce we will be running “Bake Like a Pro” next semester: The hands-on, pared-down version of our professional pastry arts certificate program, designed for home bakers and aspiring pastry chefs alike. No experience necessary! In this class students will tackle the basics of pastry making, master time management skills and learn the functions of ingredients and their role in baking. You’ll gain knowledge about the science of baking and how to master essential techniques, all while developing good kitchen practices and habits.
Classes take place once a week in our state-of-the-art kitchen and are taught by a team of highly acclaimed instructors who also teach in our professional pastry arts program, including Chef Janine Sciarappa and Chef Brian Mercury (instructors subject to change). While completion of this course does not result in a certificate, it offers a scaled-down version of our professional pastry arts program. The course covers all the basic core skills with a focus on key recipes and techniques.
For more about the course, we caught up with Chef Janine Sciarappa, Lead Instructor of BU’s Pastry Arts program.
- What type of student is this course really for?
"This class is really geared for anyone who has a passion for pastry. Whether you're a home baker or just really love something sweet, this course is really for someone who is passionate about learning. It makes a great gift too!"
- What should students expect a typical class period to look like?
"In a typical class period, students will be given instructions on how to execute a recipe, then working individually or in groups, they will bake 2 to 3 recipes over the course of the night. We end each session with time to discuss results and give feedback. And then the best part, students get to take all of their pastries home to share with their friends and family!"
- What material is covered in this course?
"Topics include cookies, meringues, cakes and decorating, laminated doughs, custards, tarts and pies, pâte à choux, pastry creams, ganache and breakfast pastries. Everything taught in this course will be sweet, so we will not be working with bread or savory pastries."
- What will students take away from this course?
"My hope is to teach them all of the tips and tricks to basic baking. I want to take the mystery out of complicated and advanced desserts. But above all, because this kind of program works better for those with busy lives, I want to cultivate an environment where students can come in to escape the world and make/eat beautiful things!"
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Course details— Non-Credit Cost: $1,800, Meets: Tuesdays 6:00 – 8:45 pm, September 9th to December 9th
Signup here.
Course Spotlight- World Food Systems & Policy
MET ML 720A1, World Food Systems & Policy will be taught this spring by Ellen Messer, Ph.D. Anthropology.
Global societies in 2025 confront major challenges to ensure that all people can feed themselves sustainable, healthy diets and enjoy basic human security in a warmer, more crowded and interconnected world threatened by climate change, global pandemics, and structural violence.
Through readings and discussions, course participants acquire working knowledge of the ecology and politics of hunger, food security, and nutrition, and the evolution of global-to-local food systems and diets. Overviews of world food situations and international institutions are combined with analysis of more detailed national and local-level case studies that connect global to national and local food situations, crises, and responses.
Key Policy Questions Explored:
- How many are hungry and why? What are world food situations and priority policy concerns in 2024-2025, in contrast to the late 20th century and pre-pandemic 2020?
- How stable and equitably distributed are world food supplies? Which agriculture, nutrition, and related technology and trade issues have advanced or declined on the world and national food-policy agendas, with what impacts on food supply-chain stability, sustainability, safety, health and nutrition?
- Are animal-source foods necessary for human health and well-being? What should be the roles of livestock, animal protein (meat, seafood, dairy), and meat substitutes in diets favoring planetary and human health? At what scale(s)?
- Can traditional, or more diversified agro-ecological agricultural methods, feed the world?
Learning Objectives:
- Master food-system, food-value-chain, food-security, food-sovereignty, and human-rights terms of analysis at multiple (local to global) scales and demonstrate their interconnections in short weekly critical reviews and food-focused mid-term country-level assignment and final country report.
- Evaluate the relative merits, deficiencies, and overlaps of comparative advantage (markets and trade) vs. food-first (food sovereignty and food security) policies; and “basic needs” (Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) vs. “human rights/rights-based” food-policy approaches in mid-term and end-of-term evidence-based national case studies.
- Navigate the international agricultural, food, nutrition, and health agencies that monitor and evaluate food and nutrition and become a food-and-nutrition policy expert on a particular country, its hunger situation, and its significance in international food production and trade.
Course Spotlight- History of Wine
METML 632 A1, History of Wine will be taught by instructor Jacquelyn Groeper, CSW on Tuesday nights from 6:00 PM – 8:45 PM.
