Reflections on Michael Twitty’s Pepin Lecture
On October 24th, Michael Twitty visited BU to present a Pepin Lecture on his book, The Cooking Gene. This is Gastronomy student Ariana Gunderson's take on the lecture.
“But, America is not ready for you.” So said an editor at a major publishing house to Michael Twitty, when he proposed a book tracing the food history of his family and black American foodways in 2012. It turns out that Twitty, culinary historian and minor twitter celebrity (@KosherSoul) got the last laugh. Following a burst of media attention for his take on the Paula Deen scandal, publishers decided America was in fact ready to hear the story of Michael’s family and his intersectional identities - Twitty identifies as black, Jewish, Southern and gay. In his new book, The Cooking Gene, Twitty imparts an important narrative long silenced by white power structures in publishing, academia, media, and education.
Invited to BU for the Pépin Lecture Series, Twitty shared the story of his research and his book in an impassioned lecture peppered with Yiddish and pop culture references. In his talk, Twitty argued that when it comes to food, narratives matter.
“Who owns Southern food? Who created Southern food?” These questions are pertinent to current discussions of appropriation and the persistent impact of colonialism on the present day, but Twitty reframed them to emphasize narrative: “Just because the oppressor and oppressed share the same food does not mean we can create a false equivalence.” Twitty argues that the narrative of a black southerner eating black eyed peas is fundamentally different from the narrative of a white southerner eating those same peas, and that the complications of those narratives are what matter to discussions of race and food.
Narrative also matters in the histories we tell ourselves and our children. Twitty objected to the characterizations of the influences of black cuisines on the American foodscape as “contributions.” This cultural transaction was theft, he asserted, not a “contribution” made in exchange for “rape, whips, and chains.” Telling the stories of black foodways is a small but imperative step to rectifying the whitewashing of our national historical narrative, but it is crucial to be honest about the conditions of that history.
Finally, Twitty argued that personal narrative matters. With each small genealogical epiphany – the name of his great-great grandmother, the current locations of his distant relatives, the foods cooked by his Igbo ancestors – Twitty’s sense of self- and community-identity gained context and legitimacy. He encourages everyone, but especially black Americans, to research their own family history and genealogy as he has, to add depth and emplacement to their personal narratives.
At the conclusion of his talk, Twitty assigned the audience some homework (his experience as a Hebrew School teacher was apparent here). “It doesn’t matter where you are in your life’s journey,” said Twitty. “Go home and write your food biography.” This biography is to be as exhaustive as possible, to include everything – even one’s trips to McDonald’s.
“Then,” Twitty instructed the audience, “if your elders are still alive, interview them.” If not, write down everything you can remember about the food they bought, cooked, ate, or talked about. Elders need not be only blood relatives, they can be anyone in your community. This documentation and preservation of food histories is exactly the work Twitty has completed in incredible depth for his own family history, a methodology especially important for lifting up the voices of the chronically silenced. “Anyone can do this!” Twitty asserted.
Ready or not, Twitty is precisely the food historian America needs.
Don’t forget to sign up for the next installment of the Pépin Lecture Series on November 8th, where BU Gastronomy’s own Megan Elias presents her new book, Food on the Page. Register here.
No Crying Over Raw Milk: Analysis of the United States’ Raw Dairy Controversy
Written by Jessi VanStaalduinen
In my Ethical Eating and Food Movements class, I was to explore a food movement and determine my own opinion on the subject. I went into this assignment with pure curiosity and little bias. My research alarmed me and I have been unable to drink pasteurized milk since. I buy raw milk from a local farm in Fremont, NH.
The population of the United States consumes government regulated, pasteurized dairy products sold at almost every grocery store, the rise of interest in its counterpart, raw dairy, has sparked controversy; this paper will illuminate evidence, contradictory to publicized claims, that raw dairy is safe and citizens should have the right to choose what they consume.
