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ML713 Agricultural History: A Gastronomy Student’s Perspective
By: Susan Brassard
This spring 2013 semester, the Gastronomy Program is offering a seminar course focusing on the agricultural history of America, taught by Professor Sarah Phillips. The format of the course is built around several core readings that take an in-depth, historical look into the agricultural heritage within settlements in the American Northeast, Midwest, and South. The broad relevance of the course gives it appeal not only students of the gastronomy program, but also those majoring in history, policy, and the environment. The diversity of students promotes a wide range of discussion during weekly course gatherings.
The opening reading for this course was Brian Donahue’s The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord. The book offers an interesting look into the growth of agriculture and subsequent development of the land in Massachusetts. Readings expand from Concord’s wheat production to the tobacco fields of Virginia, from meat and grain industrialization in Chicago, to the cotton complex of the Mississippi Delta. Through readings and discussions, the course explores many interrelated themes including industrialization, expansion, crop selection, human labor, commodities, and government policy.
Students with an interest in current trends of organic foods, “green” business, and back-to-basics farming methods will thrive in this course. Deborah Fitzgerald’s Every Farm a Factory: The Industrial Ideal in American Agriculture describes how the American farm evolved into the industrial apparatus that we are ambivalently familiar with today. This text also reveals how small independent farms became susceptible to excessive financial risk through increased dependence on modern agricultural technology.
Whether you are interested specifically in agriculture, or more generally in food systems, US history, policy, or sociology, ML713 Agricultural History offers an excellent opportunity for a range of students to explore the interconnection of these topics. I’m looking forward to the remaining discussions of course topics as well as the prospect of delving into my final research assignment.
Susan Brassard is a first year MLA Gastronomy student, culinary arts and business instructor at Salter College in West Boylston, and the owner of The Violet Rose Cakes, Catering & Pastries (www.facebook.com/thevioletrosecakes).
Gastronomy Lecture Series – Diana Garvin talks about Italian Food Advertising
Please join us for the third installment of the Gastronomy at BU Spring 2013 Lecture Series Thursday, March 21 at 6pm. Lectures are free and open to the public... 
The 2013 International Boston Seafood Show
By Noel Bielaczyc
Each year sometime in March, as the waters of the Gulf of Maine begin to warm, an amazing migration takes place. Shoals of fishers, processors, distributors, retailers, sales people, chefs, and seafood enthusiasts congregate in the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center to exchange business cards and miniature crab cakes in the hopes of forging partnerships and relationships in the seafood industry. As a fishmonger and Gastronomy student, the International Boston Seafood Show (IBSS) offers an irresistible mixture of food culture, global economics, fisheries policy, and limitless free samples of seafood in all forms.
The first impression one gets when entering the exhibition hall of the Seafood Show is total madness... And of course the overwhelming smell of cooked seafood. The enormous scale and diversity of exhibitors is astounding, and the accompanying crowds heave and swell through the maze of booths. Bags are provided for the reams of brochures, pamphlets, knick-knacks, and business cards, which even a choosy visitor will amass.
The Seafood Show is somewhat of a reflection of seafood consumption in American with a preponderance of exhibitors featuring farm-raised tilapia, salmon, and shrimp. Processed oven-ready products, the species they contain, and equipment to manufacture them, are by far the most common feature at the show. If you squint hard enough though, many smaller exhibitors begin to appear, some doing very interesting things.
One example is Schafer Fisheries in Thomson Illinois. They deal exclusively with freshwater fish from rivers and lakes of the upper Midwest, and have developed a market for the invasive Asian carp, which have proliferated in those waterways. While Americans universally thumb their noses at these species, a brisk export trade in Asian carp, buffalo fish and sheephead, makes this a lucrative fishery and important source of protein. Several other small fisheries were also looking to market underutilized marine products like sea cucumber, dogfish, and sea urchin, particularly in the face of reduced quotas on traditional species like cod.
The New England Aquarium’s (NEAq) booth focused on their Sustainable Seafood Programs and offered a variety of educational materials including their Seafood Choice Guide, which lists only best choices for both wild and farm raised species for a simplified set of guidelines that avoids the finger-pointing of “worst choice” recommendations. In addition to educational programs at the aquarium, NEAg partners with local chefs and restaurants to host Blue Plate Dinner events. Each meal highlights seasonal, sustainable and often underappreciated varieties of seafood from our local waters, like scup (porgy), surf clams, squid, and sardines.
A number other products caught my eye while exploring the booths. The most intriguing was small, vacuum packs of dried marine phytoplankton. Hand harvested from the pristine Veta La Palma Parque in Spain, this green powder is composed of millions of microscopic organisms that live suspended in the water column. It does seem ironic that the movement to eat further down on the food chain has literally reached the bottom-most trophic level in the ocean. Regardless, the briny, “ocean-like” flavor of plankton is highly regarded by chefs, who happily pay the premium price for this strange product.
