Introducing the Spring 2012 Graduate Assistants
This spring, graduate assistants, Alex Galimberti and Emily Contois, will be helping with various projects and tasks, from research support to event planning to the blog’s editorial calendar. Feel free to pepper them with questions and ideas. If you haven’t met them yet, here's a quick introduction:
Alex Galimberti will be continuing his graduate assistant work from fall 2011, focusing on research aspects of the program, as well as helping with program events, policies and organization tactics. An avid traveler with a particular interest in Latin American food cultures, Alex is hoping to work with gastronomic tourism development after completing the program. "One of my favorite things about researching Latin American cuisines is tasting unique ingredients, and also learning traditional pre-Hispanic recipes," Alex explains. Exploring exotic dishes such as chapulines and huitlacoche (fried crickets and wild fungus), as well as cuy (guinea pig), he's not afraid to try indigenous foods and distinctive cultural dishes that many Americans might shy away from. "My main goal is to keep going to different countries and learning more about their food." After graduating from The Culinary Institute of America, Alex began the Gastronomy program in 2010, taking a few courses at a time while he also works at Taranta Restaurant in the North End. He is also increasingly interested in issues involving food and labor and will be attending the Labor Across the Food Systems conference at UC Santa Cruz in early February. Alex has been featured on this blog before, so for more information check out his student profile.
Emily Contois will focus on communications projects, primarily the BU Gastronomy blog. Always intrigued by the connections between food and culture, Emily wrote her honors thesis at the University of Oklahoma on the rhetoric of the dieting industry. “The majority of Americans have dieted at some point. What I found is that the rhetoric of diet books, advertisements, and menus purposefully incites conflicted food relationships, creating an unending demand for diet products,” she says. She went on to study public health nutrition at UC Berkeley, where she also taught undergraduate nutrition courses. She then tried her hand at employee wellness, helping to launch Healthy Workforce at Kaiser Permanente. Emily began the Gastronomy program in fall 2011, while continuing to work with Healthy Workforce and Sargent Choice at BU. While only in her second semester, her research interests tend to gather around representations of food and food-related phenomena in popular culture and how they impact perceptions, behaviors, and society. She’s excited to be presenting her paper, “Not Just for Cooking Anymore: Deconstructing the Twenty-First-Century Trophy Kitchen,” at the Language of Food Conference in April. Upon completing the program, Emily hopes to return to teaching and find her path to becoming a food studies professor.
Want to get involved? We’re always looking for submissions! Recipes, alumni and current student profiles, event and festival write ups, and photographs are welcome, as well as anything else you dream up. Feel free to email us anytime with suggestions, ideas or articles – we’d love to hear from you!
January Food Events
January not only welcomes a new year, the start of the spring semester, new students, and ever-colder weather, but also a bevy of food-focused events. Whether you want to learn more about how we can transform the food system, add some books to your collection, or polish your writing skills, January is set to deliver.
Mark your calendars, grab a coat, and we'll see you there!
SATURDAY, JANUARY 21
TEDxManhattan: Changing the Way We Eat conference, New York City. Speakers explore concepts like collaboration, sustainability, and the current state of our food system. The New York City event is completely sold out, but you are invited to join us for a viewing party:
10 am-6 pm, Boston University, College of Arts and Sciences (725 Comm. Ave), Room 313
rsvp to gastrmla@bu.edu or 617-358-6916
Free and open to the public - bring a friend!
MONDAY, JANUARY 23
Gastronomy Book Swap: Come swap or buy books for Gastronomy courses, dish on classes and papers, and enjoy some fun and fellowship.
5-6 pm, 808 Commonwealth Ave, Fuller Building, Room 109
TUESDAY, JANUARY 24
ASFS Abstract Writing Workshop: Come get some pointers from Dr. Catherine Womack for writing abstracts for the Association for the Study of Food and Society Conference June 20-24 in New York City. Abstracts are due February 1.
