More New Spring ’17 Students
Classes have just begun for students enrolled in the MLA in Gastronomy and Food Studies Graduate Certificate programs this Spring! Here are two more new candidates.
Madoka Sasa was born and raised in Nagano in Japan and received her BA in Social welfare from Tokyo Metropolitan University in Tokyo. After graduating from college she began to work for a newspaper as a staff writer. While working at the company, she transferred from Tokyo to other rural regions where she began to cultivate an interest in food and drink. She realized that talking, tasting and knowing about typical local foods and drinks was always a good way for her to understand the culture and people there, and to make new friends in strange towns. Her network of friends and precious memories in those days are strongly connected with various foods in the area.
Through this program, Madoka wants to learn about relationships among people and food from various points of view. She believes that this is one of the best ways to understand people more deeply, and to understand the needs of the times. She hopes to utilize her education in Gastronomy to improve her skills as a journalist, and to contribute to a society where people can enjoy delicious meals in peace.
Sarit Rubinstein was born and raised in Israel. She has an MBA from Tel-Aviv University and has worked as a business manager and economist for major banks and credit card companies in Israel. She has always been passionate about baking, however, and after completing her Master’s degree she decided to attend a pastry school and several cake decorating workshops. She has since mastered cake decorating using fondant, royal icing, and buttercream, and is now a cake designer and the proud owner of a successful home-based business, “Sweet-Art Cakes”, here in MA.
Growing up in Israel and surrounded by a variety of cultural backgrounds, Sarit has always loved exploring and learning about food-related stories, recipes, and customs. She hopes to use her Gastronomy studies at BU to look further into the relationships between food history and culture. In addition, she desires to learn more about food labeling and nutrition, and the effects of food policies on our lives.
Besan Laddoos Deconstructed: The Science Behind This Indian Sweet
By: Sonia Dovedy
Growing up in an Indian household, I was often handed a precious, round morsel to savor during any holiday, religious festival, or simply as a doting gift from a relative. Known as “laddoo,” which translates to “round ball,” these beloved confections of clarified butter, various flours, sugar, dried fruit, and nuts have always held a sweet place in my heart. For my food science class (MET ML 619), I took on the exciting task of exploring the science behind preparing the laddoo.
Some History
Historically, laddoos were created for their medicinal purposes. Comprised of healthful ingredients such as desi ghee, dates, chickpea flour, nuts and seeds, these sweets were meant to invigorate the weak and nourish individuals. Additionally, they served as a perfect ration for warriors and travelers because of their ease in transportation and long storage life. Then, when the British brought sugar to India, the entire purpose of laddoos dramatically changed. Recipes were re-created with the addition of the addicting sucrose, and laddoos became ubiquitous treats, necessary for every celebratory occasion. Today, laddoos come in all varieties - from traditional besan (chickpea flour) laddoos, to coconut laddoos, date laddoos, and more. Yet their shape remains the same - a small, round ball, in adherence to their namesake.
The Project
Within Indian households, cooking is not a science; recipes come from stories, directions come from instinct, and the perfect flavor comes from experience. Thus, when asking the culinary experts of my mother and grandmother for help on decoding the “science” behind one of my favorite sweets, besan laddoo, I did not receive much clear guidance. For example, when asking how long to cook the besan, my mother replied, “I don’t know? Just cook it until it smells roasted. You will know.” After many attempts and questions, I was able to patch together the following recipe:
The Science: I will now explain the science within each step of the recipe as well as the role that the different ingredients play during the process of making besan laddoo.
The Roasting
The first step is to roast the besan, or finely ground chickpea flour in the ghee. Ghee is essentially butter which has been cooked for a long time, until the milk solids have browned and caramelized. These milk solids of casein, lactose, and whey, are then strained from the mixture, and the resulting product is a clear liquid of pure milk fat with nutty, burnt caramel notes. The use of ghee in the laddoo is important for the following reasons:
- It adds nutty, burnt caramel flavors.
- Its high smoke point of 450F is well suited to fry the other ingredients.
