A Fresh Crop of Gastronomy Students
We are looking forward to welcoming a fresh crop of Gastronomy students to Boston University this fall. Here is the first batch of their bios and photos. Enjoy getting to know them!
Becca Berland is a self-proclaimed ice cream aficionado who was born and raised in 
Sylvania, Ohio. She attended the University of Pittsburgh and graduated in 2016 with a Bachelor’s degree in Linguistics and minors in French Studies and Religious Studies. During her four years at Pitt, Becca acted as Editorial Director of Pitt's chapter of Spoon University, as well as a National Editorial Intern and Elite News Team Member for Spoon HQ in NYC. After she spent a summer interning for Delicious Israel, an Israeli culinary food tour company based out of Tel Aviv, Becca realized that pursuing a career in food media was basically inevitable.
Currently working out of Boston as a Social Media/Content Manger for one of the top fitness coaches in the country, Becca is thrilled to join the Gastronomy program at BU where she can connect with like-minded food enthusiasts (have we mentioned that she named her dog Basil?). Becca plans to hone in on her writing skills in hopes of one day becoming the editor of a food magazine.
Mollie Braen was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She graduated with a BA in 
Art History in the spring of 2015 from the University of Denver and spent her final semester studying abroad at the University of Glasgow in Glasgow, Scotland. Mollie, an avid traveler, eater and cook, moved to Boston in 2015 to pursue work in the art and non-profit community. But her passion and true love was always food, wine and beer. Mollie will be pursuing her masters in gastronomy, concentrating on food policy and business. Her goal is to gain knowledge about the current and past agricultural climate in the United States and to use this comprehensive liberal arts degree to work within the progressing tech and biomedical fields to create healthier, more accessible, and organic produce and products for all. She currently lives in Cambridge with her very funny and mischievous cat, enjoys eating any and all cheeses and is excited to be back in school.
Born and raised in New Jersey, Carolyn Grillo moved to Boston to attend college. She 
graduated with a BS in Studio Art from Boston College and then attended culinary (pastry) school in Paris, France at Le Cordon Bleu. When Carolyn returned from Paris she worked as a baker at Flour Bakery + Cafe in Boston for two years. Carolyn has been working at America's Test Kitchen in the Tastings and Testings department for the last two years. Carolyn's job affords her the opportunity to work in different areas of the company including both print and online content, television, and cookbooks. As time progresses Carolyn has become more interested in the business side of the food industry. Through this experience Carolyn hopes to expand her knowledge, challenge herself, and gain tools to progress in her career.
Swarnata Prabhu was born and raised in Mumbai, a city known for its culinary indulgence and abundance of savors. She believes her childhood had a huge impact and influence in her relationship with food, as there was a lot of cooking, eating and entertaining at home.
Swarnata earned her Bachelor’s in Management Studies from the University of Mumbai 
and then went on to pursue her graduate degree in Human Resources and Industrial Relations at the University of Minnesota to attain an international perspective in her field. She worked for a few years as a human resource professional and then decided to take a break to spend time with her family. During this period, she not only reconnected with her hometown Mumbai, she also decided to pursue her passion. Swarnata started her home based baking venture in Mumbai and went on to learn pastry arts from finest pastry Chefs in India. She says her culinary journey has just started. Swarnata has worked in the pastry department of a five star hotel in India, mentored and taught culinary students, indulged in food photography and explored unusual food sources (protein packed bugs in Cambodia). She not only enjoys experiments in her kitchen but has utmost fun eating, exploring and learning about new foods.
Swarnata feels confident that the gastronomy program at Boston University will equip her with a fulfilling career in the ever changing and challenging food world. She wants to focus on food policy and communications to make an impact as a food advocate, chef and educator.
The Importance of Hospitality in Kazakhstan
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 Kaitlin Valli.
When I first started looking into Kazakhstan for my final project, I wasn’t sure what I’d find—I chose it a bit haphazardly, simply because the country was huge and I had realized, looking at the map, that I knew almost nothing about it. But as I looked into it, I was interested to see that a strong culture of hospitality developed there centuries ago and is still an identity marker today. The importance of sharing food and drink is a common theme across cultures, of course, but in Kazakhstan it seemed to take on another level of significance. The Kazakh language has dozens of words for different types of guests, and many proverbs referring to the blessing a guest brings to the family, which range from reverent (“If a guest comes, abundance comes with him or her”) to cautionary (“A guest sits briefly, but notices a lot”) to outright threatening (“If you don’t accept the guest, there won’t be any happiness or abundance in your home.”)