5-6 pm, 808 Commonwealth Ave, Fuller Building, Room 121
SATURDAY, JANUARY 28
Gastronomy Writing Workshop: This workshop is a primer taught by Dr. Karen Pepper in academic writing that will help you develop the tools necessary for this writing-intensive graduate program. Although this workshop is open to all students within the Gastronomy Program, it is mandatory for first-year students. It is offered once a semester and must be taken in your first year of study.
1-4 pm, 808 Commonwealth Ave, Fuller Building, Room 109
SUNDAY, JANUARY 29
An Old-Fashioned Teach In on the Farm Bill: What do we New Englanders need to know about the Farm Bill? Plenty. Spend the afternoon at the Museum of Science and learn why the Farm Bill should really be called the Food Bill from key note speakers U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree (D-ME) and NYU’s Marion Nestle, PhD.
2-6 pm, Museum of Science, 1 Science Park Boston, Massachusetts 02114
Note: This is a free, but ticketed event that is currently sold out and with a waiting list. If you get in, you must report back to us on what you learn!
Food News Round Up: January 16
From around the web this week, a few bites of food news. Feel free to to share thoughts, reactions, and other items of interest.
How food helped fuel the Civil Rights Movement
Britain is a fast food nation; new study finds half of all meals eaten out are fast food
Ancient kosher 'bread stamp' found near Acre, Israel
Atlanta plans to shake up airport food and dining
Marion Nestle defines organic
Final Project: Appliance Cookbooks Exhibit
One of our core classes, Survey of the History of Food, requires students to create a final project or paper for the end of the semester. But this fall, Professor Kyri Claflin took a different approach, encouraging students to design a food exhibit rather than a more traditional research paper. Hear from one of her students, Lucia Austria, below, and check out the food exhibit website that she created with Tiesha Lewis.
by Lucia Austria
On the first day of class, Kyri Claflin presented her grand idea for a final project to give her ML622 Survey of the History of Food class—design a food exhibit. It was a museological approach to the history of food that takes a theme and teaches a public audience about its significance, as well as why that knowledge is relevant today. Groups were to present their topic on the last night of class, and each student was responsible for writing their own research paper related to that topic. The class had the freedom to choose their own theme and groups.
Sounds interesting? Yes, it was certainly a welcome change from the normal 15-18 page research paper. Sounds easy? No, it definitely wasn’t. The class had a difficult time forming groups, because let’s face it, choosing just one topic in the wide scope of food history is pretty daunting. There are infinite themes, time periods, and foods to choose from, and I already had a hard enough time deciding what to bring for the class snack.
By the fourth class, I still had no idea what aspect of food history I wanted to research, and hardly any groups were formed. We had a guest speaker that night, the curator for the Schlesinger Library at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute, Marylène Altieri. She gave us an amazing presentation on the culinary collections available at Schlesinger, included the type of cookbooks one could find and use in their research.
I was inspired by Marylène ‘s presentation Being an aspiring antique cookbook collector 
myself, I decided to find other students interested in researching cookbooks. Together with Tiesha Lewis, who also has a personal interest in cookbooks, we narrowed down our topic to appliance cookbooks.
Despite their categorization as culinary ephemera, Tie and I felt that a lot could be discovered from such cultural debris. From preliminary research, we learned that due to the harnessing of electric power, there was a surge of appliances manufactured during the early half of the 20thcentury. We eventually focused our project on using appliance cookbooks published between the 1920s and 1960s and their influence on American housewives.
Tie and I pulled the content for our presentation from our individual research paper topics. 
She aimed to answer the question of whether appliance cookbooks were truly representative of daily cooking and consumption practices, as well as the social norms imposed by appliance manufacturers on women. Extending the use of culinary ephemera beyond serving mere nostalgia, I investigated the marketing and advertising practices of the appliance industry by using basic semiotic theory when researching appliance cookbooks. Together, we created our exhibit website, “Appliance Cookbooks: Transforming Women & Food." From our research at Schlesinger, we came up with four main themes that our exhibit that we felt would tell the story of women and kitchen appliances. Tie and I put together a video and created graphics that communicated a “museum feel.”