- It helps to preserve laddoos for a long period of time. Laddoos store well for up to two weeks!
When the besan undergoes the Maillard reaction, it takes on golden hues, emits a nutty aroma, and transforms into a rich, savory ingredient, essential for this sweet. During the roasting process, it is imperative to roast the besan on a medium-low flame while stirring continuously. This slow, careful process ensures that each granule of besan is exposed to even heat, providing for an even roasting of the flour; this also prevents the besan from burning and becoming bitter.
The next step is to add the non-fat dry milk powder to the besan/ghee mixture, and roast for five more minutes. The use of non-fat dry milk powder in this recipe adds important depth in flavor; here, the concentrated dose of milk sugar, lactose, facilitates the Maillard reaction even further and imparts a sweet, burnt caramel flavor to the laddoo. It is important to note that the milk powder is added to the mixture towards the very end of the roasting process for a short period of time. Otherwise, the milk solids would burn.
The Flavoring
Once roasting is complete, the mixture is removed the heat and allowed to cool minimally - just enough so that it is able to be handled while adding the rest of the ingredients: confectioner's sugar, cardamom, and a pinch of salt. It is important for the batter to stay warm because sugar and salt are much more soluble in warmer substances than cooler ones, and heat allows for the cardamom spice to release its fragrant oils. There is no concern about over-mixing the batter, because there is no gluten in this recipe.
Regarding sugar, in this recipe, the use of confectioner’s sugar is essential, not only to sweeten this dish, but also to achieve the melt-in-your mouth, creamy consistency that this particular laddoo boasts. Confectioner’s sugar, or granulated sugar that has been ground to a fine powder, contains the same chemical structure as ordinary granulated sugar, sucrose. However, it has a small addition of starch, which helps it to absorb moisture and prevents it from caking. Thus, in this recipe, the confectioner’s variety of sugar is crucial for texture. In addition, cardamom, a familiar spice used in Indian cuisine, provides warming flavor notes to the besan laddoo. When crushed and heated, this seed emits floral, fruity terpene compounds and cineole, an essential oil similar to eucalyptus. Finally, salt (my own personal addition to the recipe), or sodium chloride, intensifies the sweetness and adds a depth in flavor to this dish.
The Formation
The last step of the recipe is to take about two tablespoons of the batter and squeeze it together in your palm a few times in order to form a small round ball. At first, the mixture crumbles, but with firm repetitive motions, it begins to glue together. Here, it is helpful to lightly grease your palms with ghee, as this provides a seal around the laddoo, preventing sticky moisture from entering.
As the laddoos cool, they transform from a soft, crumbly consistency into a firm, solid mass. This change in structure is due to the redistribution of the chemical compounds from the ingredients. For example, as the ghee in the batter cools, it returns to its solid state. In addition, the amylose and amylopectin in the chickpea flour realign in different places around the ghee, producing a thicker, more solid formation. These laddoos can be stored in an airtight container for up to three weeks, making them a suitable travel snack.
The final product of this exploration is a collection of precious confections: dense golden balls, with a crumbly centers that melt into a soft, creamy texture on the tongue. Flavor notes include nutty, roasted, and burnt caramel profiles from the roasting, as well as warm eucalyptus notes from the cardamom. While it is not necessary to know the science behind these round treasures in order to enjoy their sweetness, I would argue that this research adds even more depth to their flavor. Enjoy!
Read more from Sonia at www.bakewithsonia.com and www.cookwithsonia.wordpress.com.
New Students, Spring ’17
Classes have just begun for students enrolled in the MLA in Gastronomy and Food Studies Graduate Certificate programs this Spring! Here are three of the new candidates.
Sydney Manning, originally from Wisconsin by way of California, was raised on cheese, brats, Kringle, and soul food. She spent junior and senior year of high school in England, where she was exposed to new countries, cultures, and authentic European cuisines. She received her BS in Marketing Communication from Emerson College and ventured into a career in social media marketing for both the food and hospitality industries. While working, Sydney began to develop an interest in cooking and eating that went beyond a night out or writing copy for one of her clients. Suddenly she found herself looking at a dish, longing to learn how to create it on her own, and began documenting every triumph (and occasional failure) on her blog, DaintyDwellings.com.