That a culture of being a good host and gracious guest evolved makes practical sense—back when people were nomadic and spread across the vast steppe, it was wise to be generous with a visitor, as a host did not know when they would need that same kind of hospitality themselves. But a guest was more than that—a visitor also meant entertainment and an excuse for a feast, as well a very necessary connection to the outside world. A guest was harbinger of nourishment of all kinds.
The russification of Kazakhstan means that even today, after attempts at language revival, only 74% of its citizens understand the spoken Kazakh language, while 94% understand Russian (Lillis 2017). And yet, after years of adapting to Soviet rule, the traditional value of hospitality persists. It has become a deeply intertwined aspect of Kazakh identity and culture, to the point where the ability to be a good host or hostess is considered an important criteria for judgment.
Though the importance of hospitality has persisted, the customs around hospitality have naturally changed over time. Today, to cut down on time required, Kazakh women may turn to prepared foods instead of making their own, and alcohol consumption has decreased as a result of the increased cost of entertaining. But though traditions have evolved, especially in big cities, they are still vital. Guests should not leave without having at least tasted the meal offered, and hosts will at the very least offer tea. Using beautiful dishware is still common, and hosts will pour a little tea at a time, as pouring a large cup at once would signify that they want their guest to leave sooner.
The studies and ethnographies I encountered conclude the same thing—Kazakh people “cannot live without hospitality, without guests, without a table set and ready to receive guests” (Charkyroglu 2014, 127). But I think a woman profiled in one of my readings expressed it best: “If you can’t make a big party to celebrate your son’s engagement, then why live on this earth” (Michaels 2007, 157)?
Works cited:
Chakyroglu, Altynshash Kurmanali, and Botagoz Suiyerkul. 2014. “Representation of the Concept “Hospitality” in the Kazakh Language.” Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 136: 124-128.
Lillis, Joanna. 2017. "Kazakhstan: Astana Wants Kazakhstanis to Speak Kazakh." EurasiaNet.org. Accessed July 21, 2017. www.eurasianet.org/node/62424
Michaels, Paula. 2007. “An Ethnohistorical Journey through Kazakh Hospitality.” In Everyday Life in Central Asia: Past and Present, ed. Jeff Sahadeo and Russell Zanco, 145-159. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Course Spotlight: Food and Society
Dr. Karen Metheny will teach Food and Society (MET ML 712) on Thursday evenings during the fall 2017 semester, and has prepared this overview of the class.
»How do social institutions shape the way we think about food? Our ability to access food?
»How do work schedules and family dynamics shape or constrain the family meal?
»Do social classes and institutions affect the way we shop? The food we prefer?
In Food and Society, students will examine these kinds of questions and look specifically at how social groups, categories, and institutions shape, structure, or are structured by food-related practices. We will look at multiple contexts of food production, access, procurement, and consumption, including rural agricultural sites, urban homesteads, grocery shopping, CSAs, and food assistance programs. We will also examine the intersection of food practices with class, ethnicity, race, age, and gender.
We will engage in a range of exercises to explore methods (visual sociology, food chain analysis, surveys and questionnaires, interviews) that can be applied to a final research project. The research project offers students a wonderful opportunity to pursue in-depth analysis of key topics in food studies. A sample of past projects includes:
- focused analysis of the role of ethnic food trucks as potential agents of taste expansion, authenticity, or cultural appropriation
- food as cultural capital among millennials
- a comparative study of Haymarket and Boston Public Market in the context of creating social well-being and a 'sense of community'
- the mission and sustainability of The Daily Table
- the food landscape of Jamaica Plain
- imagined kitchenspace
- dinner on demand services as cultural capital
- functional foods and grocery shopping through the lens of yogurt
Students have utilized Pinterest, Snapchat and Instagram as sources of data, conducted surveys through Facebook, created photo essays and videos, and collected oral interviews to complete their projects. Students will also have the opportunity to hear from a number of area food scholars and activists, and we will work with Dr. Bob Cadigan from the Applied Social Sciences department to create and implement surveys and questionnaires. Hope to see you in class!