The project took a lot of time and visits to Schlesinger, but it was a great exercise at archival research and doing food history. We learned a lot about appliance cookbooks, and thanks to our exhibit website, you can too.
Local Uncorked Wine Dinner at Local 149
For our new student bloggers or anyone out there trying to get more readers (and honestly, aren't we all?), one of the best ways to stay connected is by checking out Boston Food Bloggers, a blog roll and communications hub of some of the best food-obsessed writers and bloggers in the city. Besides 
being a great way to get the word out about your food blog, as well as finding new blogs to obsess over, the author and organizer of the blog (Rachel Leah Blumenthal of Fork it Over, Boston!) does an incredible job planning different networking and social events for bloggers to meet up around Boston. Many of these events are free, and include a wide variety of locations and activities, like cruises, pub crawls, and tastings.
While many of our students run blogs and have attended past Boston Food Bloggers events, one of the most recent outings was a delightful wine dinner, held at Local 149 with wine pairings provided by local distributer Ruby Wines. Our own Emily Olson, a talented blogger and co-head of the Student Association for the Gastronomy program, was able to attend this event and offered to share her recent post with the program's blog readers. Check out Emily's personal food blog, What Emily Cooks, and read all about her experience with the Boston Food Bloggers. And don't forget to submit your own blog to this wonderful website!
Discovering A Memorable Feast
Following our look at Dan Remar's blog, The French Adventure, we'll continue to highlight student blogs that look at food at new and intriguing ways. Gastronomy student Kate Hamman has put together a fascinating blog that assembles food memories and stories, looking at how something as simple as a taste or smell can invoke strong emotions and nostalgia.
Check out her story below and explore the blog, A Memorable Feast - and please consider submitting a food memory of your very own to contribute to this exciting project.
by Kate Hamman
Open Classes for Spring 2012
Having trouble picking out your classes for next semester? We've got just the thing to help you out. There are a number of wonderful courses available for Spring 2012, and the following classes still have a few slots left. Several of these are special topics courses that will not be offered regularly. Check them out and register today to secure a slot!
Monday
ML 610 A1 The Big Fat Fat Controversy
Pepper
6-9pm, GCB 201
The word "fat" is charged with many meanings and associations. There is the biochemical entity called fat, the stuff that fills our adipose tissues. Fat, one of the macronutrients that constitute our food, is an ingredient in a myriad of dishes. Fat is associated with ill-health, particularly Type II diabetes. Fat gives shape to the human form, thus contributing to body image. Effort may be expended, via dieting and training, to eliminate bodily fat or reconfigure it as muscle. And fat represents different things in different cultures. This course will try to circle the girth of this amazingly rich subject.
Tuesday
ML 610 B1 Alcohol & Culture
Black
6-9pm, EOP 266
In Italy, France and Germany alcoholic beverages are considered an important part of the daily diet and commensality. In many African countries, alcohol has important ritual uses and is often used in rites of passage. In the United States, Americans have a fraught relationship with alcohol--from Prohibition to binge drinking. This course will explore the culture of alcohol in historic and contemporary contexts throughout the globe. The course material will focus on such topics as: locality and taste; gender and drinking; questions of morality; and the medicinal uses of alcohol.
ML 612 B1 Pots and Pans
Beaudry
6-9pm, STO 253
Exploration of the food cultures and technologies through material culture- pots, pans, and utensils. Course will range broadly across cultures, time, and space with emphasis on medieval and early modern times. Life histories of humble, overlooked, everyday objects associated with food preparation and consumption; kitchens from prehistory to the present; tradition and fashion in cooking & dining vessels; pots and cooking technology; pots as metaphors & symbols.