Gradually, each project she took on got more ambitious until she realized that preparing food (especially for others) had somehow become a part of her very being. It was then that she decided, the world of food was not only where she wanted to spend her personal life, but her professional life as well. With her degree in Gastronomy, Sydney hopes to pursue a career in food media, food activism, restaurant marketing, and/or hospitality.
Madison Trapkin is a native Atlantan, born out of a love for food. As the daughter of a chef and a restaurant owner, she began her culinary love affair at a very young age. Madison graduated with a BA in Anthropology from the University of Georgia in 2014. Shortly after, she boarded a plane to Italy to work as an au pair for a family of Russian winemakers living in the heart of Tuscany. She returned to the US with a fire in her belly and a mission to make something out of her passion for food.
While in college, Madison created Bread & Thread (http://bread-and-thread.com), her food and art blog. She uses mediums such as photography, recipes, poems, and music to give her audience a multi-sensory food experience. The most important events in her life have always seemed to happen around a table – whether it’s her best friend’s teary wedding rehearsal dinner or a plate of fluffy pancakes at her parent’s house on a Sunday morning. Madison is elated at the opportunity to continue her liberal arts education as a part of BU’s Gastronomy program. She’s especially excited about the possibility of combining food and gender studies and hopes to one-day work as a food writer or critic in some capacity.
Sarah Wu grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, but considers herself a bi-costal girl, as she was born on and frequently visits the East Coast. She earned her B.S. in Journalism at Boston University and has studied Spanish for nine years, including as a minor in college. Sarah can speak hours about Madrid and the Spanish food she deeply misses. She is a travel and food writer and the former managing editor of the Buzz. She also wrote, translated, and edited for Where Madrid, a travel magazine in Spain. After speaking with former Gastronomy students and taking Taste, Culture, and Power: The Global History of Food and Food Writing course at BU, she knew that she wanted to combine her love of writing and travel with global tastes in the Gastronomy program. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her taking photos of food or ballroom dancers, as she is a competitive ballroom dancer herself. She hopes to write for a national magazine in the future or even work as a public relations coordinator for restaurants or food establishments. A less realistic goal for her is to host her own Travel Channel show, but she knows that her fast talking might not be great for television, so she prefers her pen and paper.
Alumni Spotlight: Nina Quirk
Finding the perfect career path can be a struggle for some Gastronomy graduates. Throughout my time in the program, my friends and I would discuss matters such as balancing hospitality industry schedules with families, low pay and menial incentives, endless hours of kitchen drudgery, and many more unappealing aspects common to a life devoted to food.
While pursuing my degree, I worked as a personal chef, specializing in cooking for people with cancer, diabetes, epilepsy and food allergies, using advanced diet therapies to help address those conditions. This offered flexibility, hands-on experience and decent pay, but clients came in waves. I found myself craving the social atmosphere of a kitchen and wondering what foodservice management might be like.
My husband works in elder care, so I conducted various studies with the senior population he served as I worked toward my master’s degree. I researched nursing home and assisted living gardens, taste loss and aging, and Grandmother Cuisine, among other topics. That new interest in senior food systems led me to pursue a career with SALMON Health and Retirement, a housing and healthcare organization in Central Massachusetts.
In June 2015, I took the position of Director of Dining Services for SALMON’s Natick campus. Our building houses 66 residents in assisted living apartments (including memory care), 54 residents in a skilled nursing center, 50 children in the SALMON Early Education Center, and 45 Adult Day Health Center clients. All in all, the kitchen I manage feeds 200 people daily.
