Alumna Profile: Sydney Oland
by Lucia Austria
When it comes to careers in food, Sydney Oland is a renaissance woman. All signs pointed to food after graduating from the University of Toronto with degrees in Studio Art and English. “Most of the art installations I was doing revolved around food.” It became a passion she knew she had to pursue.
Before enrolling in the Gastronomy program at BU, Sydney took classes at The Cambridge Culinary School of Arts where she cultivated her interest in cooking. “I was looking to get more involved in food, to study food on a physical, interactive level.” Sydney then worked as an intern for the renowned recipe magazine, America’s Test Kitchen based in Brookline, MA. There, Sydney honed her recipe development and writing skills.
While at Boston University, Sydney focused her research on food history and gender. She presented a paper on the topic of gender dynamics in professional and domestic kitchens at the 2009 Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS) conference at Penn State. Her program thesis chronicled the once controversial but now forgotten oyster wars of the eastern United States that occurred between mid-19th to mid-20th century. “These wars were all over the newspapers for over 100 years! There were pirates and gunfights…really exciting stuff.”
After graduating in 2009, Sydney satiated her craving to learn more about food by working as a cheesemonger for Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge, MA, and free-lancing as a food writer. She passed down her practical food knowledge to others as an instructor at Create A Cook in Newton, MA. She then moved on to work as a Product Development Chef for Nestle in Haverhill, MA. Sydney has since plunged into the sweet world of chocolate as a Chocolate Maker for Taza Chocolate, Somerville MA. She also has two reoccurring columns with “Serious Eats,” testing and writing delectable brunch and supper recipes, from scotch eggs to beer braised pork shanks. Follow Sydney on “Serious Eats” or her personal blog, “Eating Nose to Tail.”
Sydney is still tuned into food and academia. She’ll be presenting a paper at this year’s ASFS conference at NYU . “I’m looking at the television show 30 Rock and the main character Liz Lemon’s relationship with food and how that might reflect the relationship between modern women and food.”
Ready to get your hands dirty and D.I.T.?
by Aubree DuPlessis
“It’s about acting your way into a new way of thinking, not thinking your way into a new way of acting,” Rachel Greenberger, Director of Food Sol, an action-tank at Babson College, reminded us at last month’s Food and the City Conference. Flashes of Lorenz’s butterfly effect and quantum leaps come to mind as I reflect on her words and how one moment, sentence, or even shared experience can take us from a virtual state to a manifest state. From thought to action.
Naturally, as graduate students we spend a lot of time in a thinking state. However, wouldn’t it be nice to get outside the ivory tower once in a while? As the spirit of spring knocks at our door, I can’t help but wonder – what better way to get into an action state than by getting our hands dirty in the garden?
Whether motivated by economic reasons, city beautification, or dreams of an alternative food system, more and more people are growing their own food in what is often referred to as the D.I.Y or back to the land movement. Although this concept is nothing new, we urbanites face an interesting set of obstacles, especially when it comes to space. The lack of growing space may discourage some D.I.Y. folks from taking root, but Bostonians are resourceful and as a result, community garden participation around the city is at an all-time high.
Community gardens are an excellent way to utilize limited city space, but with increased demand, we must also consider who has access to these green spaces. My work at Boston Natural Areas Network (BNAN) has illuminated the fact that although there are thousands of community garden plots, waitlists for up to a year are common. This reality makes me all the more grateful for our Gastronomy program’s privileged access to a plot at the Fenway Victory Gardens.
The Gastronomy Garden Club manifested out of the Summer 2011 Urban Agriculture course, and we started to make an impressive dent in the once-abandoned plot. As students, we theorize about issues of access and how we will improve the food system, but why wait until graduation to act on it? We have a unique opportunity to put our learning into practice right in our very own community.