Wednesday
ML 722 C1 Food Activism
Counihan
6-9pm, CAS 325
In this class students will explore the work of anthropologists and other social scientists on food activism citizens' efforts to promote social and economic justice through food practices and challenge the global corporate agrifood system. The class will explore diverse individual and collective forms of food activism including veganism, gleaning, farmers' markets, organic farming, fair trade, CSAs, buying groups, school gardens, anti-GMO movements, Slow Food, Via Campesina, and others. It will address the questions: what is food activism, what are its goals, what is working and not working, and what are the results?
Blended
ML 610 EL Culinary Tourism
Long
Culinary tourism is "eating out of curiosity." This approach to food has had significant impacts on the development of cuisines, political history, and the relationships between groups of people. This class will explore culinary tourism from an interdisciplinary perspective as a human impulse, an historical force representing power structures, and a theme within tourism. It will ask what it means for individuals to eat the food of an "other," and whether or not such eating can lead to cultural understanding and ecological and economic sustainability. Students will also learn basic principles of tourism by completing a project developing a culinary tourism product (trail, vacation, tour, food item, restaurant).
Holiday Potluck
Take a deep breath - the fall 2011 semester is almost over.
I'm sure for some of you, this semester has just flown by - for others, it's been full of struggles 
that have seemed to drag on and on. I'm wrapping up my thesis project, and have managed to experienced both sensations throughout these past few months - and I'm sure I'm not the only one. But wherever you are in your final papers, exam preparation, or holiday baking, take a break and celebrate your successes this semester at our Holiday Potluck on December 16th. Join us from 6-9pm in the Demonstration Room, Fuller 117, for an evening of food, relaxation, and celebration.
How can you help? Contact Emily Olson and let her know what you'll be bringing - appetizer, entree, dessert, side dish, or whatever else strikes your fancy. And try to relax! You're almost finished.
On another note - if you're a current Gastronomy student, have a GPA of 3.0 or higher, and thinking blogging, editing, and being creative is the most fun you can have outside a kitchen, consider applying for the Communications Graduate Assistant position for Spring 2012. Check out the requirements and responsibilities in the PDF file below, and if you're interested in applying send your resume, CV, and cover letter to gastrmla@bu.edu by December 9th.
Notes from What’s Next?: Life After MLA Gastronomy
If you couldn't make it to our fantastic workshop several weeks ago, What's Next?: Life After MLA Gastronomy, you're in luck - we've got overviews and notes from each session, as well as links to several presentations to help you out. This workshop was designed to give students a bit of reassurance - there are a number of potential career paths available after graduation, and our alumni panel, career coach, and e-portfolio experts helped attendees learn more about how to market themselves, expand job searches, and even develop a stronger online presence.
The first section of our workshop featured three alumni members: Julia Grimaldi, Program Coordinator for the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources Dairy Promotion Board, Peter Kelly, culinary instructor at Johnson & Wales in Rhode Island, and Kimberly Kuborn, Director of Graduate Operations at the Metropolitan College, Boston University. Each of them told their personal stories, which varied greatly both in terms of how they found the MLA Gastronomy program as well as where they've traveled since then, and also answered student questions regarding career choices, opportunities, and advice on how to get started with the job hunt. Some of the best advice we heard:
-Whenever possible, don't say no! Seek out and take as many opportunities as you can, because you never know when a volunteer position, one-day event, or contact could turn into your next career move.
-Stay open to new options. Consider all possibilities, combinations of your skills, and potential positions when searching for jobs - don't limit yourself to only a few possible careers. Check every job site you can find, and stay in touch with old employers, professors, fellow students, and contacts within the industry.
-Find a mentor. Chat with them about your options and your dreams, get them to look at your resume (and take a look at theirs!), and make as many connections as possible through them.
Our middle session was a presentation by career coach Matt Casey, going through resumes, CVs, and cover letters. We only had an hour, and Matt was incredibly patient with our group, answering questions and showing us a number of examples. One of the biggest things he stressed was that everything you've done is marketable - most people drastically underestimate what they've done, so take time to write down all of your experience and ideas before applying for jobs and going for interviews. Matt had a ton of great information, but here are the highlights:
-Identify key points for yourself: what do you want to do every day? What are you good at? What do you want to accomplish? What holes can you fill? What are your skills? And, perhaps most importantly, what does your perfect, regular day look like? How much control do you want over time and money? What kind of work/life balance do you want? Do you want to lead, manage, advise, or champion?