When I arrived on the scene, there were obstacles to overcome. In my first few weeks on the job, we went from using an outside contractor to being a Salmon-managed kitchen. As the first manager of this new operation, I saw boundless opportunities to create a wonderful, gastronomy-friendly system for a superior dining program. I started by teaching my culinary team to cook menu items from scratch, saying goodbye to the frozen and canned past they knew. I hired a talented pastry chef to elevate the baked goods and treats on campus. Now, most of our food items are homemade, including salad dressings, breads, pizza and desserts. Our residents grew enthusiastic and happier with the new dining services over time, and the positive impact good food had on the whole community became obvious.
This acceptance allowed me to host a variety of programs to engage our residents around food:
- We formed a traveling group, visiting foodie destinations like the Boston Public Market or the Boston Public Library for afternoon tea, and various local farms.
- We established a Solarium for residents to grow plants—both edible and flowering. The space is solely dedicated to the garden craft; it’s also been widely accepted by our residents with dementia.
- Each month, we host interactive cooking demonstrations where residents handcraft ethnic specialties. So far, we’ve made ravioli, pierogi, tomato tarts, pickles, jams, and much more.
- We partnered with a group called Brain Wellness to conduct a three-part seminar on brain-healthy eating where I cooked the foods and served them to a full house.
- Our most recent endeavor is a program called Heritage Cuisine. We’ll gather recipes and food traditions from our residents’ families to create a varied and unique campus cuisine.
We have a lot of fun at work building community around food, and I feel very fortunate. This position has provided me with the perfect application of the Gastronomy Program: food infused with meaning.
Article: Do Puerto Ricans know the origin of their typical food?
By Michelle Estades
This article was originally published in December 2014 in Diálogo, the newspaper of the University of Puerto Rico.
Puerto Ricans, without a doubt, are passionate about eating. They are willing to try different foods, but when asked what their favorite dish is; rice, beans and roasted pork have the lead. According to Cruz Miguel Ortiz Cuadra, a History Professor at the University of Puerto Rico in Humacao (UPRH), this is demonstrated at the start of each school year when he asks their students "what is your favorite dish?"
"Rice, beans and stewed chicken," one responds, while another writes "Greek rice and breast with sauce." There are some who indicate that they prefer "pasta with shrimp", to which Ortiz Cuadra calls the phenomenon Macaroni and Grill. But there are students who always say that their favorite food contains rice: "rice, stewed beans and chicken" or "white rice with fried spam". They also mention tubers with cod or other dishes with mofongo (mashed plantain).
"There is no doubt that domestic food is the favorite of people," said Ortiz Cuadra. But do Puerto Ricans know the origin of their gastronomy?
The professor of the UPR in Humacao, who has specialized in capturing the history of Puerto Rican food, said that the Taino Indians and the Spaniards, as well as the Africans, influenced the gastronomy of the Island.
"Our food is a mongrel and mulatto food. It is a combination of food known to the Indians, food that came in the Spanish conquest, the result of slave trade and the desires for survival of Africans who came as slaves," Ortiz Cuadra said.
Among the foods that the Puerto Rican cuisine adopted from the Tainos are: cassava, yautía, maize, beans, batatas, pepper, sweet and spicy chilli and recao. From the Spanish conquest were acquired foods such as pork, beef, rice, oil and various enriching flavors such as oregano, cumin, basil and almost all herbs used to make sofrito. While directly from Africa came the famous plantain, banana, yam, okra and beans, but also came a starter food in Puerto Rican cuisine, the gandules (pigeon peas).
Ortiz Cuadra clarified that Puerto Rican gastronomy was shaped as the result of a globalization after discovery. "After Columbus discovered America, there was something going on and on and food was distributed throughout the rest of the world. This was not from one day to another, this was something of centuries. This ours has to do with that globalization and with the transfer of food by the result of the movement of the populations,” he pointed.
Although Puerto Rican cuisine was created as a result of colonial and imperial projects of Spain, it has had the ability to adapt dishes from other parts of the world and turn them into something local. For example, Ortiz Cuadra mentioned arroz con dulce. This came from Spain where it is known as rice with milk. When they brought it to Puerto Rico they did not have the milk, but they did have coconut. Then they modified it to their realities and developed arroz con dulce.
