BU Gastronomy Garden Club Sees Prosperous Produce Progress
Post and photos by Aubree DuPlessis
It may be the dog days of summer, but that hasn’t stopped the BU Gastronomy Garden Club from clearing, constructing, and creating their very first garden plot at Fenway Victory Gardens. Equipped with a generous donation from Mahoney’s Garden Center, appearances by summer’s most valuable culinary players – watermelon, tomatoes, and cucumbers – are helping students momentarily forget the heat with daydreams of refreshing granita, cooling gazpacho, and muddled mojitos.
In just five months, students started seedlings in BU’s Greenhouse, built raised beds from scavenged bricks and stones, and successfully transplanted a variety of salad greens, peppers, beans, and squash into their garden plot. Although primarily focused on vegetable production, students also hope to plant a sensory herb and flower garden, as well as create a seating area for picnics, studying, and relaxation.
If you’d like more information on the BU Gastronomy Garden Club or want to help weed, water, and reap some tasty rewards, please contact Aubree DuPlessis.
Food News Round Up: Celebrate and Assess the Half
We recently passed the approximate half-way point of summer, a fact worth celebrating — and a reason to perform a mid-point status check. Are you making it through that reading list? Have you spent enough time at the beach? Have you tried at least half of those recipes you've been marking, saving, and creating?
If not, you have approximately another half to go; plenty of time to fit in everything you planned for your summer. Regardless, you can enjoy these "half and half" edition of Food News Round Up.
Research: 1/2 Science + 1/2 News Reporting
Media coverage on eating behavior research abounds, but the relationship between science and science news is often tenuous. These three studies were reported in the media this week and are presented here with the study or abstract to ensure research integrity.
- Due to perceived anonymity, food orders place online are more fattening, complicated
- Neuroscience study finds fat in foods directly impacts taste perception
- Restaurant meals a bit healthier after menu labeling law
Food Policy: 1/2 Foreign and 1/2 Domestic
Food policy news this week spans both international and US concerns:
- Will food security be Obama’s foreign policy legacy?
- 2012 hottest year on record; FAO debates how much is attributable to livestock
- Africa's looming food crisis could affect 18 million people
- Record drought increases corn prices, gives urgency to farm bill
- Wholesome Wave CEO makes the economic case for Food Stamps
- Could newly enacted school lunch rules result in more wasted food?
Food and Culture: 1/2 the Arts + 1/2 Cuisine
This week provides a veritable smorgasbord of interesting tidbits involving food and culture, divided between the visual and linguistic arts and culinary trends:
- Sport Your Food exhibit combines Olympic spirit, food, and art
- San Francisco chef finds poetry in food and food in poetry
- Hispanics in nursing homes increases along with culture shock in language and food
- Bagels on the rise in Jakarta, India
- Vegan food on the menu for NASA Mars mission
Structure and Motivation: Reading Historic Cookbooks
by Barbara Rotger
culinary collection honorary curator,
Harvard Schlesinger Library
When Barbara Wheaton, honorary curator of the culinary collection at Harvard’s Schlesinger Library, refers to taking a structured approach, she means it. As a participant in her recent seminar on Reading Historic Cookbooks, each day’s work was to have a theme, such as “ingredients” or “cook’s equipment” and each participant was assigned a text to which to apply that theme. It is tempting to dive in to a cookbook and try to take it all in; focusing on a single element at a time ensures a kind of thoroughness that is necessary for an appreciation of the work as a whole.
That meant no conjectures about the publisher’s motives when we were supposed to be focused on ingredients and no thoughtful analysis of cooking equipment when the focus was to be on the structure of the meal. Wheaton further cautioned us as to the limitations of using cookbooks as sources (do not even begin to think that they will tell you what people ate!), and emphasized the need to complement their study with sources such as maps, letters and diaries, art and architecture, and economic data.
The seminar participants, an eclectic group of scholars and practitioners, were eager to delve into the books that Wheaton had selected for the week. We began by drawing lots to learn which cookbooks we would work with each day, texts that ranged from fifteenth century British manuscripts to twentieth century American community cookbooks. With my interest in twentieth century recipe boxes, I hoped for the latter, only to find that I would be starting by examining ingredients in the 1587 edition of Thomas Dawson’s The Good Housewife’s Jewel. Quick to read my mind, Wheaton reminded the group of her “no trading” policy: we were to push our own boundaries, and move out of our own comfort zones.