The BU Gastronomy plot is roughly 30’x15,’ which is about 450 square feet and has potential to yield one ton or 2,000 pounds of produce. It’s fun to imagine all the possible ways we could enjoy 2,000 pounds of vine-ripened tomatoes, nutritious greens, and other culinary delights. Should we donate our produce to a local food pantry? Sell it at the BU Farmer’s Market? Or conduct an “Experiencing Food through the Senses” class amidst the fresh herbaceous aromas? The potential is ripe.
So let us remember: Non Satis Scire. To know is not enough. Join us on Monday, April 2, from 5-6p at 808 Commonwealth as we start making our garden a reality (no experience necessary!) Oh, and by the way, I’m over D.I.Y. - let’s D.I.T. (Do-It-Together).
Aubree is a Gastronomy student, the Produce to Pantries Intern at Boston Natural Areas Network, and a proud maker of an in-home vermicomposting system. She dreams of someday opening the lid to find the industrious worms taking a break - dressed in bow-ties and top hats, dancin’ like no one’s watching.
Food News Round Up
Today marks the beginning of the Spring Break holiday at Boston University, so we'll hope that at least some of you are reading this week's Food News Round Up from a white sandy beach somewhere. No matter where you are, may you enjoy chewing on this smattering of food news focusing on systems, conflicts, trends, and food culture fights, plus an oppositional look at urban gardening. Feel free to comment and discuss!
FOOD SYSTEM: Farmers, Seeds, and Water
- USDA’s ‘Know Your Farmer Know Your Food’ program aims to document local food system
- Seed Matters PhD fellowship focuses on organic and sustainable grain farming
- UN report farmers will need 19 percent more water by 2050 to meet increasing demand
FOOD CONFLICTS: Workers, Schools, and Chemicals
- Yes, there’s real orange juice in Fanta, but Coca-Cola squeezes Italian workers to get it
- Coca-Cola modifies caramel color to avoid cancer warning label
- ‘Pink slime’ refused by fast food companies, but is added to U.S. school lunches
- BU Professor finds alternate explanation for obesity, it's not calories, but chemicals
FOOD TRENDS: Meatless Meals, Pouches, and Crazies
- Trends and projections predict drop in US meat consumption
- More foods going to pouch packaging
- Crazy fast food photos: La McBaguette, Darth Vader Whopper, Bacon Milkshake, and more
- Fighting fiercely over Jewish recipes, preservation and renewal
- Fighting to get forgotten British foods on the table and in the supermarket
+ Urban Gardening: The Good and the Bad
- Urban Roots documentary shows Detroit urban gardening as vehicle of self-determination and empowerment
- Considering the dark side of urban farming; from abandoned goats to discarded roosters
Gastronomy Student Association Meets over Wine and Cheese
by Annu Ross
On Monday, February 26, the newly official Gastronomy Student Association met for its first, well, official event—a wine and cheese pairing in a private room at Eastern Standard.
Molly Hopper, who heads up Eastern Standard’s cheese program, selected two cheeses from the Loire Valley of France, and Colleen Hein, who runs the restaurant’s wine program, paired a Burgundy Chardonnay with each cheese. The first plate arrived with a fresh goat’s milk cheese called Petit Billy, a reference to the town in which it is produced, as well as to the male goat. An apple and raisin compote and baguette slices accompanied the chevre. The Petit Billy was creamy and earthy with a nice tang. Colleen paired a 2009 Domaine de la Cadette Bourgogne Vézelay la Châtelaine Chardonnay with this first plate. The 100% Chardonnay, un-oaked Domaine de la Cadette is grown in limestone and clay soils close to Chablis. It was crisp and refreshing with a pleasant tartness and notes of citrus. The wine brought out some fruity notes in the cheese, for a bright and Springy pairing.
The second pairing was a pungent Brie Fermier de Jouvence and a 2008 Benjamin Leroux, Auxey- Dresses Chardonnay. The cow’s milk brie is aged 6 weeks and thermalized, which is an alternative pasteurization process that results in a cheese that is as close to a raw milk cheese as we will get in the United States, due to FDA regulations. The brie’s bloomy rind imparted a strong, complexity of flavor with notes of white pepper, hay, garlic, and truffle. The Benjamin Leroux wine, also made with 100% Chardonnay grapes, was oaky and full bodied and made an excellent match for the intense flavor of the brie. The honey comb paired with the brie and Chardonnay completed the trifecta of flavor.