MET ML 712, Food and Society, will meet on Thursday evenings from 6:00 to 8:45 pm, starting on September 7, 2017. Registration information can be found here.
Night Markets and Cultural Identity
Gastronomy Student Celine Glasier shares this post in our series “Perspectives from Anthropology of Food.”
My grandmother lives in a very small town in the south of France called Montauroux. It's a little, quaint community that is nestled on top of a hill. There are outdoor cafes in the town center where elderly men spend their days and evenings playing pétanque, bi-weekly farmers markets, and peach orchards near-by for warm weather picking. My memories of the summers when I’d come to visit her are filled with ice cream and swimming in the nearby Mediterranean Sea. But what excited me the most about my summer visits to my grandmother’s was the open air night markets that would take place in the adjacent larger cities. Every Thursday night in July people would come together to sell their goods and socialize with each other. Each town had a different location for their markets, but they usually took place along the waterfront, with an occasional short firework display. It was the way to celebrate the summer. I remember being seven years old and feeling excitement and anticipation all day long when my grandmother would take me. And as soon as we left, I’d ask to go again next week.
Researching global night market trends for Anthropology of Food, I discovered that many cultures organize night markets. Taiwan’s proliferation and popularity of night markets is especially interesting. There are hundreds of night markets in Taiwan, and each offers its own version of snack foods called xiaochi (or small eats). Xiaochi are considered one of the most authentic forms of Taiwanese foods, and like markets themselves, there are hundreds of them. They typically come fried, or in a soup broth, or on a stick, are small, bite-sized, and generously seasoned with condiments. A chef in Taiwan named Chuang Pao-hua is preserving the art of xiaochi and Taiwanese cuisine by teaching locals and foreign student how to cook xiaochi with gu zhao wei (the Taiwanese traditional flavor preserved through generations of recipes).
Xiaochi are unique because they not only represent cultural identity but, for the most part, they are found solely in night markets. The originating market to which they belong is also where you can find the most authentic version, and local towns or provinces are often named after the local xiaochi dishes they serve. You can go to a night market in Taipei, and another in Tainan, and find different and distinct versions of xiaochi that embody the local flavor.
But what really drew me to understanding night markets in Taiwan was the energy they epitomize and the transformation of local space through them. Because they are often hot, crowded, and loud, night markets generate an energetic quality known as renao. Renoa translates into “a manifestation of the human flavor that is generated through enthusiasm and human interactions” (Yu 2006, 132). It’s the collective human energy you get when the senses are heightened and life is being enjoyed.
In this altered atmosphere, people can ignore cultural rules for appropriate behavior, are allowed to act leisurely, and become renewed through experiencing pleasure in their daily life. People act at ease. Night markets provide a sensorial experience similar to that from participating in a religious space. In a church or temple, your senses are altered through incense or various smells, meditation, organ music, and colorful visual representations or statues. Night markets alter your senses as well, and stepping into one, you enter another world.
Night markets are also important because they serve as a place for public activity and socialization. The energy that transforms a space that’s designated for one purpose during the day serves a different purpose at night. In Taiwan, the night is a time for socializing. Walking through night markets is one of the most popular nighttime activities in Taiwan, as it is a chance to be seen by others and satisfy social needs. Through the experience of heightening the senses of taste, sound, and tactile heat, from cooking and from other bodies, night markets serve as a means of communicating Taiwanese identity, socialization and commensality. As an ethnic group, gathering communally allows for communicating traditions, folklore, values, and cuisine. Night markets are one way that Taiwanese culture has been able to create a divergent culture and preserve identity. Night markets and xiaochi are a way of proliferating and preserving authentic Taiwanese culture. They are for the people.
When I think back now on the night markets I went to with my grandmother, I realize that part of their appeal was the vastness and richness of colors and smells. The scent of roast chicken skewers, corn grilling, and fresh breads and sugary pastries mixed with the sea breeze, the sounds of people congregating and conversing, and the sight of colorful snack foods and icy summer drinks are all deeply embedded in my memory. It was a place in which I was allowed to indulge myself and forget the rules. So what if I had two desserts? Under the cloak of the night, and with my grandmother, different rules applied.