In this course we explore the long and complex role wine has played in the history of human civilization. We survey significant developments in the production, distribution, consumption and cultural uses of grape-based alcoholic beverages in the West. We study the economic impact of wine production and consumption from the ancient Near East through the Roman Empire, Europe in the Middle Ages and especially wine's significance in the modern and contemporary world. Particular focus is on wine as a religious symbol, a symbol of status, an object of trade and a consumer beverage in the last few hundred years.
More about the class from Jacquelyn:
"Wine is not just a beverage. Its pre-historical evolution throughout Western Civilization has influenced history, culture, politics, agriculture, science... This is what I find intriguing about wine. It is a natural product that first fascinated, then became a necessity, until ultimately impacting all facets of society. As we explore this 8,000 year history, we will also taste different styles of wine to understand how and why they developed. We will examine ways in which contemporary issues such as climate change, politics, and labor arrangements are influencing the production of wine today. Overall, when students understand the intricacies of the history of wine, as is similar with food, I believe there is more of an appreciation for all it brings to the table."
Course Spotlight- Food Marketing
MET ML565, Food Marketing will be taught by our newest part-time faculty member Robin Cohen in Spring 2025. The class will meet on Mondays from 6 to 8:45 PM.
Food Marketing applies the fundamental concepts of marketing and brand management to the food industry, with a particular focus on the New England culinary scene. The food marketing space covers many distinct sectors including products, restaurants, retail outlets, services such as catering, culinary travel and tours, and food events. Although many marketing fundamentals
apply universally, we will examine how each part of the food industry requires specific methodologies, tools, and measures for success.
Even within sectors, tools and approaches will vary. You might promote a small neighborhood shop differently than you would market a nationwide grocery chain. You will have an opportunity to learn how marketing resources, such as social media and AI, are leveling the playing field-allowing the smallest businesses to compete in ways they never could before. The course will present marketing needs from the consumer, manufacturers, maker, buyer, distributor, and service provider point of view. Presentations by a diverse group of industry leaders, readings, and real-world case studies will broaden our understanding. A hands-on project will fuel learning and creative thinking with students selecting to study and report on one specific product or service company.
Course Spotlight- Culinary Tourism
MET ML 692, Culinary Tourism will be taught this Spring 2025 on Thursdays from 6:00-7:30 p.m. by José López Ganem, with a travel component to New México (United States) during the BU Spring Break ‘25.
Among the higher echelons of the Food Studies canon, Lucy Long’s Culinary Tourism provides a time-proofed definition of this activity “as the intentional, exploratory participation in the foodways of an other.” Our time is plagued by mediatic invitations to
discover (e.g. Anthony Bourdain), re-discover (e.g. Eva Longoria), and re-claimed (e,g.Karen Cantor), via the physical experience of immersing ourselves in foodways -mostly in their place of practice, although not always - that are not part of our daily
routine or were not staples of our upbringing. Based on this definition, a food studies scholar happens to be a conscious culinary tourist for life.
On this course’ second reiteration, Culinary Tourism will be a space to understand the thought and method that have gone into understanding the temporal presence of ourselves in the food customs of another. From the rich history of how we have engaged in the ludic pursuit of food beyond our comfort, to the industries and mechanisms that have made this quest possible. Like Long suggests, this course will engage how food is consumed, prepared, and served to a visitor; and even how foodways can be observed and understood by a stranger’s gaze.
Moreover, the class will undertake a practicum component during our University’s Spring Break (from Tuesday March 11 to Sunday March 16) to the State of New Mexico. The region’s multicultural makeup yet challenging weather makes this corner of the United States a testing ground for the theory we will learn in the classroom. Participation on this trip is mandatory.
Students will be responsible for arranging and paying for flights, lodging, and most meals. The program will be attempting to facilitate the lodging booking process so that all trip participants are staying at the same hotel. The program will cover in-ground
transportation to and from activities, plus any entry fees for those activities, such as museum tickets.
As the Michelin Guide invites the traveler, may this class be so exceptional in our roster of electives that it is “worth a special journey.”