Molly and Colleen were gracious and informed hosts who were eager to create this experience and share their knowledge with Gastronomy students. Molly gets all of Eastern Standard’s cheeses from Murray’s in New York and Formaggio Kitchen here, in Boston.
Following the delectable and enlightening tasting, students brainstormed future events and activities for the Gastronomy Student Association. Stay tuned for exciting lectures, gardening club, and more delicious tasting events—next up is a Syrah/Petit Syrah themed evening as part of the Fireside Chats series at The Fireplace on Saturday, March 31. The event is available to Gastronomy students at a special discounted rate of $25. To confirm a seat for this event, please contact Natalie Shmulik at natalie_shh[at]hotmail[dot]com.
Gastronomy Design Contest
The Gastronomy program may be a relatively small one at Boston University, but our growing community is strong, and our students are passionate about food, cooking, culture, sustainability, and eating locally.
As a way to bring our group closer together, we've decided to launch a canvas tote bag design contest, just for Gastronomy students and alumni!
Here's how this will work:
- Students can submit as many designs as they like to lucia.austria[at]gmail[dot]com, until Tuesday, March 20, 2012.
- We'll select our favorites from the submissions, and then post them to this blog, where everyone will be able to vote for their favorite.
- Whichever designer gets the most votes will get his or her design printed on a canvas tote bag—and receive a free tote!
We’ll setup an online store through zazzle.com where you can decide on what size tote bag to purchase to show off your swag around campus. There’s no purchase deadline, and your bag will be sent directly to you. A portion of the proceeds for each bag will go toward Gastronomy Student Association events.
Here are the rules for submissions:
- BU has specified that we can use any design, as long as it doesn't make use of any Boston University logos. Feel free to be creative!
- Your design must include
- "BU Gastronomy” or
- “Gastronomy @ BU” or
- “Boston University Gastronomy”
File specifications:
- Resolution should be 150 pixels/inch (ppi)
- Color mode should be sRGB or RGB
- PNG preferred, JPG accepted
- Available space is 2375 x 2375 pixels, or 16 x 16 inches
Do you design better with a pencil than a mouse? No problem! Submissions of scanned artwork are accepted, just as long as the file follows these guidelines as best as possible. Entries up for vote will be converted to these exact specifications.
Good luck!
March Food Events
March has come in if not like a lion, perhaps like a large house cat, with a bit of snow and chilly winds. But don't let the unpredictable and often cold weather keep you from attending some of the food events planned this month—especially the guest lecture by Tracie McMillan on Thursday, March 29.
Click here to RSVP for the Tracie McMillan lecture, book sale, and signing.
SATURDAY, MARCH 10
Food on Film at the Museum of Science Presents American Meat: This new documentary chronicles America's grassroots revolution in sustainable meat production. A discussion follows the screening. The film screening is free, but you must register.
2:30 pm, Museum of Science, 1 Science Park
MONDAY, MARCH 12
Susanne E. Freidberg Speaks on Fresh: As part of the Culinary Historians of Boston speaker series, Susanne E. Freidberg wil present a talk on her book, Fresh, which explores the cultural history of freshness and food.
6 pm, Schlesinger Library, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
MONDAY, MARCH 19
Pépin Lecture Series: Ancient Grains for the Modern Meal with Maria Speck. Award-winning cookbook author, food writer, culinary instructor, Maria Speck, will discuss the subtle flavors and rich textures of whole grains and how she uses them in her recipes. You will sample small dishes from her award-winning cookbook, and go home with your own copy. The lecture costs $25.00 and reservations are required.