Works cited:
Yu, Shuenn-Der. 2004. “Hot and Noisy.” In The Minor Arts of Daily Life: Popular Culture in Taiwan, ed. David K. Jordan, Andrew D. Morris, and Marc L. Moskowitz, 129-149. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Xiao-chi images from https://xmarxchicago.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/xiao-chi/
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. The grouping and context are important for the meaning embedded in the images as well. Anthropologists and ethnographers have known this for decades and have used images that have been submitted by participants in studies to make connections about individuals’ realities and the larger collective cultural beliefs. Food maps are another tool that track food procurement and production of food. With social media the content is self propagated and can be the subject of scholarly study. People are performing these carefully constructed identities on various platforms to qualify and classify themselves, intentionally or unintentionally. In Food and Social Media: You are What You Tweet (2012), author Signe Rousseau states that food’s popularity has only been amplified by social media, bringing people together in new ways.
Using social media, YouTube more specifically, I studied a family that video blogs and applied my budding ethnographic eye to analyze their foodways. The food map of the ‘M’ family shown is an abstract representation of their home and the gendered space and labor within the household. Five videos are food-focused. One of the main videos showcasing the family cooking meals at home is a sponsored video by Hello Fresh; its effect is to show how the company makes cooking so easy that even ‘Dada’ can do it. The title of the video, “Dad tries to cook for twins,” insinuates that he is not going to be successful. In contrast, the title of the video with the mother at the helm is “The girls cook for the baby,” a more declarative positive, and a gendered message. This communication between the parents and the twins is a fun way to engage the girls, get good reactions for the camera, and help the girls learn, but it also reinforces gendered knowledge. In another video when the twins are being interviewed, there is a hanging question, and the response is my dad doesn't know how to cook, only my momma cooks, my sister cooks and I cook.
Dada can make coffee, which he does with the girls each morning. He uses the time while the coffee is brewing to teach the girls about various things; in the video, he shows them octopi. The title of that video is “Father teaches daughters how to make memories.” Coffee has a powerful smell, so the father is distinguishing himself as a coffee drinker, in opposition to his wife as a tea drinker. He is also establishing himself in the girls’ memories through the sensory activities of smelling the coffee as it brews.
Momma is doing her best to pass on an embodied knowledge and sensory memory too. She is communicating the importance of their shared cultural food. The three ladies prepare a Nigerian snack, chin chin, together. It is interesting to see that both parents have separate food production times with the girls; through these actions, each parent is trying to make memories, but also impart some of their identities onto the girls because they are half of each parent. The parents are establishing traditions and structure with food to make memories and allow the girls to express themselves and explore their unique multifaceted identity.
On the surface, this family is making meals and memories and capturing these activities on video, but looking deeper, they are using media as a social construction, an action that speaks volumes about their values and how they choose to represent themselves to the world wide web. I really enjoyed this project. It encouraged me to look at everyday life and pull apart the layers of significance to understand the connections. Perhaps I will start a food vlog and talk about other food vlogs in this context. With my new mindset, I’m sure I will subscribe to the same themes and methods that I analyze other blogs for, and hopefully people will subscribe to my vlog to perpetuate this cycle. In the world of YouTube, videos speak louder than words and we should take them with a grain of salt.
Works Cited
Rousseau, Signe. 2012. Food and Social Media: You Are What You Tweet. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press/Rowman and Littlefield.
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. For the Olmec, an early Mexican Gulf Coast culture (1500 to 400 BC), this plant had geological, nutritional, spiritual, and economic significance. As the first society known to have domesticated the cacao tree, the Olmec found the crop to be spiritually and culturally significant in addition to being a healthful and delicious foodstuff. Theobromine (a chemical compound present in cacao) found in excavated Olmec pottery and at ancient burial sites revealed that cacao beverages were a staple in a variety of spiritual ceremonies (Powis 2011).