The obligatory sampling of countless forms of seafood yielded a few highs and many lows. My favorite may have been the unadorned but delicious Jonah crab leg, which was neatly scored along key joints. Also very noteworthy were the smoked bay scallops from Ducktrap River of Maine and a single cold slice of raw geoduck from a Korean shellfish company. Among the various fried fish nuggets and deli cups of chowder, the least appealing thing to cross my lips was a cube of smoked sturgeon from a Chinese caviar company that was the temperature and texture of a greasy popsicle.
Looking beyond the giant plush polar bears, the custom “barracuda” chopper, and the "mermaid" models, the International Seafood Show is fascinating glimpse into the global seafood industry. This year’s show illustrated the huge (and expanding) importance of aquaculture as well as a growing awareness of issues related to sustainability. For anyone interested in food policy, media, business, or seafood in general, the IBSS is an eye-opening and stimulating experience. For information on next years show, visit http://www.bostonseafood.com.
Noel Bielaczyc is a first year Gastronomy MLA student and the spring 2013 editor of the Gastronomy at BU blog. He is also a fishmonger and scientific illustrator.
Spring Break!
Whether you're traveling afar or staying put, enjoy having a week off school. We'll be back in few days with a post on the International Boston Seafood Show and more. Stay Tuned... Happy cooking!
March Gastronomy Events
We have a busy second half of the semester planned! Please mark your calendars for the following, post-spring-break events:
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THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 4:30 - 5:30PM
Milk and Cookies with Rachel Black Come say hello, meet other Gastronomy students, and discuss the semester – and have some milk and cookies.
Boston University Fuller Building (FLR) Room 109, 808 Commonwealth Avenue. This event is for current Gastronomy students only. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------SPRING 2012 Gastronomy at BU Lecture Series:
THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 6PM
A Fine Linea: How Italian Food Advertisements Reflected and Affected Gender Division Diana Garvin, PhD candidate, Italian Studies, Cornell University
Boston University College of Arts and Sciences Building (CAS), Room 211, 725 Commonwealth Avenue.
Lectures are free and open to the public. For more information contact gastrmla@bu.edu or see www.gastronomyatbu.com
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SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 2012
BU's American and New England Studies Program (AMNESP) Conference Beyond Production and Consumption: Refining American Material Culture Studies
For more information, see the official conference poster and registration form.
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TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 4:00 - 5:45 PM
Life After Gastronomy: Part I "Pursuing The PhD"
Interested in continuing your educational journey beyond the MLA in Gastronomy? Join us for an information session and workshop to help you prepare a PhD application. BU Anthropology and History faculty will be on hand to answer questions and offer guidance. Fellow Gastronomy student Emily Contois will provide an applicants point-of-view. All students considering a PhD program are encouraged to attend. Please RSVP to Gastronomy Program Coordinator Barbara Rotger.
Boston University Fuller Building (FLR), Room 109, 808 Commonwealth Ave. For more information contact gastrmla@bu.edu or see www.gastronomyatbu.com. This is event is open to Gastronomy students only.
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SPRING 2012 Gastronomy at BU Lecture Series:
TUESDAY, APRIL 2, 6PM
Universal Free School Meals: An Ideas Whose Time Has Come Janet Poppendieck, Professor of Sociology, Emerita, Hunter College, City University of New York and the author of Free for All: Fixing School Food in America and Sweet Charity? Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement
Boston University College of Arts and Sciences Building (CAS), Room 211, 725 Commonwealth Avenue
Lectures are free and open to the public. For more information contact gastrmla@bu.edu or see www.gastronomyatbu.com
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Please submit events to gastrmla@bu.edu.
A Sweet Taste of New England Foodways: Maple Syrup Production at the Ipswich River Nature Reserve
By Lauren Kouffman
Let’s be honest: there aren’t too many things that will get me out of bed before 9am on a Saturday morning. But a free, Sustainability @ BU-sponsored trip to see how maple syrup is produced (followed by an all-you-can-eat Flapjack Fling) made it hard for me to rationalize sleeping in.
Despite some trepidation about the day’s forecasted snowfall, we met at 9am at the George Sherman Student Union, to board our bus. Although I could easily see a gastronomy connection, I was surprised to see students from many other BU programs- a true interdisciplinary experience! Whether the draw was hands-on learning or the promise of unlimited Saturday morning pancakes, it was inspiring to see so many people learning about New England foodways.