"If you come to see, our food is the result of globalization, colonial projects and imperial projects. If Spain does not have as mission to create an expansion in America to develop Christianity and mercantile companies, these foods do not arrive. Same with the slavers, if they do not have the interest of bringing slaves to America, they do not get these foods," he mentioned.
Rice with pigeon peas
In his book “Puerto Rico in the pot, are we still what we eat?,” Ortiz Cuadra highlight that although the rice was brought to Puerto Rico by the Spaniards this began to be cultivated by the Africans. Not by the Taino Indians because they did not know the food and not by the Spaniards because they "used it more as food than as a seed."
The author indicates that when the Africans arrived to Puerto Rico they had to immediately relate to the agriculture of the Island and sowed and produced crops that they knew for their subsistence, including rice.
However, the rice culture of Puerto Rico began when they saw the potential for dissemination and the effective techniques to grow it by the 16th century. With this also came the different ways of cooking it. One of the techniques of cooking rice was incorporating other elements such as legumes or meats, which became known as compound rice.
To cook the compound rice, they started making the sofrito that at that time was simply the part of adding spices and other condiments to give it more flavor. But, why did Puerto Ricans start making rice with pigeon peas like the typical rice made up of parties?
According to Ortiz Cuadra, compound rice were specifically made on special occasions or parties because it was a way of cooking two different foods and "increased the volume of a food service." Rice was also combined with ingredients that were available in seasons. This is the case of the pigeon peas.
"The absence of the plate [rice with pigeon peas] at Christmas Eve, New Year and Three Kings dinners, today would be considered a true lack of Christmas gastronomic tradition. But what is not known is that at the time when the kitchen was not modeled by the agro-industry, but by the agricultural cycles, the collection of the gandul (pigeon peas) coincided in the calendar with the Easter parties," explained the author.
Recipe of traditional rice with pigeon peas
Since there is no Christmas in Puerto Rico and there are no parties without typical food, here we present a recipe of traditional rice with pigeon peas taken from the Sazón Boricua food blog.
Ingredients:
2 cups long grain rice or the grain of your choice
2 cans of green pigeons or 2 pounds of pigeons, softened (not drained)
3 tablespoons of annatto oil or canola oil
½ cup of diced ham
1 cup of pork, optional
3 tablespoons of sofrito
¼ cup of olives
2 cups of water or less depending on the type of rice grain you use
Salt and pepper to taste
1 red bell pepper
Cilantro or coriander to taste
Seasoning powder with cilantro and annatto, optional
Process:
Saute the pork for about seven minutes or until they turn pink, add the ham and knead it. Add the sofrito, olives, cilantro, seasoning, the pigeon peas and liquids, then cover the pot and cook for a few minutes. Stir the rice, taste, let it cook uncovered until the liquid begins to evaporate, stir and mix well. Then add the red bell pepper cut into strips and do not move the rice any more, cover it.
Note: If you wish to add a touch to the rice with pigeon peas, you can grate ½ green banana and add it to the casserole before adding the rice. You can also place a clean banana leaf on the rice after it has been moved. But first clean it and pass it over the burner or a hot surface to seal it.
Anthropology of Food: Food Maps
When you go out to dinner with friends and family do you imagine the connections that are being made between the people, space, and the food? Well, students of the Fall '16 Anthropology of Food course have mapped it out for you!
Below you will find student interpretations of the relationships that are created when groups and communities share food.