“To make a tart that is a courage to a man or woman”
And so I proceeded, well outside my comfort zone, with a browser open to the OED, trying to draw conclusions from the ingredients listed in the Jewel. My eyes strained to decipher the blackletter script, with its long s’s that look like “f”s and my brain struggled with non-standard spelling. For my presentation to the group the next day, I settled on a recipe “To make a tart that is a courage to a man or woman.” In this kind of work you can look for patterns, or look for outliers; the ingredients for the tart provide examples of both. Typical flavorings, including rose water, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and mace, appear in this and many other recipes in the book, while a few ingredients stand out. The recipe calls for a “potato” which struck me as a very early occurrence of a new-world food, until my excitement was tempered those better versed in this time period, who explained that a sweet potato was what the author had in mind.
I was similarly stumped by the call for “the brains for three or four cock sparrows” in the recipe. (I have examined my share recipe boxes and not one sparrow brain—male or female—has been used as an ingredient.) As I struggled to explain this in my presentation, Barbara Wheaton, with a twinkle in her eye, silently but clearly mouthed the word “aphrodisiac” to the rest of the group. Perhaps the structured approach has its limits: to understand some ingredients one must also consider the structure of the meal—and the motivations of the cook!
-------------------
Recipe "translation": To Make a tart that is a courage to man or woman
Take two quinces and two or three burre roots and a potato and pare your potato and scrape your roots and put them into a quart of wine and let them boil until they be tender, and put in an ounce of dates and when they be boiled tender drain them through a strainer, wine and all, and then put in the yolks of eight eggs and the brains of three or four cock sparrows and strain them into the other a little rose water, and seeth them all with sugar, cinnamon and ginger and cloves and mace, and put in a little sweet butter and set I upon a chaffing dish of coals between two platters, and so let it boil until it be something big.
Barbara is a Gastronomy program alumna, mother of two, and the Gastronomy Program coordinator since October 2011. Read more about her life and work.
Street Smart: Joining Boston Brunchers at B Street
by Natalie Shmulik
What does one eat for breakfast when anticipating a 2:30 pm complimentary brunch at B-Street in Newton? This being my first time joining the notorious Boston Brunchers, I anticipated a modest one plate meal and decided to start my morning with the usual abundant breakfast. Oops.
We were immediately greeted with a specialty sampler menu and large cocktail pitchers to whet our appetites. After sipping on a spicy Bloody Mary and a peachy Rosé Sangria, the last of the brunch bunch arrived and food began to rapidly leave the kitchen.
The featured menu items are diverse and international, served in appetizing geometrical shapes, which complement the clean and modern space. The feast began with triangled Quesadillas stuffed with tender steak, scrambled eggs, and melted cheddar. Next came a spanakopita-inspired spinach and feta pie. The proportion of spinach to feta to flaky filo was just right and unlike the Greek economy, this dish was rich and promising.
Most exciting was the challah French toast, which rapidly disappeared. I am a strong believer in three course brunches, complete with sweet and savory bites. This dish was exactly the right amount of sweet needed to break up the bordering plates of savory fare. Challah was the right choice with a crisp and marbled cover blanketing the soft and moist center. Although I could have done without the slightly chewy outer crust, I thoroughly enjoyed the caramelized apple topping complete with ample flecks of cinnamon bubbling up from a pool of pure maple syrup.
Following a breakfast flatbread complete with bacon, eggs, and garlic, we were given the option of choosing a “main” dish. Feeling the weight of the previous four courses, it seemed natural to share the Turkey Hash. Served right in a cast iron skillet, the hash offered big chunks of veg, meat and potatoes, bound to satisfy any hungry brunch-goer looking for a good fix.
Finally, just when we thought we were done, a surprise of three house-made desserts crashed down on our table and suddenly, our appetites slavishly returned. Fresh blueberry crostata, a towering baked Alaska with a divine pillow of meringue, and everyone’s favorite strawberry and rhubarb crumble, widened our eyes and our stomachs ever so slightly.