Introduction:
The phrase ‘raw milk’ is not familiar to the average American. Despite what many believe, the milk on supermarket shelves is not considered raw due to the mostly mandatory processing and pasteurization it endures. So, what exactly is raw milk? “Milk that comes from pastured cows, that contains all the fat and has not been processed in any way,” is a definition from one of the largest raw milk supporting foundations in the US (A campaign for Real Milk, 2016). Millions of Americans are unaware of the status of their milk, and those that do know have been led to believe pasteurizing milk is necessary for safe consumption. Government organizations and the dairy industry mislead and lie to consumers about the safety of raw dairy and have made significant efforts to make the distribution and production difficult for dairies and consumption difficult for consumers. These false claims are scare tactics to ensure monopolized market share and to protect factory farms.
I argue, that despite what anyone says, consumers in a free nation have the right to choose what kind of milk they want to buy. Both pasteurized and raw milk, and cheeses, have their pros and cons. Consumers should have readily-available, accurate information on which to base their decisions so that a trip to the grocery store does not require extensive research in order for the health and safety of their families.
This paper will explore the raw dairy industry, the benefits of consuming raw milk, the constraints placed on these dairies, and the truth about pasteurization. Thorough explanations of the arguments for and against raw milk will be presented, although I am sure my bias is obvious. I framed my research through the theoretical framework perspective and I hope it will enhance my point of view.
Theoretical Framework:
Food studies is an up and coming field. Not many institutions have programs that focus solely on it. Thus, the raw dairy industry has been at the mercy of government organizations, lack of public knowledge, and monopolizing agriculture corporations. The discussions about raw dairy are limited and mostly one-sided. Scare tactics are used by both industry and government to convince the public that pasteurization is the only way to safely drink milk, while the small percentage of the population (a difficult statistic to form) that produces and consumes raw milk is a victim of slander and not able to equally defend themselves.
My research included scientific studies of pathogenic bacteria found in raw and pasteurized milk, small dairy testimonials, extensive books on raw food by homeopathic doctors and journalists, and government websites. I believe that all of these sources are applicable to this kind of research because industry cannot be summarized by one model alone. Consumers and producers have valuable opinions, laboratories have extensive studies, and doctors have years of hands on experience; these all help the understanding of the issues surrounding the raw dairy movement.
My paper is an analysis of many sources that uncovers the truth after understanding both sides of the argument. The contribution to the field this paper makes is different because when I began my research I thought of both raw and pasteurized milk equally. After comparing conflicting resources, it became clear to me that this was not the case. My paper is unique and important to the field because I was unbiased prior to my research, strongly considered both sides, and by shedding further light can help people understand raw milk.
To read more, check out Jessi's blog at https://gastroshield.wordpress.com/.
Cookbooks & History: Corn Meal Bread
Students in Cookbooks and History (MET ML 630), directed by Dr. Karen Metheny, researched and recreated a historical recipe to bring in to class. They were instructed to note the challenges they faced, as well as define why they selected their recipe and why it appealed to them. Here is the third essay in this series, written by Laura Kitchings.
I chose to work with the corn meal bread recipe from Mary Randolph’s The Virginia Housewife (Randolph 1838, 141) because it was gluten-free, which suits my dietary needs, and easily transportable, so I could bring the finished project to our class. I had been working with the cookbook for another assignment, and was curious as to the usability of her recipes. I started by considering the material culture I thought I would need: a whisk, a bowl for mixing, a pint measurement, and a divided cast iron pan. I believed that the divided cast iron pan would replicate the technology available in 1838, and substitute for the little pans from the recipe.
In choosing the ingredients, I tried to find materials as close as possible to what would have been available at the time in Virginia, while completing a weeknight shop at a suburban Massachusetts grocery store. I chose whole milk, unsalted butter, organic eggs, and for the cornmeal, I chose a brand that did not list any additives.
For my first attempt, I decided to light one burner on a gas grill and then put the cornmeal mix on the furthest part of the grill from the lit burner. I then left it for approximately forty minutes. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to activate the yeast, and when I checked on the mixture it had not risen and had started to bake. It had also developed a gas taste, which may be attributed to the newness of the particular gas grill.
For the next attempt, I remembered to activate the yeast and decided to use the oven. I set the oven for 205 degrees Fahrenheit and put the cornmeal mixture in an enabled cast iron pot, similar to the technology of the time. Again, when I checked on the mixture after about forty minutes in the oven, it had started to bake. I tried to save the mixture by putting it into the divided cast iron pan, adding butter to hydrate the mixture. Putting the cast iron pan in a 400 degrees Fahrenheit oven and checking it after ten minutes, it had become a crumbly mess.