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"My project began out of a curiosity for how the Mexican tamale became a favored delicacy in the American South, particularly amongst African Americans. The original plan was to identify regional tamale distinctions, tracing the food out of the Mississippi Delta. Instead the tamale tells of a greater story of diaspora and asks for us to rethink cultural exchange in the Americas by using the Gulf region as the epicenter." -Dani Willcutt
-Giselle Kennedy Lord
"What I found so fascinating about this project is that each one of us in class followed the same guidelines and came up with entirely different interpretations. I began with the location I wanted to focus on—Tatte in Brookline—and then the rest just came as I conducted my observations. I wanted to look into why it was that I so often left Tatte feeling unsatisfied in some way. I decided to map the space and in doing so I realized that on a spacial and emotional level the cafe was clogged and uncomfortable leading to negative emotions in the space. The cafe's layout is largely responsible for this along with other factors that I mention in my paper." -Rachel DeSimone
Halloween Food Map
[office src="https://onedrive.live.com/embed?cid=DF65B404E6176AD6&resid=DF65B404E6176AD6%21416&authkey=AAIhnR9LOYPBafw&em=2" width="720" height="405"]"These maps reflect the food shopping patterns of a 4-person household over a one month period of time. The maps were developed using actual food expenses in association with the physical address of purchase. The final results delineate location, category, cost and frequency of food buying behavior." -Andrew Philips
[office src="https://onedrive.live.com/embed?cid=DF65B404E6176AD6&resid=DF65B404E6176AD6%21417&authkey=AITdWAy0f1p5998&em=2" width="720" height="400"]
The Oyster Revival
Filmmaker and Gastronomy student Allison Keir shares her new film: The Oyster Revival
Over the last century, coastlines throughout New England and across the globe endured dramatic transformations. The foundations of mankind slowly overtook the ecological bedrock—a massive expanse of oyster beds that once harbored a bounty of creatures. In the last 100 years, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have skyrocketed, acidifying the oceans. Deteriorating municipal infrastructures, agricultural and industrial runoff, continue to disrupt nature’s balance. Powerful storms, now without the underwater obstacles of oyster beds to temper them, are devastating our seashores. Some believe these underwater environs are beyond repair.
But there may be a solution to aid the problem, right within the hands of nature. A single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day—an entire reef? Millions. The presence of these reefs, attract multitudes of other creatures that feed larger predators, building populations, and improving our fisheries. Oysters are the gills of our estuaries, and the scaffolding that supports coastal biodiversity. Their return might stifle ecological devastation worldwide.
The Oyster Revival is a story about revitalizing a tenuous relationship between man and mollusk, and the efforts being made to restore ecological balance to our coastlines. The documentary and transmedia campaign will explore the important role oysters play in maintaining a healthy ocean environment, and the various groups of people around the world advocating for their efficacy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHtRl9k_1T4&feature=youtu.be
Alumni Spotlight: Mike Kostyo
During my time in the gastronomy program, people would often ask a question that I’m sure is familiar to many current students – “What are you going to do with that degree?” (Or they would think I said ‘astronomy’ and look me up and down skeptically.) At the time I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I finished. After earning my undergraduate journalism degree I worked on political campaigns and I entered the gastronomy program thinking I would focus on food policy. I thought I could work for a food-related government agency or non-profit when I graduated.
Studying food can take you down a rabbit hole, however, and soon I was researching the final meal choices of death row inmates for ML 701. I took Professor Mendlinger’s course on cultural tourism asset development and followed it up with his class that ends with a trip to Tanzania, where we tried to understand if the food markets and banana plantations would draw tourists who were typically only there on safari. I took the culinary arts, baking arts, artisan cheese, and wine certificate courses and made (and ate) an insane amount of food. Studying culture through food was fun. And it was delicious.
But again, what was I going to do with the degree?
After I graduated from the program in 2012 I moved back home to Chicago, which I discovered is the country’s center of food market research. I eventually accepted a position at Datassential, a company that began with a massive menu database which allowed analysts to understand the American menu – which ingredients were growing, which trends were slowing, etc. Today the company has grown to include a wide array of food and trend-related research capabilities, from reports on sandwiches to chef surveys to consumer focus groups. As the senior publications manager at the company, I oversee our seven TrendSpotting Reports, a series of publications that combine real-world trend research with market research from consumers, chefs, and other decision-makers.
Whether it’s a gastronomy research paper or a food industry trend report, good data is the foundation. Too often food trends are “identified” without any numbers to back them up – they are mostly opinions based on anecdotal evidence. At Datassential we have a huge range of tools at our disposal to inform and back up our findings. We don’t say bacon jam is trending because we saw it at our local coffee shop last week, we say it’s trending because it grew 569% on U.S. menus over the past four years. We don’t just say that Hawaiian poke is cool right now, we dive deep into what consumers think about it – over 1/3 say they are likely to try it at a restaurant.