6 pm, 808 Commonwealth Ave, Fuller Building, Demonstration Room
TUESDAY, MARCH 20
Queen of the Sun Film Screening: What are the bees telling us? Find out at this screening of the film, Queen of the Sun, an alternative view at the global bee crises, heralded as "the feel good advocacy film of the year" by Box Office Magazine.
6 pm, CAS 225
SATURDAY, MARCH 24
Blog Better Boston Conference: This one-day event offers specialized workshops for bloggers, by bloggers—including tips for increasing traffic, using social media, and perfecting food photography skills. Register by the early bird February 15 deadline for a fee discount.
TUESDAY, MARCH 27
Boston Tree Party, Growing Civic Fruit: The event features a cross-disciplinary discussion on the intersection of art, urban agriculture, and civic engagement, followed by a screening of the new Boston Tree Party short documentary film and apple cider reception.
7 pm, Room 110, School of Hospitality Administration, 928 Commonwealth Ave, Boston
THURSDAY, MARCH 29
Guest Lecture, Book Sale + Sign with Tracie McMillan
Join us for a special guest lecture by Tracie McMillan, award-winning journalist and author of the newly published and highly acclaimed book, The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee's, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table.
As McMillan watched the debate about America’s meals unfold, one that urges us to pay food’s true cost—which is to say, pay more, she couldn't escape asking, "What if you can't afford $9 tomatoes?" And so she went undercover to find the answer. Please RSVP here.
6 pm, SHA Auditorium, 1st Floor, 928 Commonwealth Avenue
FRIDAY, MARCH 30
Food and Wine Trivia Night with Joyce Lock, Gastronomy Alumna: Test your foodie knowledge, have fun, and win prizes. Your enrollment includes a place at the game table on one of three teams, along with play-friendly edible treats and beverages. The event fee is $20 and you sign up for a team of your liking at registration.
6 pm, 808 Commonwealth Ave, Fuller Building, Demonstration Room
SATURDAY, MARCH 31
Gastronomy Student Association Event, Tasting at The Fireplace: Join us for a Syrah/Petit Syrah themed evening as part of the Fireside Chats series at The Fireplace. The event is available to Gastronomy students at a special discounted rate of $25. To confirm a seat for this event, please contact Natalie Shmulik at natalie_shh[at]hotmail[dot]com.
Food and the City Conference Gastronomy Prize Presented to Gary Chi-hung Luk
Dr. Rachel Black, Assistant Professor and Gastronomy Program Coordinator, presents the Gastronomy Prize at the Food and the City Conference, February 24, 2012, to Gary Chi-hung Luk, Ph.D. Candidate in Chinese Studies, Oxford University, for his paper, "Food Hawking and Public Markets in Early Colonial Hong Kong, 1841-48."
Sating the More Insistent Hungers at the BU Food and the City Conference
by Brad Jones | with photos by Lucia Austria
As the first food and history symposium to be sponsored by Boston University, the Food and the City Conference went extraordinarily well. The Gastronomy Program’s very own Ken Albala set the event's tone in his conference keynote. He suggested a very historical perspective through which to see the contemporary American cultural zeitgeist of locavorism, artisanship, integrity, and tradition. He posited that history operates in cycles and that the current movement away from industrialism and modernity is merely a particular incarnation of the age-old conflict between progress and romance—between looking forward and looking back.
While this thesis may certainly engender disagreement, I have my own concerns with thinking about the past and its influence on the present in a structurally conditioned way. Ken highlights the way in which history, and food history more specifically, can be and is an important and fruitful conceptual lens toward thinking about not only our contemporary world but also the world we will inhabit to come. Alas, Babson College professor Fredrick Douglass Opie was incessant in suggesting that food culture and food practices of the past should be neither anachronisms nor artifacts: that any good historical research is sure to inform an ongoing discourse in the present. Dr. Opie's blog, Food as a Lens, does just that by exploring "the history of food traditions, culture, and systems and the history of campaigns and movements for, about, and involving food."