I then decided to make cornbread as I usually do. I used a mix with added sugar and baking soda, which served as a leavening agent. I used almond milk for the milk and olive oil for the oil. Following the instructions on the package, the end result looked fluffier and tasted sweeter than the mixture from Randolph’s recipe. This was mainly a result of the added sugar and leavening agents, not from changes in the cornmeal itself. I also realized that while creating cornbread using the mix superficially appeared to use only a few ingredient, both the almond milk and the cornbread mix contain a multitude of ingredients, far more than Randolph’s recipe.
For my final attempt at Randolph’s recipe, I realized that my kitchen is a more controlled environment than the kitchen envisioned in the recipe. The thermostat in my kitchen read 70 degrees Fahrenheit, which I assumed to be accurate. Randolph could not assume a kitchen with a controlled environment, so she had the user put the cornbread mixture near the fire, as this would allow the yeast to work with the cornbread regardless of the temperature of the kitchen. I ended up putting the mixture in a shallow enameled cast iron pan and left it on my counter for twenty minutes. The mixture did rise a small amount. I then placed the pan into a pre-heated 375 degree Fahrenheit oven, the same temperature I had baked the cornbread from the mix. I kept the mixture in the shallow pan, as I decided that this would mimic the surface area of the little pans required in the recipe. The result was a solid, dense cornbread.
While waiting for the various rounds of cornbread to bake, I had been reading Diane Tye’s Baking as Biography. In this book she discusses the fall of the price of white sugar in the mid-nineteenth century and the corresponding rise in its consumption (Tye 2010). Randolph’s recipe was likely published before the change in sugar prices and to early 19th-century palates the cornbread was likely considered somewhat sweet. In comparison, my 21st-century palate found the bread to lack sufficient sweetness, while the cornbread from the mix tasted only somewhat sweet. While I do not plan to re-create other recipes from Randolph’s book, the experience did make me examine other historical recipes with more care, and consider the motives behind the provided instructions.
Sources:
Randolph, Mary. 1838. The Virginia House-Wife. Baltimore: Plaskitt & Cugle. PDF e-book.
Tye, Diane. 2010. Baking as Biography: A Life Story in Recipes. Montreal (Québec): McGill-Queen's University Press.
Cookbooks & History: Bread Pudding
Students in Cookbooks and History (MET ML 630), directed by Dr. Karen Metheny, researched and recreated a historical recipe to bring in to class. They were instructed to note the challenges they faced, as well as define why they selected their recipe and why it appealed to them. Here is the second essay in this series, written by Frank Carrieri.
Cookbooks allow people to gain insight into the past. The recipes within such cookbooks paint a picture of a culture and its foodways during a specific period. In Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats, Eliza Leslie (1828), also known under the pseudonym “a lady of Philadelphia,” records classic and original American dessert recipes. Leslie’s choice of rhetoric in the preface patronizes European receipts by mentioning they are “so complicated and laborious” (1828, iii). She credits herself with the originality of the receipts and also commenting that they were prepared by countless friends with great success. Leslie assures us that if the receipts are done precisely to the direction, there should not be any failure (1828, iv). She goes so far as to assert that these receipts are as good as if one purchased them from a confectioner. are as good as if one purchased them from a confectioner.
I was attracted to the bread pudding recipe (1828, 29) for various reasons.
- I love carbohydrates- as most should
- Bread pudding is relatively inexpensive to make
- I was intrigued by the ratio Leslie’s bread pudding used
I would like to think I have a good track record making bread pudding- either in industry or at home. In undergrad, I worked at a restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island, where the bread pudding was the staple dessert. Bread pudding, to simply put it, is bread drenched in a custard and then baked slowly, roughly at 325F degrees. Looking at the recipe, Leslie has four ounces of bread to 44 ounces of custard. I, in a sort of arrogance, instantly thought this was going to be awful. How could you call this bread pudding where there is so little bread? Leslie has some explaining to do. With my doubts, I decided to go ahead and increase the bread amount. The following were my adjustments:
| Ingredients | Quantity |
| Bread | 12 ounces |
| Milk | 1 quart |
| Cinnamon | 2-3 each |
| Eggs (large) | 8 each |
| Sugar | 4 ounces |
| Lemon Zest | “A little” |
| Nutmeg | As needed |
Looking at the recipe once more, I had a realization- “Did they use large eggs in 1828?” I decided to go ahead and make the recipe as I would typically do- large eggs and all. Something that is not mentioned in the recipe is oven temperature. For myself, I always bake custards low and slow, as mentioned earlier. How did others know what temperature to bake bread pudding at and if so, was there an embodied knowledge?