The question becomes, why cacao? According to the Popol Vuh, the Mayan creation text, the gods created humans from a combination of sweet things, maize, and cacao (Driess and Greenhill 2008, 18-22). In addition, many ancient artifacts depicted cacao offerings between gods such as the Mayan moon goddess IxChel and the rain god Chac who are seen trading cacao in an ancient Mayan depiction. This iconography rooted the tree’s capacity as a conduit of communication with the gods. Known as the “World Tree” or the “First Tree,” this crop became the tree of life and a cosmic metaphor linking the natural world to the spirit world. Thus, the offering of cacao functioned to symbolically connect diviners with the gods through ritual. The bounty of the cacao tree in Mesoamerica also created a metaphorical link to abundance, which was a request to the gods in agrarian and funerary rites. As Driess and Greenhill state, “Obsession with time and calendrical events fueled rituals during which cacao offerings helped to ensure the continuation of cosmic and agricultural cycles” (2008, 52). Cacao drinks were left in tombs and beans were used to adorn the bodies of the dead as it was believed that cacao had the power to energize the soul and aid in the transition to the supernatural world. The deep spiritual meaning of cacao catalyzed its importance in Olmec society.
Generally sought out for religious purposes by the Olmec, cacao didn’t become a food of conspicuous consumption until the Aztec and Mayan eras when cacao was served at feasts, weddings, birth ceremonies and other social occasions (Henderson 2015, 84). As the crop gained exposure, demand was created and soon cacao was present at nearly every commensal dining event, becoming a staple in the Mesoamerican diet. Popularly consumed as a beverage, the Olmec fermented the cacao with pulp intact. In the early days, cacao beverages were produced solely from the pulp of the fruit. The discovery of the more familiar chocolate drink might have been a happy accident as a by-product of the pulp brewing process (Edgar 2010).
After fermentation, cacao beans were mixed with water, vanilla, cinnamon, and sometimes a red chili. The beverage is generally made by women who dutifully raised the foam on the drink before consumption. The foam was thought to contain the essence of the wind god P’ee and still today, the amount of foam raised is a measure of a woman’s worth. After the drink was prepared and the foam was raised, the cacao beverage was ready for use in ceremony or prescribed as a remedy for ailments. Cacao was used to cure skin conditions, fever, seizures and in the most severe matters used to coax illness out of the body by appealing to the spirits with an offering of beans or a blended concoction containing the fruit (Dreiss and Greenhill 2008, 136).
Over time, chocolate has become a beverage enjoyed by cultures all over the world, but cacao was an incredibly significant crop to the Olmec during the Formative Period in Mesoamerica. The abundance, healing, and nutritional properties of the crop made it seem a true gift from the Gods, and created a foundation for its integration into the cultural identity and landscape of Mesoamerica.
Works Cited
Dreiss, Meredith L., and Sharon Greenhill. 2008. Chocolate: Pathway to the Gods. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Edgar, Blake. 2010. "The Power of Chocolate." Archaeology 63(6): 20-25. Date of access, June 20, 2017. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41780626.
Henderson, John S. 2015. “Cacao/Chocolate.” In Archaeology of Food: An Encyclopedia, Karen Bescherer Metheny and Mary C. Beaudry, eds., 84-87Blue Ridge Summit: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Accessed June 20, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central.
Pool, Christopher A. 2007. Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica. Cambridge World Archaeology. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Powis, Terry G., et al. 2011. "Cacao Use and the San Lorenzo Olmec." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108(21): 8595-600. Date of access, June 20, 2017. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25830997.
Poison and Food Taboos
Our summer series, Perspectives from Anthropology of Food, continues with this post from Gastronomy student Madoka Sasa.
The center of the dish is skin of blowfish. (photo credit: 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. For example, frogs are abhorred by the Ainu, while the French consider them a great delicacy. Some Japanese men relish blowfish, whose poison can kill instantly, not necessarily for its taste but in order to demonstrate masculinity.
I was impressed. This is the first time I had read that Japanese men eat blowfish to show their masculinity.
According to a brochure issued by the Japan Fisheries Resources Conservation Association (2002), Japanese people have been eating blowfish since the Jomon period (14000 B.C. - 4 B.C.). Nowadays, due to advances in processing technology, if you eat blowfish that is properly prepared, you will rarely get poisoned. However, blowfish poisoning has caused a lot of deaths throughout history, because there are different poisonous parts depending on types, and there are some types of blowfish that are difficult to distinguish from each other.