-Ignore the one-page resume model. This is a product of past generations - now we have more jobs, change careers more often, and submit resumes online, so they can be as long as they need to be.
-Redo your resume to tell your personal story. Doesn't need to be chronological - try organizing it by skill. Include the title you want at the top - only 20% of resumes include this, and it's a great way to catch a potential employer's eye. Make it creative and express your personal style - make it bold and memorable. Avoid photos.
-Build a network. Contact people in the industries you're interested in - have meetings and ask questions without an agenda, just to learn more about them and their job. Hold informational interviews to learn more about potential positions. Find networking events and hand out your business card. Volunteer. Listen - a lot. And stay in touch with the connections you make - you never know when they'll come in handy.
-Find someone you admire and read their resume, ask questions about their career history, and find a niche for yourself. Figure out how you can make yourself indispensable in your industry.
-Keep cover letters short. Be bold and persuasive, and use strong phrases - "I am," "I can," "I will," "I have."
Click here to download a copy of Matt's Powerpoint presentation: Resume Planning and Development - November 5, 2011 (v2)
The third and final session was with Colby Young, a digital portfolio scholar and research assistant. All Boston University students are able to create free, online e-portfolios through Digication, though there are plenty of other services available if you'd prefer to go through someone else. These portfolios are a snap to set up - in an hour, Colby set up most of a portfolio and talked us through creating our own. And best of all, these won't disappear after you graduate, so you can put the link on your business cards, resume, and LinkedIn page. Make it public or private, depending on its use. Include your education, experience, thesis projects, internships, awards, videos, photographs, and whatever else you want. This program keeps things very organized, and is easy to make even if you have no programming skills whatsoever.
-Use your BU Kerberos login and password to create a new account on Digication.
-Create different sections and module to organize the portfolio however you like - experiment with different looks. Include as much or as little information as you like to enhance your online presence.
Click here to download a detailed how-to PDF guide for setting up your e-portfolio: DigicationQuickstart.pdf
From all of us in the Gastronomy program, I'd love to give another big thank you to all of our participants! The workshop was fun and incredibly helpful, and the information we received was invaluable. Thanks to everyone who was able to come, and good luck with your end-of-semester papers and projects!
The Cookbook Project
As part of our Practicing Gastronomy series, join us this Wednesday, November 30th, from 4:45-5:45 pm in Fuller 109 for a lecture and discussion with Cookbook Project founders Alyssa and Adam. Get to know this amazing duo and learn about their passion for sustainability, food justice, and food education! Plus, find out how you can get involved.
From their website:
"The Cookbook Project (CBP) is an international tax-exempt non-profit organization that 
combines youth education with Food Justice and the Slow Food Movement’s goals of providing access to fresh healthy whole foods while helping to preserve local food cultures. The organization facilitates food-oriented experiential education workshops in conjunction with non-profit youth organizations worldwide. These workshops focus on using food culture as a vehicle for educating youth experientially about the connection between food, the environment, health and wellness. Topics explored include local food culture, food geography, sustainable consumption, hygiene, and cooking skills. In addition to hosting youth education workshops CBP also train leaders of all ages around the world to be able to lead Cookbook Project Workshops where they live, work, and travel through a variety of programs.
The Cookbook Project sees food as universal, and a common ground for uniting humanity. Join us and learn how to eat fresh, cook local, be healthy, save the planet, and most importantly — play with your food!"
In addition to this workshop, Alyssa and Adam will be hosting a Creole Caribbean cooking class at The Cambridge Center for Adult Education on December 4th from 3-6pm. All proceeds from the class will go to support an upcoming workshop in Haiti, and Alyssa's agreed to offer a discount to Gastronomy students ($50-75). For more information or to sign up, contact Alyssa and Adam through their website.