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.
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 final batch of their bios and photos. We hope you have enjoyed getting to know them!
Alex DiSchino is a first generation American from an Italian family who at a young age 
developed a love of food by spending hours in the kitchen with his Aunts and furthered his passion by working in multiple roles in restaurants (from line cook to waiter) before heading off to college. Originally from South Florida, Alex has been a Boston resident for the past 10 years ever since he moved to get his BSBA in Marketing from Northeastern University. Alex’s career has led him through roles where he has gained a strong background in consumer electronics and CPG food industries. With these skills in product marketing, development, and management Alex aims to continue to leverage his skills in developing commercially viable products but adjust his focus toward developing meaningful and successful food products or experiences. He sees the Master of Liberal Arts in Gastronomy program as a once in a lifetime opportunity to share his experiences with a community of likeminded individuals who have a common goal and love for food and it’s importance to our culture and society.
Christy Soojung Sung was born in Seoul, Korea. In May 2014 she completed a BA in 
International Relations with a concentration in Conflict Resolution at the George Washington University. From there, she worked at CJ as a business strategy analyst for 2 years. At CJ, she began to cultivate her career in the health and wellness industry and realized that her real interests were stemming from topics about food. She started talking about food and health on her Youtube channel that she started in college. As she continued to talk about food, she felt compelled to pursue a career in the food industry and wanted to learn more about it. When she found out about the Gastronomy program, she was eager to dive straight in.
She also has experience working for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) for a year as a marketing officer, which is where she developed her passion for sustainable environments and systems.
Christy is interested in Food Policy and Food Business, but in general she is excited to absorb all topics that are related to food such as sustainable food systems, food trends and its history, how a food business works, and topics in nutrition. She is confident that this will be the start of the most exciting chapter of her life.
Kelli Smith was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio. After a childhood spent in grandmother's kitchens and watching more Rachel Ray than Rugrats, she developed a love for all things food (especially eating it).
During her time at Miami University working toward a BA in International Relations and Latin American Studies, she had the opportunity to study abroad with Semester at Sea. While visiting over thirty countries and taking a course on the Anthropology of Food, she realized this interest might be more than just a hobby.
With a Master's in Gastronomy Kelli hopes to combine her passions of writing, travel and food into a career, how exactly? That's still to be determined. Whether it be through a blog or magazine, her main goal in life is to fill her passport and fill her stomach at the same time.
Announcing the Fall 2017 Pépin Lecture Series in Food Studies and Gastronomy
Boston University's Programs in Food and Wine and MLA in Gastronomy Program are pleased to announce the following lectures scheduled for the Fall 2017 semester. Lectures in the Pépin Series are free and open to the public, but registration with Boston University’s Programs in Food and Wine is required.
The Cooking Gene, with Michael Twitty
Tuesday, October 24 at 6pm
College of Arts and Sciences, 725 Commonwealth Ave, Room 224
Renowned culinary historian, Michael W. Twitty, offers a fresh perspective on our most divisive cultural issue, race, using the popular but complicated lens of Southern cuisine and food culture. To do so he traced his ancestry—both black and white—through food, from Africa to America and slavery to freedom. Southern food is integral to the American culinary tradition, yet the question of who "owns" it is one of the most provocative touch points in our ongoing struggles over race. His mission, to re-create the culinary genius of Black colonial and antebellum chefs sits side by side with revealing truth that is more than skin deep—the power that food has to bring the kin of the enslaved and their former slaveholders to the table, where they can discover the real America together.
Food on the Page, with Megan Elias
Wednesday, November 8 at 6pm
College of Arts and Sciences Building, 725 Commonwealth Ave, Room 224
What’s in a cookbook? More than repositories of recipes, cookbooks play a role in the creation of taste on both a personal and national level. From Fannie Farmer to the Chez Panisse Cookbook to food blogs, American cookbooks have commented on national cuisine while also establishing distinct taste cultures. In Food on the Page, Megan Elias explores what it means to take cookbooks seriously as a genre of writing that is as aspirational as it is prescriptive.
Remembering German-Jewish Culture through its Culinary Traditions, with Gabrielle Rossmer Gropman and Sonya Gropman
Wednesday, November 29 at 6pm
College of Arts and Sciences, 725 Commonwealth Ave, Room 224
What happens to a food tradition when its culture starts to vanish? The advent of the Nazi era brought about the demise of 1000 years of Jewish life in Germany and its cuisine, which differs greatly from the Eastern European one that is generally the accepted definition of Jewish food. This food tradition lives on in the kitchens of some German Jews and in the memories of many others around the world. This talk, by a mother-daughter author team with a German-Jewish background, will address issues of food and memory, food as cultural identity, and preserving and documenting traditional recipes.