Photo Credits
1. © Michelin Guide / France
2. © La Fonda Inn / University of New Mexico - United States
3. © Harry Kersh and Joe Avella / Food Tours - United States
Course Spotlight- Fundamentals of Wine
METML 649 A1, Fundamentals of Wine will be taught this spring by Ara Sarkissian, CWE and will meet on Mondays from 6 to 8:45pm
For students without previous knowledge of wine, this introductory survey explores the world of wine through discussions, tastings, food and wine pairing, assigned readings, and student presentations. By the end of the course, students will be able to exhibit fundamental knowledge of the principal categories of wine, including major grape varieties, wine styles, and regions; correctly taste and classify wine attributes; and demonstrate an understanding of general principles of food and wine pairing.
[4 credits; $325 lab fee]
To learn more, we touched base with the course instructor, Ara Sarkissian.
- What is the aim of this course? What kind of student is it for?
- What skills/knowledge do you hope students will leave the course with?
- What topic/unit are you most excited to teach?
- What else should students know?
Course Spotlight- Reading and Writing the Food Memoir
MET ML615, Reading and Writing the Food Memoir will be taught this spring by Dr. Megan Elias and will meet Wednesdays from 6 to 8:45 PM
What is your food story? If we are what we eat, what foods made you who you are? Was it fruit from a country you no longer live in or a soup your best friend made when you visited him last week? Did it pour out of a box? Get toasted over open flames? Simmer for a day? And how do you explain its role in your life? Food can be a great connecting theme for a complicated story.
In this course we will ask what makes a food memoir different from other kinds of personal writing and we will work on our own unique food memoirs. Food memoir can take lots of forms, including visual narrative, comics, film, podcast, poetry, walking tour, and creative non-fiction. We will study some examples to learn about the form and workshop our memoirs while we write them. We will also spend some time in the kitchen together cooking from our projects to find out what we can learn by engaging with the material of food itself.
I come to this class with eight years of experience teaching Food Studies at BU and an active research agenda in food history. My recent scholarship focuses on stories about food. I have read a lot of food memoirs but have never written my own and am excited to try it out in community with the class.
Some of the works we will be sampling are:
Thomas Pecore Weso, Good Seeds: A Menominee Indian Food Memoir
Kwame Onwuachi, Notes from a Young Black Chef
Von Diaz, Coconuts and Collards
Yeon-sik Hong, Umma’s Table
Nigel Slater, Toast (movie version)
You will also have an opportunity to suggest material for us to discuss in class.
Course Spotlight – Debating Diet
“Those in closest proximity to structural ‘power’ shape our food, body, and health beliefs.” - Patrilie Hernandez, Founder of Embody Lib.
Fat studies meets food studies in a recently revised course. MET ML613 - Debating Diet, will be taught online in Spring 2025 by Catie Duckworth.
Course Description: “Diet” hails from the Greek word “diaita” meaning “way of life.” The English word, originally used to describe the food and beverages people regularly consumed, eventually came to be used to categorize a restrictive way of eating, specifically with the goal of weight loss. Evidence of diet culture can be found in nearly every aspect of Western society, from media to nutrition advice. This course will bring together the fields of fat studies and food studies by exploring different meanings of the word diet and in the process dissecting the socio-political influence of diet culture on our food systems, eating habits, and moral associations with food. The course materials will trace the history of anti-fatness from its root in anti-blackness to infiltrating the modern Western healthcare system. Students will have the opportunity to expand their understanding of nourishment through additional functions of food (joy, pleasure, comfort, community, etc.).
My (Catie’s) research focus sits at the intersection of food studies and fat liberation. I am a trained culinarian, a graduate of the Gastronomy program, and a fat liberationist. My most recent energies have been devoted to developing this course and my volunteer work with Bigger Bodies Boston, a fat liberation collective. It is not only my work but my lived experience as a fat woman that have shaped my understanding of this subject. And I admit with still more to learn, as my positions as a white, educated, cis-gendered person allow me certain privileges denied to more marginalized identities within the fat community.
It is with acknowledgement of my relative privilege that I aim to bring an inclusive fat studies lens into the food studies discipline, inviting guest speakers to expand beyond my own expertise. Readings will include foundational texts like Sabrina Strings' Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia and Julie Guthman's Weighing In. Some weeks will include more hands-on activities, such as reviewing cookbooks in search of morally coded messages.