In researching food rules, preferences, taboos, and avoidance, many scholars have pointed out that accepting an invitation to a feast may not only be an act of solidarity but the invitation itself may also be a test of loyalty for the community (Bloch 1999; Carlson 1990; Nell 2015). Considering the question of why Japanese people continue to eat such dangerous fish, it seems reasonable to suggest that it is a show of masculinity rather than consumption for taste. As we know that there is a possibility of poisoning, this is a pretty serious test showing masculinity and loyalty. But this story leads me to ask another question. For whom did they eat blowfish? In other words, for whom did they take such a risk?
Indeed, it seems that the blowfish eating habit in Japan has sparked many such discussions over its long history. For example, in the brochure of the Japan Fisheries Resources Conservation Association (2002), it is said that Toyotomi Hideyoshi issued a ban on eating blowfish, as many samurai who gathered in Shimonoseki (a famous city for blowfish) were poisoned. In the Edo period (1573–1603), many feudal domains decided to ban eating blowfish. According to the Association for Japanese History and Travel (2014), it is said that when the head of a family died of blowfish poisoning, the family had its lineage abolished by the daimyō feudal lord, because “the head had lost his life due to his gluttonousness, though he was supposed to serve the daimyō at the risk of his life.”
On the other hand, Matsuo Bashō, a famous haiku poet in the Edo era, wrote a poem about blowfish (Japan Fisheries Resources Conservation Association 2002, 15):
Awanu koi Omoi kiru yoru Fukuto-jiru. (逢わぬ恋 思い切る夜 ふくと汁)
This is a poem about a broken heart. The speaker says, “I decided to give up because I cannot meet you. As I am so desperate, I will eat blowfish soup tonight.” It can be said that it is a poem that expresses a very disappointed feeling. But at the same time, it is somewhat humorous, implying that a broken heart is an excuse for eating blowfish soup, which is delicious but forbidden.
In addition to this, Bashō says, “You also have a relish of red snapper, but you go out of your way to eat blowfish. I will only just say that you are unwise” (Japan Fisheries Resources Conservation Association 2002, 15). It seems that we have no choice but to be amazed by the insatiable desire for eating blowfish among Japanese males, despite the serious danger of dying and becoming unable to fulfill our obligations.
From these descriptions, the following conclusion can be drawn. While there is a ruling class that prohibits people from eating blowfish to prevent them from dying, people in general cannot control their desire to eat. According to the Japan Fisheries Resources Conservation Association (2002), eating blowfish was pretty popular among ordinary people in the Edo era. In other word, regarding the question “for whom are they eating blowfish?” it seems that the answer is “for myself.”
To “eat to be happy” is too obvious. But I imagine that eating blowfish and showing masculinity is also a way to feel happiness, or even to pursue a better life. I can sympathize with the feeling that “I cannot resist eating my favorite food, even if it is not good for my health,” whether 400 years ago or today. In the same way, the act of showing masculinity by eating puffer fish is an act that I can understand as reasonable if I know when, who, and under what circumstances it occurred. And this resonates with one of the themes of anthropology, understanding other cultural perspectives. For example, the people of Malagasy, observed by Maurice Bloch (1999), ingest an “antidote” when they have to eat with people from different villages or distant relatives. This helps eliminate discomfort and stress caused by unintentional shortening of the distance with a person who is not close. Although their culture is quite different from mine, the situations where people feel stressed are similar. In other words, even though the act of other cultures seems to be unusual, I think the feeling underlying the act is often understandable for us: making good relationships with others, satisfying self-respect, or relieving stress. So it is very interesting for me to find the similarity of mind beyond time and culture, and to see each culture’s interpretation of the world that is used to make life more comfortable.
It is well known that various cultures around the world have “food” that is “good to eat” which is unacceptable for people in other cultures, for example, clay, dogs, insects, dolphins and so on. However, the reason for eating them could be something which many people can feel sympathy toward. It makes me more interested in thinking about food rules, preferences, taboos, and avoidance.