Working in this industry challenges a lot of assumptions we often have about the U.S. food scene. If you live in an urban area with a lot of access to unique cuisines and ingredients, or if you are a food-loving student in a food-focused graduate program, you may forget that not everyone in the country has the same access to such a wide variety of foods, or that there is a segment of the population that isn’t even interested in them. “Basic eaters,” who eat to live rather than live to eat, make up 18% of the population. Only a little over half of the U.S. population has tried a latte in their lifetime. Many of us also tend to think that trends are “over,” even as they continue to grow. Kale, for instance, is still going strong. It grew nearly 20% on menus in the last year alone and it’s on about 15% of U.S. menus overall, so there is still room to grow.
If you feel like food trends like kale are moving faster, you’re right. At Datassential we track trends on our Menu Adoption Cycle (MAC), which starts in Inception and moves through three more stages to Ubiquity. While it used to take about 12 years to move through the entire MAC (and not everything makes it all the way through), that timeline is being trimmed in half, to just 6 years, due to demographic changes, technology, urbanization, and the overall interest in food culture.
If you are interested in researching these topics after you graduate, there are a wide range of companies and organizations across the country and, increasingly, around the world that study every facet of our food culture and choices. In fact, the industry needs more gastronomy students who have that unique mix of curiosity, research and analytical experience, and passion for food. If you have any questions about the industry or opportunities, feel free to email me.
Mike Kostyo, Senior Publications Manager at Datassential
The Schlesinger Library
Looking for resources to finish up those final papers? Check out the Schlesinger Library at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute.
With hundreds of volumes of cookbooks dating back to the 17th century and leading to the present, culinary magazines, and other periodicals, to manuscripts of world renowned and lesser known chefs, cooks, television personalities and restauranteurs the Schlesinger Library offers an interesting and diverse sojourn into the American culinary landscape. Here, researchers can follow the development of cooking techniques, the introduction of and popularity of new ingredients in American cooking overtime. Get answers to questions like how have the menus for holidays and special occasions evolved since the 18th century? What were the most popular seasonal foods in 19th century New England? And really, when did green casserole become a thing?
One of the largest and most well-known collections here is that of American born French Chef, Julia Child. In her more than 100 boxes of material are correspondence, audio visual material from television shows, journals and of course recipes! Her papers not only tell her personal story as a woman, wife, and chef but that of a changing American food culture. Her efforts simplified and made French cuisine more accessible to the American cook and complicated the American palate.
Amidst the vast publications, advertisements, audio-visual material and large collections like that of Julia Child is one of our smaller collections that explores the introduction of Chinese cuisine to the American food culture. The “Frist Lady of Chopsticks”, Grace Zia Chu, is largely credited with making Chinese cuisine more accessible to the American home cook. Born in Shanghai China in 1899, Grace came to the United States to study physical education at Wellesley. As a student there, she was often homesick and to remedy her longing she began experimenting with Chinese cooking styles using local ingredients. After graduating and getting married she returned to China where she taught physical education. When her husband was called to Washington, DC in 1941 to serve as a military attaché to the Chinese Embassy Grace began instructing the officers’ wives who were interested in learning Chinese cooking.
Madame Chu stressed the cooking technique rather than the ingredients that made a meal uniquely Chinese. She taught her students about the variety of Chinese cooking from region to region. It was in 1954 that she was established as Chinese cook when she was invited to teach at the China Institute in America (New York). By 1962, Grace published her best seller The Pleasures of Chinese Cooking. In this and subsequent publications she provided pictures and anecdotes to the recipes simplifying the food preparation methods. One of the most important aspects being the use of high heat. This lead to her being a spokesperson for the American Gas Association and a short film based on the book in 1963.