As Leslie precisely instructed, I waited until the bread pudding was cool before I started to cut from it. I was eager to snag a bite of her “American” bread pudding. With the cinnamon, it tasted like french toast- which is not a terrible thing. Overall, I thought the bread pudding lacked excitement and a depth of flavor, which could have been achieved by adding other spices, inclusions such as dried fruit, or substituting some of the milk with heavy cream. The addition of bread gave the recipe more body- essentially putting the bread back into bread pudding. Overall the modified recipe was a success, but I still wish I had tried the original recipe. It would be quite interesting to compare the two versions of the dish.
From making the bread pudding, one can learn that historical recipes can offer a notion of embodied knowledge or knowledge so well known that it wasn't necessary to restate in written form. It can also be said that technology of the era has a role in the production of the recipe. Additionally, through the recipe one can gain an understanding of the kind of person Eliza Leslie was. First, she was a woman who had a passion and knowledge for desserts. Her method of preparation for each recipe was thorough and written with a professional voice. The context of the book is nationalistic, highlighting American cuisine. The cookbook is structured as a guide for women to provide the best American desserts for their families regardless of socio-economic status.
Worked Cited:
Leslie, Eliza. 1828. Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats. Boston: Monroe
and Francis.
Cookbooks & History: Recreating Sour Milk Cake
Students in Cookbooks and History (MET ML 630), directed by Dr. Karen Metheny, researched and recreated a historical recipe to bring in to class. They were instructed to note the challenges they faced, as well as define why they selected their recipe and why it appealed to them. Here is the first essay in this series, written by Caroline Pierce.
When recreating a historical recipe, it’s best to choose one that does not require you to fire up the hearth or stand stirring beans for twelve hours. It’s also best not to choose a recipe that requires a calf’s head or freshly slaughtered goose – those things are just tough to come by! Instead, find a recipe that allows for the greatest amount of interpretation so that you can set it in the oven, walk away, finish the rest of the homework you have looming, and come back when it has cooked to perfection. Specifically, I would recommend making the sour milk cake found in Housekeeping in Old Virginia, edited by Marion Cabell Tyree.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia was published in 1879, hot off the heels of the Civil War, and includes recipes for quince jam, pickled cabbage, and tomato wine. The recipes are drawn from the contributions of over two hundred and fifty people; many of whom Tyree contends are local and national celebrities (Mrs. Robert E. Lee even submitted a recipe, ya’ll!). Unfortunately, no author is credited for the sour milk cake recipe, so I cannot appropriately thank him or her for creating a recipe so easily replicable in modern kitchens and open to interpretations. This recipe calls for six ingredients and has only one instruction:
- 1 pint of sour milk
- 1 pint of flour
- Butter size of a small egg
- 1 tablespoonful of sugar
- 1 saltspoonful of salt
- Half teaspoon of soda
Bake in hot and well greased iron clads.
Despite the fact that this recipe does not call for any animal parts or for me to mill my own grains, questions do arise about the ingredients. Such as, is buttermilk an acceptable alternative to sour milk? What types of flour were used in 1879? How small is a small egg? And what’s a saltspoon?