We headed to the Mass Audubon Ipswich River Nature Reserve, in Topsfied, MA, where devoted volunteers spend the late winter season dutifully tapping maple trees on the Reserve’s 2,000+ acres of land. The sap they collect is refined on premises into maple syrup: “liquid gold”, they say. Since the process is so labor intensive, authentic and unadulterated maple syrup garners a much higher price at market than any generic brand. Maple syrup harvesters rely on the “rule of 86,” as it’s called: at a 1% sugar concentration, it takes approximately 86 gallons of unrefined maple sap to make just one gallon of A-grade syrup. Selling six and twelve-ounce bottles in the gift shop helps the Audubon Society reach its overarching goal of preserving the natural landscape for people and wildlife.
Our guide, Tony Salterno, lead us on a tour through the Reserve’s grounds, and taught us how to recognize a maple tree in the temperate forest: a maple’s gray, somewhat-smooth bark, and alternate-pattern branching are a dead giveaway. While many industrial-sized maple farms have nowadays instituted networks of rubber tubing to collect sap throughout the season, the Ipswich River Nature Reserve still relies on the traditional system of metal buckets, which need to be emptied every 6-8 hours, depending on temperature fluctuations.
Temperature, we learned, is the essential factor that can make or break a season for maple sugar harvesters. It’s the fluctuation between daily highs and nightly lows that causes the internal cells of the tree to expand and contract, pumping sap up and down through the xylem and phloem cells. The taps are driven into the tree trunk and just the right angle to intercept some of the sap during its twice-daily journey.
From the metal buckets, the unrefined maple sap is transferred to the “sugarhouse” where another volunteer carefully monitors the wood-fired boiling process, stirring constantly until the perfect consistency and color emerges. In the old days, syrup-makers would judge a batch’s doneness by its aroma and the amount of time it took for a dip of syrup to run off the back of a ladle; today, everything is controlled and measured by thermometers.
Wintery, early morning nature hikes are not my typical Saturday routine, but this was a truly interesting and engaging experience. Afterwards, our hosts graciously invited us in for a hearty and warming breakfast of fluffy flapjacks and sweet maple syrup. In the warmer months, they reminded us, we should return for a taste of hotdogs cooked in the maple sap, and maybe even spend a night camping on their amazing and peaceful grounds- just one of the perks of an Audubon Society membership. With the Ipswich Nature Reserve only an hour’s drive out of the city, I’ll definitely return for another unforgettable forest-to-table experience.
For visitor information on the Mass Audubon Ipswitch River Nature Reserve, call 978-887-9264, or email ipswichriver@massaudubon.org, or visit http://www.massaudubon.org/index.php
Lauren Kouffman is a first year MLA Gastronomy student, indiscriminate media enthusiast and snack fanatic. Follow her on Instagram for fancy food shots and silly Boston adventures @homeremedy.
Gastronomy lecture next week!
Please join us for the second installment of the Spring 2013 Gastronomy at BU Lecture Series. Lectures are free and open to the public.
Guy Crosby on Understanding and Enhancing the Flavor of Food
by Noel Bielaczyc
The term “molecular gastronomy” generally conjures images of chefs utilizing science-based techniques and high-tech lab gadgetry like immersion circulators, vacuum sealers, dehydrators, and rotovaps to create visually arresting, palate dazzling, and expensive cuisine. While edible gels, foams and powders have become a somewhat trite symbol of the movement, the central principals remain important to the way chefs (and increasingly home-cooks) understand and create flavor. The first installment of the Gastronomy at BU Spring 2013 Lecture Series tapped professor Guy Crosby to bring his perspective as a chemist in the kitchen (rather than a chef in the lab) to illuminate some of the food science driving current cooking methodology. His talk, aptly titled Understanding and Enhancing the Flavor of Food, addressed the senses and human physiology behind tasting, the neural processes involved in perception, the basic sources of flavor in foods, and how to improve them.
It may seem obvious that foods’ edibility is based mostly on flavor (followed by appearance, texture, and nutritional value) but many people never realize that flavor is actually the combination of taste and smell. In fact, Crosby reckoned that by some estimates, smell contributes nearly 80% of the experience! Using the case of “super tasters” to segue, Crosby addressed the various ways in which we are biologically equipped to sense flavor and why sensitivity varies from person to person and flavor to flavor. Perhaps most interesting was his analysis of food cravings and how eating stimulates the brain regions associated with emotion, memory and reward. Is it a surprise that the same regions respond to sex, drugs and music? Indeed there is good science behind the irresistibility kettle chips.