Bibliography
Association for Japanese History and Travel. 2014. “Shimonoseki ni Fuku wo Maneita Fugu.” Accessed June 29, 2017. http://japan-history-travel.com/?p=3950.
Bloch, Maurice. 1999. “Commensality and Poisoning.” Social Research 66 (1):133–49.
Carlson, Robert G. 1990. “Banana Beer, Reciprocity, and Ancestor Propitiation Among the Haya of Bukoba, Tanzania.” Ethnology 29(4): 297–311.
Krögel, Alison. 2009. “Dangerous Repasts: Food and the Supernatural in the Quechua Oral Tradition.” Food and Foodways 17 (2):104–32.
Nell, Cornelia A. 2015. “Commensality and Sharing in an Andean Community in Bolivia.” In Commensality: From Everyday Food to Feast, edited by Susanne Kerner, Cynthia Chou, and Morten Warmind, 165–76. New York: Bloomsbury.
Nihon Suisan Shigen Hogo Kyokai. 2002. Waga Kuni no Suisangyo Shirizu: Fugu. Accessed June 29, 2017. http://www.fish-jfrca.jp/02/pdf/pamphlet/074.pdf.
Tierney, R. Kenji, and Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney. 2012. “Anthropology of Food.” In Oxford Handbook of Food History, edited by Jeffrey M. Pilcher, 117–34. New York: Oxford University Press.
Food Mapping: Growing Community at Brookline Grown
Gastronomy student Madison Trapkin shares her food mapping work from Anthropology of Food.
In the metropolitan sprawl that is the Greater Boston area, consumers have a wide variety of grocery stores to choose from. There are major chains like Stop & Shop and Trader Joe’s, or somewhere like Whole Foods if you have a bit more disposable income. For those who live in the vicinity of the Brookline neighborhood, there is also the option of shopping at Brookline Grown, a relatively small grocery store that is bringing fresh, local foods to their clientele. Brookline Grown is one example of the purveyors of local foods and food related products that have been cropping up across the United States that encourage customers (quite literally) to bring the farm to their tables.
In this mapping exercise, I consider Brookline Grown as an example of the larger food movement towards local and sustainable agriculture. I discuss the layout of the store and focus on four specific products, as well as what each indicates about foodways, identity, relationship, and current food trends. There are certain aspects of locally sourced foods and food products that cannot be attained from processed, generic, and otherwise large-scale farmed foods. I also examine the various ways in which buying local can strengthen community bonds and encourage positive relationships with growers and producers of local foods.
In order to create this map of Brookline Grown I visited their store. They are located near Coolidge Corner on Pleasant Street. The unassuming exterior of Brookline Grown gives way to the plethora of locally sourced delicacies within its walls. The various products that fill their shelves and baskets are all sourced within a 7-mile radius, which impressed me given their proximity to the city’s elements. Rather than provide an exact to-scale representation of the shop’s interior, I decided to focus on the sourcing of four specific products. I selected items from different food groups in order to provide diverse coverage of the store’s offerings: sweet potatoes, milk, greens, and sriracha (a type of hot sauce). I chose to illustrate one wall from the store and from that honed in on the products I had chosen, including a small map of Massachusetts with every chosen item. Each map of Massachusetts includes a red dot that indicates where the selected item was grown or produced. My goal was to indicate the proximity of production to Boston. Brookline Grown is a proponent of the farm to table movement, which has secured an important spot in this nation’s food history as a direct response to the explosion of commoditized processed foods that began in the 70s. Therefore, it was important for me to emphasize the locality of each item.
The Anthropology of Food: Something Strange, Something Familial
Dr. Ellen Rovner will teach MET ML 641, The Anthropology of Food, during the fall 2017 semester and has prepared this Course Spotlight.
By Pietro Lorenzetti - The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=154045
Anthropologists like to say that the study of anthropology makes the strange familiar and the familiar strange. Whether the “strange” is a Japanese Sumo wrestler’s eating habits, a medieval German nun’s fasts, or the person next door’s “exotic” cooking, anthropologists believe and practice that only through knowing the “other,” do we know ourselves. What does this mean for those of us who will be together for The Anthropology of Food this fall semester? First and foremost, we will be looking at the study of food cross-culturally as central to the understanding of humankind and society. The famous anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss said that food is not just good to eat; food is also good to think with. In other words, what do people’s everyday food practices, rituals, traditions, beliefs, and preferences cross-culturally and at home say to us about whom we are and the worlds we inhabit?