The company was as delightful as the food. These bloggers come from all around and everyone has an interesting story to tell. This group is fun, inviting, and most importantly, they all love food. As we passed the time with great conversation, slowly nibbling on the minimal remains of dessert, we were greeted by the bashful chef who hinted at an exciting new selection of goodies that will be added to the brunch menu. Looks like I’m going to have to go back for seconds.
Photo Essay: A Chocolate Maker Journeys to the Cacao Source
by Lucia Austria
This past April, I had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Dominican Republic to learn how cacao beans are produced, thanks to my employer, Taza Chocolate. Taza prides itself on being a “bean to bar” company, so I associate the smell of “farm” and “cacao” with the kilo sacks of dried beans we store in the factory, ready to be roasted, ground, and made into chocolate. I never thought I’d have the chance to visit the cacao farm and fermentery where our beans are from!
I’ve learned that it takes a lot of time, labor, and love to produce cacao beans for chocolate consumption. The farmer gives much care to his trees, which require ample moisture and shade from the hot tropical sun. The pods are also prone to fungal blights, so constant attention is necessary. Within each pod are the beans, surrounded by sweet, delicious flesh called “baba.” The beans themselves are bitter and require a week of fermentation to bring out the fruity notes of each bean. I visited Taza’s main source for fermented beans, a small cooperative called La Red Guaconejo, just outside of the town of Nagua. The fermenter’s attention and skill to the process is crucial to developing the right bacteria to bring out the beans’ flavors. They are then dried on large outdoor beds, packed, and shipped right to Somerville, MA.
Food News Round Up: Big Food and a Big Foodie
As we bask (and sweat) in the heat of July, this edition of Food News Round Up focuses on two big things — 'big food' as discussed by the Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine and the passing of a noted foodie, Nora Ephron — as well as a smattering of other food news.
Make sure to read this post somewhere cool and pleasant.
PLoS Medicine’s ‘Big Food’ Series
In late June and early July 2012, the PLoS Medicine Big Food series examined and debated the health impact of the multinational food and beverage industry that exerts huge and concentrated market power across the globe. International and multi-disciplinary in focus, it marks one of first times such issues have been examined in the general medical literature.
- Access the entire PLoS Medicine Big Food series of papers
- PLoS Medicine speaker, Kelly Brownell, calls for big food regulation to curb obesity
- Q&A with David Stuckler – guest editor of PLoS Medicine series on Big Food
Remembering Nora Ephron
From food writing to food references in her films to her own love of cooking and eating, Nora Ephron put food front and center in a variety of ways.
- NY Times: Nora Ephron never forgot the food
- Huffington Post: Nora Ephron's love affair with food
- Nora Ephron's most memorable food quotes
- Nora Ephron's Epicurious interview
- Nora Ephron's personally compiled cookbook
And in other foods news
- Fast food diet linked to poor health in Singapore, finds U of Minnesota study
- Hospital food ‘revolution’ takes root in Canada
- Jamie Oliver calls UK education secretary’s school food investigation unnecessary
- Food waste, greening diets become EU policy goals
- Debating the local food movement
- English revival of simple twentieth century cooking afoot
A Visually Delectable Graduating Project: Modernizing Food Still Life Paintings into Photographs
by Meg Jones Wall
When it came time for me to start considering my final project for the Gastronomy program, I admit that I was completely overwhelmed. I knew that I wanted to use my photography skills and my interest in food styling to create some kind of visual project. It took several months of stressing, and a lot of help from my peers and advisors, but eventually I worked it out — I would research historic food still life paintings, then turn them into modern photographs. Having little experience with art history and still learning a lot about photography and food styling, I was pretty intimidated with my project. However, the delight of being able to play with food, figure out how to recreate these stunning (and extremely specific) props, and learning to manipulate my images in the proper way was too tempting to pass up.
The ultimate purpose of the project was to help me gain a greater understanding of the use of artistic elements in the paintings, such as composition, color, light, balance, and shape, as well as to create a visual collection of the images that could be studied and compared. After a lot of agonizing I chose three still life paintings, each featuring a glass of wine and other food items, from three different artists: Pieter Claesz, Paul Cezanne, and Georg Flegel. After researching and analyzing the paintings, I then created two photographs to accompany each one — a recreation of the original image, and an interpretative photograph done in my own artistic style. The final project was a book of the images, which includes some brief explanations and analysis, and an accompanying paper that goes into more depth on art history and the artistic elements that I focused on.