- “The German-Jewish Cookbook: Recipes and a History of a Cuisine" by Gabrielle Rossmer Gropman and Sonya Gropman, Brandies University Press
A Fresh Crop of Gastronomy Students for fall 2017
It is just about back-to-school season, when the Gastronomy Program will welcome a new group of students.. Here a fresh batch of their bios and photos. Enjoy getting to know them!
Ariana Gunderson grew up in the Boston area and looks forward to returning for her 
Gastronomy MLA at BU. After graduating with a BA in Egyptology from Brown University, Ariana biked to brunch as often as possible while working in DC as a strategy consultant. She then completed a yearlong State Department fellowship in Germany, studying anthropology and excavating a medieval castle. Most recently, Ariana lived in Mexico City, where she continued her consulting work and ate many a tamal. While at BU, Ariana hopes to study refugee and migrant foodways.
Originally from a small bilingual mill town in Northern Maine on the border of French-speaking Canada, Justine Martin inherited her deep love of food and bringing people together from her grandmother. Over seemingly endless buffets of food at countless holidays, family gatherings, and town celebrations, she saw how her grandmother’s French Acadian cooking brought people from all walks of life together.
It was this upbringing and her relationship with her grandmother that first sparked her interest in the powerful role food plays in our lives and in our interactions with others—next door and around the globe. Now, Justine spends nearly all of her spare time cooking, eating, researching, and talking about food and is excited to join the Gastronomy program this fall to connect with others who share her passion. In bringing together her love of food, writing, and culture, she seeks to contribute to the world of food writing and journalism in a unique and meaningful way.
Justine earned her undergraduate degree in Elementary Education from the University of Maine at Fort Kent and spent two years as a 2nd grade and health teacher in Southern Maine. She then moved to the Boston area, where she works as a university development writer and lives with her husband and two fur balls: Ambrose, the moody yet secretly affectionate cat, and Mabel, the crazy-pants clown of a Boston Terrier.
Meghan Russell grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and went to Penn State University,
graduating with a degree in History. Since then she has lived in Washington D.C. and Boston working in consulting and technology.
Meghan always enjoyed helping in the kitchen and going to the grocery store and famers market with her mom growing up, but her passion for food really took off after graduating college. After years of cooking for friends and family, she started her own blog (vegetableway.com) a few years ago as a way and is excited to get back to posting on it more regularly.
As a way to get more involved in food advocacy issues, she started volunteering at the Daily Table, a grocery store in Dorchester, MA. At BU Meghan plans to focus on policy and business, looking for ways to address food access issues and promote local, sustainable food choices through awareness and education.
Welcome, new Gastronomy students!
It is just about back-to-school season, when the Gastronomy Program will welcome a new group of students.. Here a second batch of their bios and photos. Enjoy getting to know them!
Ashley Lopes grew up in San Francisco, California and earned her undergraduate degree in Hospitality and Tourism Management at New York University. As a food enthusiast with a bottomless stomach for carbs, she enjoys watching cooking shows and making food from scratch. While at NYU, Ashley wrote and edited content for culinary magazines and interned in restaurant kitchens and at the Institute of Culinary Education. Most memorably, she tested and evaluated kitchen appliances as a test kitchen intern at Good Housekeeping Magazine.
After graduating, Ashley worked at a startup in Cape Town, South Africa, before directing her passion for travel to a full-time career at TripAdvisor. Since then, she's traveled extensively and seen first-hand how food and culture intersect. Most recently, she ventured on a solo backpacking trip through the vibrant food scenes of Southeast Asia and through the spectacular mountains and fjords of New Zealand.
Ashley is excited to move to Boston and join the Gastronomy Program at BU, where she aims to combine her love of food with writing and travel. She looks forward to studying food on a deeper level and connecting with like-minded foodies. Her goal is to pave a meaningful and colorful career in food publishing and culinary tourism.
Norma Tentori’s fascination with food has been kindled from a young age in Central America where she grew up constantly involved in the kitchen during meal preparation, thanks in great part to her Hispanic and Italian family’s passion, appreciation, interest and enticing diversity in food culture. From there, she called Boston home as she completed her BSBA this past spring in Business Administration with a minor in Nutrition at Simmons College.
As her next career move, she wants to deepen her knowledge in a field that is perfectly aligned with her interest in food, its industry and its prospects in business. She was thrilled to encounter that there is such a program at BU, combining graduate studies in gastronomy and entrepreneurship, right in the city that she has always loved. Norma is confident that this master will satisfy her craving for expertise in gastronomy, as well as provide her with the skills required to intertwine this expertise with brand building and marketing success with a focus in the food / beverage industry
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.