Category: Food Culture & History

Posts about food culture and food history – includes student projects, research, and publications – events, courses, etc.

Food Mapping of Mini Social Media Mavens: Exploring YouTube with an Ethnographic Eye

Gastronomy student Corrine Williams provides another example of food mapping in our next post in our series “Perspectives from Anthropology of Food.” In the age of the internet, social media seems to gain more cultural significance every second. Images have always been integral to media, and with Instagram’s popularity it’s clear people enjoy the content. […]

Cacao in Olmec Society

We continue our series of posts from the Anthropology of Food class (ML 641) in which students reflect on current issues, discuss assignments they have worked on, or address topics of particular interest to them. Today’s post is from Gastronomy student Morrisa Engles.     Cacao has carried deep cultural meaning since it was first domesticated. […]

Poison and Food Taboos

Our summer series, Perspectives from Anthropology of Food, continues with this post from Gastronomy student Madoka Sasa. In the article “Anthropology of Food,” R. Kenji Tierney and Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney (2012, 118) describe blowfish consumption in Japan: Not all objectively “edible” items are regarded as food for a people, even in times of severe food shortages. […]