Pieter Claesz, “A Still Life with a Large Roemer, a Knife Resting on a Silver Plate Bearing a Partly-Peeled Lemon, Walnuts and Hazelnuts, on a Marble Ledge”
I won't lie - creating these photographs was no easy task. Many of the props were so period-specific that to purchase replicas would be far too expensive, especially considering the amount I was already spending on food, plates, fabric, wine...I was forced to create goblets with glasses I already had, coupled with cuff bracelets, aluminum foil, paint, and a lot of imagination. Other items were simply impossible to find, so I had to be creative and develop substitutes that wouldn't be so different from the original as to be distracting.
Paul Cezanne, "Still Life with Bread and Eggs"
Taking the photographs themselves was almost as challenging as the preparations — I would shift all of my items a centimeter, then take 20 more shots, obsessing over the tiny details that could completely change the composition of the image. If the balance was off or the color was too dull, it was like a blaring spotlight on my error, too wrong to be ignored. But the final photos are worth all the time and effort it took to create them. I modernized the images, using my own style, in the process, improving my photography and emphasizing my personal photographic signature.
Georg Flegel, "Snack with Fried Eggs"
Meg Jones Wall graduated from the MLA Gastronomy program in January, and is currently developing the food section for an online magazine that will be launching in the fall. When she's not writing, Meg can be found wandering farmer's markets, developing recipes, and photographing everything in sight for her food blog, ginger-snapped.
Art and Food: 17th Century Dutch Still Lifes Good Enough to Eat
by Emily Contois
As the first summer session comes to a close, we're all ruminating what we absorbed and discovered during the past six weeks of intense study. If you are a BU Gastronomy student and would like to share a few words on your summer session experience, please contact me!
What follows is a bit of what I learned in Professor Jonathan Ribner's Art and Food course (ML 672), a class which sharpens the skills of critical observation, description, and analysis in a most delectable way...
Jan Jansz den Uyl’s Breakfast Still Life with Glass and Metalwork hangs in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Technically brilliant, this sumptuous and realistic still life depicts the trademark features of seventeenth century Dutch painting, using light, shadow, perspective, and reflection to create a work good enough to eat.
Unlike other famed Dutch painters of the period, such as Pieter Claesz, den Uyl emphasizes vessels more so than edibles in this painting. The food appears entirely or partially eaten, leaving us to discern the character of the meal from the remaining vessels. The many fine dishes left askew on the table, including an elegant blue and white porcelain dish elevated near the center, indicate a high quality meal.
Notably, den Uyl also includes vanitas themes, elements that mark the passage of time and man's mortality. Black wisps of smoke linger above a recently extinguished candle, marking both the end of this meal, which by the eaten food and toppled vessels has concluded hurriedly, and the end of life, which approaches us all. A pocket watch rests in the center foreground, tracking time as it marches forward with or without us.
The positioning of the objects creates both drama and unity. While the layered positioning of the objects may appear at first glance haphazard, it is purposeful, creating a distinct, harmonious geometry. An ascending diagonal line of plates from the right converges with another diagonal line of toppled vessels from the left. Together they climb to an off center apex, crowned by a tall Venetian goblet of grey glass with a decorative swan head, which stands before an arched niche. This arch is also mirrored in the curved edges of the plates and vessels, while the vertically climbing diagonal lines of the piled plates runs nearly parallel to the rays of light streaming in from the left.
In a most virtuosic endeavor, den Uyl paints not only an empty glass goblet of grey glass, which reflects the light off its convex surface, but by laying the goblet on its side, he also portrays the metallic surface of the pewter flagon and the copper tazza as seen through the glass of the goblet itself. Placing the goblet and tazza on their side, den Uyl creates unexpected angles from which to view the items, including the reverse engraving inside the base of the tazza, viewed from underneath. Because the artist’s last name means owl in Dutch, he often whimsically signs his works with hidden owls, as seen at the top of the handle of the large pewter flagon at the left.
This large and dramatic den Uyl painting commands the wall where it hangs at the MFA. It not only realistically reproduces the world as the eye sees it, but also renders the food, plates, goblets, and utensils depicted more astounding on the canvas than they appear on our own breakfast tables.