One can imagine that this recipe was employed in order to use up milk that was a bit past its prime, as refrigeration wasn’t a reliable option for many cooks at the time. I didn’t have any milk in the fridge that was going bad, so buttermilk would have to do. King Arthur Flour was founded in 1790, but somehow I doubted that a housewife in Virginia was ordering specialty flours from Vermont. It’s likely that the flour of 1879 was much less processed than the flour we use today, but unfortunately I was fresh out of whole-wheat flour, so I made do with all-purpose flour instead. The only eggs that I had on hand were labeled “Large.” In fact, I don’t think I have ever seen small-sized eggs labeled at the grocery store. (Where do the small eggs that hens lay go? A question for another day.) In order to gauge how small a small egg is, I decided to measure my large-sized egg, subtract a quarter inch, and then use that measurement to decide how much butter to use. Easy.
I performed a similar technique for determining the size of the saltspoon. Historic saltspoons measure about a half to three quarters of an inch across. Luckily, a half-teaspoon seemed to fit these dimensions, so I just rolled with it.
I gathered the materials I thought I would need and got cracking. The recipe didn’t say how to mix things together, but I knew that most baked goods combine the dry materials in one bowl and the wet in another. I started off by mixing the flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda together. The instructions didn’t say what to do with the butter, but I felt melted butter would be easier to work with than hard, or evenly slightly softened butter, so I popped it in the microwave and enjoyed the convenience that electromagnetic radiation has to offer.
The instructions clearly state to bake hot. I had preheated my oven to 375°F because I figured that was a pretty hot temperature to bake a cake at. However, once I got measuring and mixing I realized that this was no ordinary cake. There weren’t any eggs, and the batter started to resemble biscuit or pancake batter.
I knew that drop biscuits loved high heat and that is what makes them rise quickly and develop a nice crust on the outside. I figured my sour milk cakes would like this treatment also, so I jacked up the temperature to 425°F.
While I waited for the oven to heat I greased up ye old iron clad, which I interpreted to be a cast iron pan. The author calls for iron clads, plural, but I only had one large cast iron to work with. Although I did have a block of lard on hand (don’t ask) it was frozen solid, so I used butter to grease the pan. Once the oven was hot, the cast iron went in the oven and the guessing games began. Is the oven hot enough? Should I have preheated the cast iron? How long could this cake bake? And how much homework could I get done while it was in there? While you’re contemplating all that, the ten-minute timer on your phone will go off before you have a chance to remember what chapters were assigned for that week. After ten minutes the top of the cake was still pretty pale and the sides were only starting to brown. I put the cake back in for 5 more minutes, waited, realized that still wasn’t enough time and baked for 5 minutes more. At 20 minutes the cake had golden brown sides, a firm texture on top, and a fragrant aroma. The sour milk cake was baked.
I let the cake cool in the pan for a little while, because I knew it needed to set up a bit and would probably just break apart if I tried to extract it immediately. After 5 minutes of impatient waiting I slid the cake out onto the baking rack to cool completely. I sliced the cake into 16 wedges, and packed them up for my inquisitive classmates, who undoubtedly slaved away all weekend cooking boiled tripe and pickled pigs feet.
The resulting cake was light and airy with a taste and texture not unlike a baked pancake, and would have been a pretty tasty option for someone trying to use up a gallon of half bad milk.
Recreating historical recipes is challenging not only in the interpretation of measurements and ingredients, but more broadly in the act of recreation itself. Mark Smith writes in “Producing Sense, Consuming Sense, Making Sense” (2007) that trying to replicate historical events by reproducing a past stimulus is fruitless because the way that we sense things has changed even if the input is the same. While we may seek to understand a given culture’s history by cooking their recipes we can never truly replicate that sense because our context for the recipe is entirely different today than it was in the past. Regardless of whether or not I was able to accurately recreate the sour milk cake, it will always be different than the one made in 1879.
I didn’t make the sour milk cake because I have a constant daily supply of milk that must be used or risk having it go bad. I didn’t have to collect wood and light a fire or churn my own butter or worry about bugs in the flour or the price and scarcity of sugar. I went to Whole Foods and bought milk that someone soured for me, I turned the dial on my oven to 425°F, I collected ingredients from my electric refrigerator, and melted butter in a microwave. I made this cake because I was asked to, but I didn’t have to. I didn’t have ten other dishes that I needed to make that day or chores that needed to be completed. As a woman I am not tied to the hearth and home in the way that a housewife in 1879 was. I have the freedom and movement to pursue an education and pick up a bag of hamburgers for my family if I want to. The sour milk cake was delicious, but it still tasted different than it would have in 1879, and I am pretty sure I nailed the recipe.