Using our food-focused lens to examine critical social issues related to class, race, human migrations, globalization, ethnicity, alternative food systems, and gender, this semester students will immerse themselves in anthropology’s signature methodology, participant observation, and conduct ethnographic research. Choosing a food-related topic that personally resonates for the student, each member of the class will participate in a semester long qualitative study in the Boston area to familiarize themselves with field methods and to hone critical thinking. In past semesters, students’ projects have covered a fascinating range of topics such as how global food systems contribute to re-creating “home” for non-American residents, class meanings of “farm to table” in restaurants, and eating at the movies.
Anthropology of Food is structured as a seminar; students are encouraged to lead as well as participate in discussions. Along the way, our learning is enhanced with live on-line sessions, movies, guest speakers, field trips to local food sites related to our readings, and most importantly, with snack breaks that highlight our own food rituals, traditions, and preferences. Familiarizing the strange and making the strange the familiar, Anthropology of Food presents food as both good to eat and good to think with! Please join us!
MET ML 641 C1, Anthropology of Food will meet on Wednesday evenings from 6 to 8:45 PM, beginning on September 6. Registration information can be found here.
Oyster on the Rise
Gastronomy student Allison Keir shares her thoughts on the "oyster revival" in the next of our summer blog series, Perspective from Anthropology of Food.
Over the last ten years, oysters have been making a come back into the mainstream food scene. Oyster bars and buck-a-shuck happy hours are popping up all around the metropolitan areas. Why, might you ask, is this re-emergence happening? About a hundred years ago there was an abundance of oyster beds along our coastlines that were slowly depleted from pollution, overfishing, and destruction. Many people don’t know that New York Harbor was once known to be the mecca for harvesting oysters until consumers started getting sick from eating the raw shellfish. Thus, oysters as a sellable food product were shut down and slowly drifted from the food scene. Author Mark Kurlansky recounts the history of oysters once dominating the food scene of New York Harbor in The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell. "Before the 20th century, when people thought of New York, they thought of oysters," Kurlansky writes (2006:95).
At the time, what policy makers and the locals didn’t understand was that it wasn’t the oysters that were bad for consumers; it was the sewage that was being dumped right into the same water from which the oysters were harvested. Later on, the Clean Water Act was created, and oysters and other shellfish were no longer permitted for harvest in water that wasn’t within “Class A” water quality. Not only did this protect our seafood, it helped to clean our waterways. Since then, oysters have been slowly making their way back into the food scene.
Oysters are in a revival and are thriving in a new socialite food scene filled with consumers who are becoming more aware of the environmental benefits of oysters. It only takes one of these bouldering bivalves to filter up to 50 gallons of water per day. Oysters are also one of the most sustainable forms of protein out there; in comparison to beef, their digestive systems reduce and live off waste and other toxins in our waterways, turning the waste into food for themselves and cleaner water for us! They are naturally reducing the nitrogen levels in our waterways that have been a major component in ocean acidification and the depletion of our marine life.
Considering the cost of each oyster at any given raw bar, you could favor oysters as the elite class of mollusks. The pure deliciousness of eating fresh raw oysters while sipping on some wine or micro brew beer has gotten many consumers in the mainstream food scene hooked. Ironically you don’t even need a hook to catch an oyster! Still, oysters are an acquired taste and many people see them as blubbery textured creatures with a marshy flavor, while others think of them as a delicate salty and sweet jewel of the ocean that is comparable to kissing the sea.
So what is driving the surge in popularity for this tasty bivalve? While some consumers may be aware of the ecological benefits of protecting our oyster beds, it is possible that the taste for oysters is not just an ecological, but also a social phenomenon. Oysters have emerged back into the mainstream food scene and are being wined and dined with all walks of life. You don’t have to go down to the docks to see oysters being served on the half shell. You can just go to your local watering hole down the street or make a reservation at a nearby seafood restaurant so you can sit at the raw bar and enjoy the experience of watching the oysters get shucked!