Through the texts, class activities, and guest lectures, this course will address the following questions:
- Who benefits from diet culture? Who is harmed?
- Why do we label foods as "good" or "bad"?
- What does "good food" and "bad food" even mean?
- What are the goals of fat liberation/body liberation?
- In what ways do these goals conflict with the dominant narratives on food justice?
- What if optimal individual health is not everyone's goal?
- How can we decolonize "nutrition" and "wellness"?
- What different moral values can we decode in language around food/eating?
- And many more that we will discover along the way!
Course Spotlight- Culture and Cuisine: New England
MET ML 638, Culture and Cuisine: New England will be taught this Spring 2025 on Wednesday from 6:00-8:45 p.m. by Dr. Karen Metheny
C
ourse Description: How are the foodways of New England’s inhabitants, past and present, intertwined with the history and culture of this region? In this course, students will have the opportunity to examine the cultural uses and meanings of foods and foodways in New England using historical, archaeological, oral, and material evidence. We will focus on key cultural, religious and political movements that have affected foodways in the region, as well as the movement of people. The course begins with an examination of Native American food traditions and practices in the pre-contact period. We will also consider how foodways mirrored the clash of cultures during an extended period of contact and settlement by Europeans.
How did the Pilgrim settlers respond to a new environment and to new foods in the New World? How did perceptions of their own Englishness change? Old-fashioned Yankee fare is considered emblematic of traditional New England by many writers, and we will consider why this perception exists and when it developed. But New England foodways have also been greatly influenced by immigrant groups in the 19th and 20th centuries. Students will therefore look closely at the food preferences, traditions, and subsistence practices of the Irish, Italian, and Portuguese immigrant communities in New England. We will also look at two cultural phenomena in 20th-century New England—roadside diners and tea houses—to understand the changes wrought by the introduction of the automobile and the interstate highway system, as well as the larger impact of industrialization and commercialization of foods.
Students will travel to Old Sturbridge Village to prepare and enjoy a 19th-century hearth-cooked meal and tour the museum. Other trips to be determined.
Course Spotlight- “Cook Like a Pro”
We are thrilled to add our revamped course, “Cook Like a Pro” to our curriculum next semester: The hands-on, pared-down version of our culinary certificate program, designed for beginners and aspiring cooks alike. In this class you’ll be guided through the fundamentals of meal preparation, ingredient selection, and proper seasoning. You’ll learn how to master essential techniques, from handling a knife like a pro to chopping and sautéing to baking and plating, all while developing good kitchen practices and habits.
Classes take place in our state-of-the-art kitchen and are taught by the same team of highly acclaimed chefs who teach in our professional culinary program, including Jody Adams, Barry Maiden and Michael Leviton (instructors subject to change). While completion of this course does not result in a certificate, it offers a scaled-down version of our professional culinary program. The course covers all the basic core skills with a focus on key recipes and techniques.
For more about the course, we got the inside scoop from Chef Chris Douglass, Lead Instructor of BU’s Culinary Arts program.
- Why offer this course when we already offer a certificate program?
“Our certificate program, while amazing, is a big commitment. But cooking is an essential and basic skill, one you can employ your entire life. This course is meant to give you the tools to confidently navigate the kitchen and professional techniques without that commitment of our more intense program. Another key aspect of this course is access to some of the most respected chefs in the industry, so whether you have zero cooking experience or are interested in building knowledge, you have a fantastic opportunity to work with professionals and receive real feedback.”
- What type of student is this course really for?
This class is truly for anyone. We designed the curriculum to accommodate varying skill levels, from someone who doesn’t know how to boil water to someone who wants to refine their technique and palate.
- What should students expect a typical class period to look like?
“Students can expect to build on fundamentals at the beginning of the course, before moving onto more advanced material. They will prepare 2-4 recipes each week with a focus on technique and exploration of flavors. From basic knife skills and application of heat, all the way to honing techniques, students will learn how to cook with staples like eggs, vegetables, meat and fish.”
- What will students take away from this course?
“Students will leave with more confidence to tackle recipes on their own without hesitation. What could be better than that?”
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Course details— Non-Credit Cost: $1,800, Meets: Mondays 6:00 - 8:45 pm, January 27 - April 28, 2025