Works Cited
Smith, Mark M. 2007. Producing Sense, Consuming Sense, Making Sense: Perils and Prospects for Sensory History. Journal of Social History 40(4): 841-858.
Tyree, Marion Cabell. 1879. Housekeeping in Old Virginia. Louisville: John P Morton and Company.
Reflections on Julie Guthman’s New Food Activism
On October 12th, USC Professor Julie Guthman visited Boston to present a lecture on Social Justice and New Food Activism at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. This is Gastronomy student Madison Trapkin's take on the lecture.
“The new food activism.”
I stared at this phrase on the projector screen, accompanied by a picture of a basket of ripe strawberries. I felt out of place as a BU student sitting in a Harvard lecture hall, but those little berries put me at ease. Julie Guthman is a food person, I reminded myself. You’ll feel better once she starts talking. And I did feel better. But I also felt worse.
I’d arrived early to get the perfect seat and now I watched as students, professors, and members of the community filled the empty spaces surrounding me. As the lights dimmed, the usual hush fell over the audience, and Guthman took the stage. I was struck by her stature. A petite woman with short grey hair wearing black glasses and a basic black top stared at me from behind the lectern.
I forgot about her height as soon as she started speaking. Guthman began her lecture with Mark Bittman and the issues surrounding foodie culture, the group of epicures who enjoy watching cooking shows and participate in the sort of voting-with-your-fork activism that both Bittman and Guthman reject. The problem with this kind of activism, according to Guthman, is that it doesn’t do enough. Foodies focus on the pleasures of food, but Guthman urges us to consider what happens when we go beyond pleasure as she moves into the next part of her lecture.
We need to consider food producers. Bottom line. The often-undocumented laborers working tirelessly to give us tomatoes year-round, these are the people we need to look at. The farm crew working daily in an environment laden with harmful pesticides, we have to consider them too. What about the companies these people are working for? What has been done to underline the systems of oppression within the food systems that give us, a privileged group of scholars, our daily bread?
Guthman told us to question it all. And to get active.
After a brief history of the alternative food movement, Guthman moved into three cases studies that illustrated potential successes and failures of food activism. However, what struck me the most was her closing segment: what to do in the age of Trump.
Guthman’s lecture was a call to arms and an acknowledgement of what we’re up against. Food systems in America are about to be hit hard under Trump’s reign. From school lunch programs to genetically modified crops, things are going to change. And as activists, we need to be ready. We need to look at the underlying policies that threaten our foodways; immigration policy, income and health inequality, insufficient health and safety regulation. We need to educate ourselves and empower each other. Guthman cited movements like Black Lives Matter and Occupy as she pointed out the following: it IS possible for people of color to lead, to vote with more than your fork, and to affect the public conversation.
Her closing comment gave me chills. “We have to continue on in the vein of increasing awareness and activism,” Guthman stated, matter-of-factly. She meant business. And now, so do I.
I’m sure you could ask someone else who attended that lecture for his or her take and you’d get a different response, but that’s the beauty of the way Guthman speaks. She covered so much ground that it was almost impossible to narrow it down for the purposes of this blog post. The world of food activism is huge and filled with countless issues, platforms, and policies to get behind (or fight against), so we need to fight where we can.
Julie Guthman’s talk gave me hope for our country and for our foodways.
You can read more about Guthman's lecture here.
Giselle Kennedy Lord Named James Beard Foundation National Scholar
Gastronomy at BU is proud to announce that student Giselle Kennedy Lord was recently selected as the James Beard Foundation National Scholar Northwest.
The JBF National Scholars Program “provides ten high-impact scholarships of $20,000 each to food-focused candidates of exceptional talent.” Winners are chosen based on academic standing, personal recommendations, and professional recommendations.
“My application for the scholarship was centered around my focus in the BU gastronomy program, which is how people express home and identity through food and cooking. My thesis research, which I will do in the Spring of 2018, will be a deep dive into that theme as it relates to the Lebanese diaspora in Argentina and the Americas,” says Lord.