Indeed the conference informed present discourse! The topics presented at the conference were of great depth and breadth and they reveal just how important an interdisciplinary approach is when conducting food studies. While positioned in the discipline of history, we heard papers on markets, economics, policy, activism, identity, nationality, culture, social class, and social change. Arguably the most enthusiastic presentation was given by Chrissie Reilly, a PhD student of Warren Belasco, who proved once again, this time through the lens of the Philly Cheesesteak, that food can not only be delicious to eat but nourishing to think in her paper “Hungering for Authenticity: Consuming the Cheesesteak in Philadelphia and Beyond.”
BU History Chair Bruce Schulman in his welcome went so far as to suggest that it is with food that we attempt “to sate our wilder, more insistent, hungers”—not mere visceral desires but pangs of justice, truth, civilization, nature, and, in the end, what it means to be human. I must confess for my own part, that rather than being sated at the Food and the City conference, these appetites were only increasingly whetted.
Brad Jones is a Gastronomy student. He also works at Formaggio Kitchen.
Food News Round Up
If you didn't watch the Oscars last night, you might have missed that The Muppets won for Original Song. And any Muppet lover knows that Jim Henson is also responsible for the characters of Sesame Street. In a, we'll admit, slightly bizarre six-degrees-of-separation-kind-of-way, that explains why we're doing Food News Round Up Sesame Street-style this week.
Thus, this smattering of food news is brought to you by the Letter "F" and the Number "5."
1. Fix the Food System
- A report from Food & Water Watch claims that Walmart can’t fix the food system
- Learn 9 things you've never heard about America's food from Tracie McMillan
- Please mark your calendars for Tracie McMillan's Gastronomy Lecture, March 29 at 6 pm, SHA Auditorium and RSVP here.
2. Follow Food Politics and Economics
- Obama administration creating school vending guidelines
- Connecticut bill would require labeling of genetically modified foods
- As feed prices increase, thousands of chickens die on Central Valley egg farm
- Essay by politics professor, Aaron Bobrow-Stain, previews his book, White Bread
3. Figure out Fast Food
- Yum Brands CEO, David Novak, discusses U.S. fast food business abroad
- Sandelman study finds McDonald’s brand perception declines as sales soar
4. Focus on Cuisine
- NPR’s “the salt “considers English cuisine à la Downton Abbey
- Analysis of a 1947 Chiquita cookbook reveals banana politics
- Chef, Sara Jenkins, asks what is authentic Italian food and does it really matter?
- Fox News releases list of restaurants where mere mortals will never get a reservation
- “Wild girls of food” discuss gender inequality in the industry
5. Find Food Trends
- Greek yogurt stirs up the food industry
- Scandinavian food popularity increases in the UK, but why?
Introducing a New Graduate Assistant
Allow us to introduce our newest graduate assistant, Lucia Austria. She’ll be helping out with this oh so marvelous blog, as well as supporting program events and special projects.
Lucia has long been intrigued by food and culture. “My parents are Filipino immigrants, and my interests in food and culture sprouted from my family's love of their native cuisine,” she says. But after earning a degree in business from Boston College, Lucia realized she would rather be on her feet and work with food than sit in an office. Inspired to change course, she attended Le Cordon Bleu in Cambridge, Massachusetts and then worked as a cook for a year. She began the Gastronomy program in 2010, while finishing her externship at The Gallows in the South End.
Her primary interest is food history, focusing on Spanish colonial foodways in the Philippines. She explains, “There's a lot of literature on Latin American foodways shaped by past European pursuits, but there's little done on the foodways of Spanish Philippines. I think there's a lot that can be discovered and understood about the foodways during this era in Philippine history, and how it has influenced the consumption habits of Filipinos at home and abroad.”
Currently, Lucia puts her love of working with food to, well, work at Taza Chocolate in Somerville where she is as an artisan Chocolate Maker. After graduation, she hopes to pursue her research goals in the Philippines and Spain.