Like Julia’s papers, Graces, although limited also tell of more than her personal journey with cooking. One tidbit that is included in her papers is a story of the advent of the Fortune Cookie. According to the notice from the San Joaquin Valley library system the fortune cookie was part of the charitable works of Los Angeles Restaurant owner David Jung. After World War I, Jung would see passersby that needed food and encouragement. After trying many recipes he found the perfect cookie and included scriptures and encouraging words given to by a local clergyman. This staple in American consumption of Chinese food was born in LA as an offering. Many more interesting developments and customs of American food culture have been chronicled in the collections at the Schlesinger Library. Come explore the food culture material in our archives, you never know where the journey will take you!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9ouK8zr3uM]
Kenvi C. Phillips, PhD
Curator for Race and Ethnicity
Schlesinger Library
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
Harvard University
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
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The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey, with Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt
I’ve never seen the authors of a cookbook less interested in talking about recipes, and thank goodness. When I sat down for Laila and Maggie’s lecture, I expected to hear about local cuisine and staple foods of the region, maybe about their own experiences preparing food. But after five minutes, Maggie told us that she initially became interested in Gaza through her humanitarian work. And Laila admitted to having little connection with the kitchen. She explained that her mother, grandmother, and aunts rather shirked traditional female roles because they viewed them as antiquated chores. She explained how confused her family was when she said she decided to write a cookbook, that it was undoing the progress they had worked so hard to achieve. Immediately I realized that this was not a presentation designed to show us how to prepare Gazan cuisine at home. This was an effort to document and preserve the ancient foodways of one of the world’s most volatile regions.
When I think of Gaza, I think of uncertainty. Those who live there expect the sounds of gunfire and explosions the way we expect to hear car horns. The last thing that comes to mind is the kind of food I might eat if I lived there. But for the people who live in Gaza, food is a comfort the same way it is for us. Laila and Maggie spoke of conflict and impossible living conditions. They said that parts of the area could be without power for hours or even days at a time. Maggie pointed out that it was hard enough for a mother to help her children with their homework and have dinner on the table under “normal” circumstances. But what about mothers in Gaza? At a time when life there is so tumultuous, Maggie and Laila were able to show how food is in many ways, the great unifier. That despite the uncertainties of daily life, people still take the time and gather to eat.
Cuisine in Gaza is based on what’s available. Like other places in the Middle East, that means lentils, cous cous, olive oil, chickpeas, lemon, and chili pepper among others. But at one point someone asked what the defining characteristic of Gazan food was. Laila immediately responded with the word, “heat.” She said that red chili pepper was in most of the food she associated with the region.
Laila also said that sour flavors are found in many dishes. Tamarind, sour plum, and pomegranate are used along with sumac to achieve what she called, “a gripping tartness.” These flavors combined with seasonings like za’atar, clove, cinnamon, sesame, dill, and garlic, aren’t exactly subtle. And while I know that heavily seasoned food isn’t uncommon in the regions surrounding Gaza, as I listened to Laila answer more questions, something occurred to me. The tone with which she spoke, her conviction, they were exactly like the ingredients she was talking about. These weren’t delicate, restrained flavors. They were purposeful, delightfully in your face. Certainly you don’t use clove, chili flakes, or sour plums without clear intention. They are statement-makers. And so was Laila. She and Maggie couldn’t have been better representatives for the kitchens of Gaza. Together they constituted a serious force.
They talked about the difficulties of obtaining traditional foods because of border closures, and how reliance on white flour and sugar were causing health problems associated with malnutrition among many citizens of Gaza. Maggie showed a photo of fisheries that were created as a result of limited access to the sea. They spoke of one-pot meals and a category of dishes Laila hesitantly allowed Maggie to refer to as “mush.” But after two hours of listening to their stories I was struck by what I really saw. Two mothers. Two very poised, confident women trying to tell the story of, quite possibly, the most unstable place in our world.
For hundreds of years tribes of people have converged upon this small region. This has given way to a culinary tradition created from necessity, trade, and war. But despite the constant state of unrest, Maggie and Laila were able to paint a clear picture of a Gazan people who were unwavering and incredibly proud of their culinary heritage.