Giselle lives in the Columbia Gorge area of Oregon, where she launched her small business, Quincho, in 2015. In the years before launching Quincho and becoming a Gastronomy student at BU, she worked as a freelance video producer specializing in food and agriculture in the Pacific Northwest.
Giselle now hosts pop-up, food-culture-focused events with Quincho and she is currently working on launching an online shop of cookware and kitchenware connected to distinct food cultures and artistic traditions. According to Lord, “Quincho is about culture, community, and cookery. It’s a celebration of foodways and culinary tradition the world round. It’s a call to gather with like-minded people to learn something new, be inspired to explore, and empowered to create.”
Giselle will travel to Argentina in January to conduct ethnographic research for her thesis. In between interviews and kitchen sessions, she will be on the lookout for unique cookware and working to forge connections with local artisans. She also plans to eat a lot of empanadas, peruse every street fair, and hunt for vintage cookbooks.
You can follow her journey on the Quincho blog: http://quincho.co/blog/
Course Spotlights: Food & Art, Gender & Food
Read on for a sneak peek into some of the Gastronomy classes we will be offering this Spring. Registration information can be found here.
Food and Art
Laura Ziman will teach Food and Art during the Spring 2018 semester and has prepared this Course Spotlight.
Looking at the earliest images, tableware and sculpture of food from the Ancient World to the contemporary, we will see the historic changes in objects and artwork that refer to cuisine. Discoveries will be made in the purposes and meaning of imagery and three-dimensional objects through time from a variety of cultures.
Artists’ lives will be explored through their work, the time they worked in and their country of origin leading to greater understanding of the art they created.
Posters, cookbooks, advertisements, films and models of food all contribute to the visual cornucopia we will explore.
This course includes trips to The Museum of Fine Arts, which contains food art from Mesopotamia to the 21st century. Ancient Greek oil pitchers, an American dining table from 19th Century Dorchester to 20th Century table settings will be visited.
We will visit a food market and view the artistry in food arrangement and packaging. Food artists will be visiting the class to share the inspiration and discussion of techniques used in making their art.
Gender and Food
Dr. Megan J. Elias will teach Gender and Food during the Spring 2018 semester and has prepared this Course Spotlight.
Can a woman eat a Manwich? Can Dad produce Mom’s home cooking? And how is the movement away from gender binaries reflected in foodways? In Food and Gender we will explore ways in which language and behaviors around food both reinforce and challenge gender hierarchies and restrictive norms. Using frameworks developed in gender studies we will interrogate our contemporary foodscape through close readings of many media, including food blogs, magazines, TV shows and advertisements. We will also include our own cooking histories and habits in our research and discussion, taking note of when and how cultural assumptions about gender restrict our choices in the kitchen.
The course will include reading, research, field work, discussion, and cooking to help us understand why and how food has been gendered and how the process differs across place, time, and culture.
Students will be responsible for developing a group project together as well as working on individual investigations of gender and food.
Lessons Learned Writing “A Taste of Broadway”
Gastronomy student Jennifer Packard spent the last two years writing a book on food and musicals. Here is her reflection on the experience, as well as tips for those who may be interested in getting published.
Even when I say it aloud, I still can’t believe it. In January 2018, my first book, A Taste of Broadway: Food in Musical Theater, will be published. In the book, I explore how food is used in musicals as a plot device, a communication cue, or as a detail that reveals the food history or creative methods used by the show’s developers. Consider, for example, the importance of meat pies in Sweeney Todd, codfish chowder in Carousel, chow mein in Gypsy, and gruel in Oliver!.
In total, my book project took about two years. It required a huge time commitment, but it was a labor of love. Given that I’ve never published anything before, it was also a major learning experience. Because I know that many others in the Gastronomy program are interested in writing, I wanted to share some of these lessons.
Choose a Topic That Excites You
For any project that requires such a significant commitment, the most important thing is to choose a topic that excites you. Even with a topic that you feel passionate about, there will be times when the project feels overwhelming and tiresome. If you’re not excited about the topic, you will struggle to get through it. You must also be disciplined in committing your time to writing regularly. There were some days I just couldn’t get my mind in the right place to write, so I’d change up my tasks between writing, research, recipe testing, and tracking down permissions.