The meat of Crosby’s talk addressed the sources of flavor in food and how intervention through cooking can alter and improve various aspects of taste. Crosby’s background in organic chemistry became apparent as he described how flavor could be naturally formed or physically initiated. For example crushing garlic gloves to release taste and aroma compounds or salt foods to activate certain flavor molecules. Similarly, umami can be amplified by combining specific ingredients with interacting compounds, like anchovies and mushrooms. Other foods derive their flavor from reactions, such as caramelization and the related, but distinct Maillard- Hodge reaction (the delicious browning on roasted meats and crusty breads). Crosby concluded with a note on the controversial idea of flavor pairing based on shared compounds. Anyone for strawberry and coriander gelato? These few examples represent a fraction of the existing food research, but offered an approachable & applicable introduction to the field.
The ideas and techniques of molecular gastronomy have shaped the cuisine of high-end restaurants for years, driving innovation of concept and flavor. Now, the same science and technology are increasingly being found in the home: sous-vide machines are available from William Sonoma, and the science behind better burgers appears in an article in the latest Popular Mechanics. While the take away may remind us of the “better living through chemistry” jingle, there is certainly value to anyone who cooks in understanding the science behind flavor.
For more information on Guy Crosby and why butter-poached lobster melts in your mouth, visit www.cookingscienceguy.com
Noel Bielaczyc is a first year Gastronomy MLA student and the spring 2013 editor of the Gastronomy at BU blog. He is also a fishmonger and scientific illustrator.
WWOOFing in Italy
by Ashley Pardo
I would have never believed if someone had told me that the best food of my life was patiently waiting in 200-year-old stone farmhouses, or that my new best friends would be lawnmowers and weed whackers, or that I would soon be chasing goats and sheep in the mountain of Piedmont, Italy. In fact this became my reality, as I embarked on a life-changing experience; all thanks to an organization called WorldWide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF). WWOOF operates globally, allowing people to obtain a list of farms that need help in the country of their choice. It’s up to you at that point to contact and make an arrangement with the farm. Basically, you exchange your blood, sweat, and tears for food, housing, and an opportunity to living on a working organic farm.
My adventures commenced at a farm known as Petra, located in the village of Castino, under the care of a gracious couple named Maura and Maurizio. Before I could say buongiorno, my expectations of an eight-hour workday were hurled out the window. The morning was a series of interesting tasks: organizing, threading, and taming tumultuous Dolcetto and Moscato grape vines and applying organic treatments, packaging and labeling honeys for the farmers’ markets, planting, weeding, and harvesting (occasionally sampling) a variety of seasonal fruits and vegetables. Afterwards, tired and famished, we fortified ourselves with a two-hour pranzo, followed by a two-hour break spent devouring Italian cookbooks, obsessively scribbling recipe notes, or hiking. After another four-hours of work, we’d sit down to cena and relax as a family. It took approximately five hours to adjust to this rhythm and pace of life.
My next visit to a cheese farm called Amaltea in the mountains of Mombarcaro, run by a young, talented, and widely renowned cheesemaker and shepherd named Alessandro Boasso. Our main task was milking his forty sheep and goats twice a day, and moving them to graze on different pastures. During my stay we made and gorged on the best formaggio of my life in il caseificio, even rivaling the cheeses I sampled in Ihsan Gurdal’s acclaimed cheese certification course at BU.
The meals I enjoyed while WWOOFing changed my view of food and cooking forever. We ate whatever vegetables were available from the garden, and meat from animals that were known, loved, and cared for. The most shocking revelation was that most meals (besides homemade pastas, pizzas, and farinata) took no more than 15 minutes to prepare. Meals were incomplete without il pane, the literal plate cleaner between courses. A wooden cheese tray with no less than five raw milk cheeses was always the grand finale: robiola, gorgonzola, pecorino, raschera, fontina, cacao cavallo, mozzarella, and fontina were the usual suspects. I prayed for each meal to last forever, as I soaked up the company, language, atmosphere, and copious amounts of Barolo and Barbaresco, homemade liquors, and grappa.
As my farm stays came to a close, I reflected on the richness and depth of my voyage. Not only is WWOOFing economical (in ten weeks, I spent ~150 euros, mainly on foodstuffs and wines to bring back to the US), but it also allows you to immerse yourself in a culture and its people in a real and genuine way. Something tourist travel doesn’t always allow you to do. I still keep in touch with Maura, Maurizio, and Alessandro, and I feel that they became la mia famiglia. These human connections are perhaps the most rewarding part of WWOOFing.
(If you are interested in WWOOFing at Petra, Maura and Maurizio’s farm, or Amaltea, Alessandro’s cheese heaven, they are both listed under the Piedmont region of WWOOF Italia, www.wwoof.it)
Ashley Pardo graduated from the Gastronomy program in 2012, focusing on the culinary arts, nutrition, and food writing. She is currently based in Miami, FL where she works as a personal chef, food educator, along with being involved in other culinary related entrepreneurial projects. You can follow her adventures on her food blog, www.thegrizzlykitchen.com.