The Museum of Fine Arts is located at 465 Huntington Ave., Boston. The museum is open Monday, Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., and Wednesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 9:45 p.m. Admission is free with BU ID, $20 without student ID, and $22 for adults; free to the public on Wednesday evenings. By public transportation, take the Green Line E trolley or the number 39 bus to the Museum of Fine Arts stop or the Orange Line train or bus routes 8, 47, or C2 to the Ruggles stop.
If you are unable to visit Boston, you can view many MFA collections online, including the Northern European collection, which features several seventeenth century Dutch still life works of note.
Emily is a current gastronomy student and graduate assistant, editing the Gastronomy at BU blog, January-August, 2012. Check out her research in food studies, nutrition, and public health on her blog, emilycontois.com.
BU Gastronomy Professor and Program Coordinator, Rachel Black, Receives ASFS Pedagogy Award
Photo from BU Today, by Cydney Scott
We sincerely congratulate Dr. Rachel Black, Assistant Professor and Gastronomy Program Coordinator, who was presented the Association for the Study of Food and Society's Food Studies Pedagogy Award at the annual conference this past weekend.
The ASFS Food Studies Pedagogy Award recognizes instructors and courses that use innovative and successful pedagogical techniques to reach students.
Black was honored for her summer 2011 course, Urban Agriculture, which was profiled in BU Today's One Class, One Day series. Students also created a course blog, Gastronomes Garden.
Summer Reading Isn’t Just for High Schoolers: How to Draft Your Food Blog Reading List
This is the second post in a two-part series on effective food blog reading. Check out the first post, Five Habits of Highly Effective Food Blog Readers.
by Sarah Morrow
To aid you in the critical process of selecting food blogs and news sites to follow, this post provides discretionary tips for both navigating and participating in online food communities.
These tips cannot only help you pick and choose what sites to follow, but if you’re considering starting a site of your own, they can also provide a framework for your own work.
Timeliness
How frequently is the site updated? If a site is updated multiple times in a day, keeping up with it can be daunting. If it is updated infrequently, it can be difficult to maintain a core audience, let alone attract newcomers. It is important to find a balanced medium between these two extremes. How many articles are you comfortable reading in a sitting? How many articles do you think your readers want to read at a time?
Content Quality
What information is being presented and how? Is this information original or not? If there is another source, has s/he been cited? How clearly and grammatically well-written are the articles? Is the author’s voice engaging? Do anecdotes relate to the rest of the post, or are they filler content? What is actually written in a blog post is just as important as if a blog post is written.
Presentation Quality
This may sound a little strange, but the layout and design of a site can not only attract or dissuade repeat visitors, but it can also actually clue readers into a site’s credibility and usefulness and the author’s dedication. While it’s true that not every poorly designed blog is useless or every sleek site is trustworthy, the care food bloggers put into their site often reflects the time and care they put into their other work. Pictures can also persuade or dissuade readership. While not all food is pretty, having a clear, well-lit photo can still encourage your readers to try your recipe for an Asian-spice infused gumbo or to check out the new sub shop on the corner.
Audience
Who else is reading these sites? You can keep track of this by browsing through reader comments. For your own site, moderating is key. Responding to your audience can encourage return readership. Likewise, how a food blogger responds to his/her own audience can help you decide is s/he is someone you want to read or interact with. Having a dedicated core audience can be more valuable than encouraging high traffic. If readers are staying to comment and the author is interacting with them, it’s usually a clear sign that the content being presented is encouraging discussion.
Purpose and Intent
What is the point of the site —and does it live up to that intention? If you’re writing a food blog, know why you’re making and sharing the recipes chosen, and understand what makes your work unique. With the ever-growing number of food blogs out there, it’s easy to be part of the crowd. If you know why your work is different and important, you can use that same reasoning to pick other engaging food bloggers to follow.
If you’re just getting into the online food community, whether writing or reading, here are my starting site picks. These sites are wonderful examples of authors who provide strong, timely, relevant content.
Recipe Sites
- 101 Cookbooks
- Angry Asian Creations
- Biscuits & Such
- Coconut & Lime
- Joy the Baker
- Smitten Kitchen
- Tasty Trix
Food News and Recipe Hubs
Food Writing
Sarah Morrow is a BU Gastronomy student and the head writer at inthecactusgarden.com.