Understand How to Write a Proposal
Before even beginning the writing, however, the first step was to submit a book proposal to the publisher. The proposal includes a summary of what the book is about and who it’s for, a list of similar or competing books, and logistical information such as expected word count and timing. Essentially, the proposal is meant to convince the publisher that there will be a market for the book, so it should be a little bit salesy.
In my zeal, I originally estimated the book would be 100,000 words, but 70,000 was more in line with what the publisher expected. I gave myself eighteen months to get my manuscript to the publisher. The publisher warned me that I needed to figure in time for the content editor to review my work, which happens before the manuscript is officially submitted. In truth, I could have worked on this book forever. Every time I looked at it, I found something I wanted to change. I still do. The due date was helpful as a goal to keep me moving as well as providing a final cut-off date when I had to stop editing.
Obtain Permissions
Throughout the process, I slowly learned about how to get permissions. Permissions are required when including images or photographs not taken by the author. They are also required for quoting someone else’s creative work. Given the topic of my book, there were many places where I wanted to quote song lyrics or librettos. This involved finding out who owned the rights, finding a way to get in touch with that person or organization, and then getting a written document describing how I could use the quote. Finding and contacting the rights holder took a huge amount of time and research. There are professionals that can be hired to do this, but they charge an hourly rate that I was unwilling to pay. Additionally, the rights holder usually requires a fee which can be quite steep. And sometimes the rights holder will not give permission at all. This meant that my use of lyrics and quotes were limited to those I was able to obtain and that I felt were particularly important. If I write another book, it will have a topic that does not require gathering a large number of permissions.
Believe In Yourself
Finally, if you want to write a book, believe that you can do it. My confidence wavered at every stage. Even with a signed contract in hand, I worried that the editors would hate the final manuscript and change their minds. It wasn’t until I saw the cover of the book that I let myself acknowledge that it was really happening. Though I’ve yet to hold an actual printed copy of my book in my hands, I’ve allowed myself to feel proud of my accomplishment. Regardless of anyone else’s response to it, I am content knowing that I’ve achieved an incredible effort in bringing my passion project to life.
You can preorder Jennifer's book here. Check out her blog here.
An Internship Experience at the United Nations
Gastronomy student Ritika Jagasia spent two months in New York City this summer as an intern at the United Nations. Here is her reflection on the experience.
This summer, I had the opportunity to work as an Events and Knowledge Management Intern at the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation. UNOSSC is a body under United Nations Development Programme established to promote, coordinate and support South-South and triangular cooperation globally and within the United Nations. Their work is mainly structured to support developing counties such as India, Brazil, South Africa, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Indonesia, in the political, economic, social, cultural, environmental and technical domains.
My role in UNOSSC was to work on an upcoming important event called the Global South-South Development Expo that is offered by United Nations solely focusing on Global South. It in a high-level annual event, hosted this year in Antalya, Turkey, designed to showcase successful development stories. While my internships was only for two months, they truly treated interns as a staff and entrusted them with serious responsibilities.
In 2015, the UN established 17 goals as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. As a knowledge management intern I studied solutions provided by various countries to achieve the sustainable goals. As a gastronomy student, I was particularly interested in the United Nation’s Sustainable Goal 2, which is to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. I researched and collected data on the agricultural sector in African countries and my efforts will be produced in the upcoming UNOSSC Climate Change Publication. UN internships are, really, what you make of them.
I also had the privilege of attending the town hall meeting in the presence of UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. I learned about the values and principles of the organization when the Secretary General mentioned that we come from different corners of the world. Our cultures, religions, traditions, widely vary and hence there are competing conflicts among us. This is why we need the UN. The Secretary General is very keen on getting various agencies under the UN umbrella to work together towards one goal of alleviating poverty and hunger and supporting partnerships.
Getting an internship at the UN is not difficult. It is about knowing what you want and being extremely motivated and organized. It was a fulfilling experience every single day when you walk inside the headquarters and knowing that somewhere you are creating a cause and making a difference. A job with an international organization certainly does not demand to discard one’s personal ideals, but one must match those personal views to the goals and policies of the organization.
Additional information on United Nations Internships can be found here.