Food news roundup: April 8
From around the web this week, a few bites of food news. Feel free to comment with thoughts, reactions, or anything else of interest.
Boston food bank aims to narrow 'meal gap'
Learning about beef from America's first cookbook
Recent donation to NYU's Fales Library makes it one of the largest food-related collections in the country
It's fear, not radiation, that's a risk to Japanese fish sellers
FDA launches Web page for recalled foods
A Sunday of swapping
by Khalilah Ramdene
While a diet rich in ramen noodles may be the stereotypical grad school diet, it’s unlikely you’ll find a Gastronomy student sticking to this tradition. That is, unless they made the ramen themselves or had it at a spot in Chinatown.
This past Sunday, a group of Gastronomy students and faculty gathered to share the food they cook and eat. (This article on food swapping from The New York Times inspired the get-together.) The food swap was an opportunity for students and faculty to gather around food in a more casual setting and talk over a generous spread of cheese and wine. They traded an impressive list of homemade food that evening, including hot sauce, citrus curds, pasta, pizza dough, and two different sourdough starters. The food swapped is evidence that Gastronomy students are cooking and eating well, and are sure to have more up their sleeves. The evening ended with talk of the next swap, perhaps with pickled foods as its theme. Sauerkraut, anyone?
Outside of the Classroom: Chris Malloy and Chefs Collaborative
by Chris Malloy
Until I saw the email, my plan was to read in bed.
Hey Chris, Jon noticed a couple of mistakes in your piece on salmon handling. Could you check in with him and see if you can get those corrected?
It was a frosty morning, one that capped a busy week, and I just wanted to sip tea and get lost in a warmer world. Instead, I would be spending the morning in Alaska.
I called Jon, an Alaskan fisherman, and we chatted about salmon—how the fish is bled on deck, how well the different species ship, and how chefs can discriminate when buying. This last bit was of particular importance given the mission of Chefs Collaborative: to inform chefs about sustainable and delicious food choices.
By mid-afternoon, I had updated my piece on the Chefs Collaborative blog. Chefs Collaborative staff post to the blog regarding food news, sustainability issues, member profiles, and so forth. As the Collaborative’s research and writing intern, I post to the blog about my findings—all salmon-related, for now.
The blog posts are part of a larger project. I’m writing a communiqué on salmon, a pamphlet advising chefs on how to handle the fish in a way that benefits the environment and our stomachs. This is the kind of thing that Chefs Collaborative does. They've published literature on a wide range of sustainable food topics, including how to go "whole hog" and cooking with heirloom beans.
But Chefs Collaborative does other things, too. Members can host earth dinners, themed meals celebrating responsible food. And Chefs Collaborative holds a yearly national summit, at which members attend and conduct, panels, workshops, and tastings. And that’s just the beginning of what Chefs Collaborative does. Look them up on Facebook and Twitter. Theirs is a good cause to follow, even with the odd morning in Alaska.
This is part of a series of posts from Gastronomy students on how they’re putting their classroom knowledge to work and expanding their education through internships and volunteer opportunities. To write about your own internship, volunteer position or job, send an email to gastronomyatbu@gmail.com.
Food news roundup: April 1
From around the web this week, a few bites of food news. Feel free to comment with thoughts, reactions, or anything else of interest.
Rikers Island inmates bake 36,000 loaves of bread per week
The cult wine of 121 B.C.
New bill aims to limit rights of beer and wine producers to ship directly to consumers
Food inflation kept hidden in tinier packaging
What does "sustainable" mean for wine?
Good Food Jobs and the importance of ice cream
Dorothy Neagle and Taylor Cocalis, the ladies behind Good Food Jobs, are coming to BU for a free seminar this weekend. They’ll impart some general wisdom on food-focused careers and will help participants think creatively about applying food writing skills beyond traditional channels. The seminar is full, but keep an eye on our Events page and the Lifelong Learning website for future opportunities like this one.
by Erin Carlman Weber
Like so many great things, Good Food Jobs wouldn’t be if it weren’t for pluck and ice cream.
Taylor Cocalis and Dorothy Neagle, founders of the gastro-job website, first bonded during a car ride home from a dairy festival in upstate New York, an event to which they'd been lured by the 25-cent ice cream cones. They remained close for the rest of their undergrad studies at Cornell University, adding to the growing body of evidence that says connections fostered by churned frozen cream are unbreakable. After the pomp and circumstance, Taylor headed to graduate school at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy, and Dorothy began working for an interior design firm in New York City.
Five years after that first ice cream date, the friends found themselves possessed by a combination of career unrest, entrepreneurial urge, food tunnel vision and a desire to work together on a project that would make a difference. They were bound once again for the dairy fair and its pocket change-priced cones when they had an “a-ha!” moment that set Good Food Jobs in motion.
The site is a boon for many food studies students, who, if they’re anything like this one, can be found hitting their browser’s refresh button on the site's job listings several times a day. Since its launch in May 2010, Taylor and Dorothy have transformed their brainchild from a weekly e-newsletter to full-fledged search engine. They’re currently putting up an average of 60 new opportunities a week, and they recently passed the six hundred listings mark. Openings posted on the site span the breadth of the food world. A random sampling could turn up a decorated New York City restaurant looking for line cooks, a marketing position with an urban gardening organization, a Michigan farm searching for interns, or one of the country’s top food websites hiring freelance writers.
Taylor and Dorothy say it’s their goal to ensure there’s a greater chance this diverse range of food-centric businesses exists. They vet each listing to make sure it meets not only their high standards for sustainability, but also the desires of their uniquely food-focused job seekers. The wide range of postings speaks to an idea the women say has been eye-opening for many—just because you want to work in food, it doesn’t mean you have to work with food.
Having ice cream on hand does help, though, as Dorothy and Taylor can attest.
Food writing students want to warm you up
In New England, finding creative and tasty ways to eat your way through the last bits of winter before spring finally bursts onto the scene can seem a never-ending task. Students from this semester's food writing class, taught by Boston Globe food editor Sheryl Julian, are here to help. A few weeks ago, Julian tasked the group with developing a recipe and writing an introduction for a winter-worthy dish. Here are the three hearty, Italian-inflected dishes that rose to the top.
Sophie Gees' rib-sticking ribollita
Chris Malloy's spaghetti all'amatriciana
Rachel Weiner's roasted butternut squash risotto
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Food news roundup: March 25
From around the web this week, a few bites of food news. Feel free to comment with thoughts, reactions and anything else of interest.
Japan's food contamination problem 'serious,' says WHO
Can city farmers make a living? Activist Eli Zigas on the challenges of urban agriculture
Minnesota acts against 'food club' milk seller
Amanda Hesser on how the new Google recipe search gets it wrong
ConAgra broadens campaign to fight child hunger
Genetically modified crops get a boost over organics with new USDA rulings
Graduating Project | Ilona Baughman’s A Touch of Spice: Eating, Exile and Identity
This is the first in a series of posts on the diverse range of projects our students undertake as a culmination of their Gastronomy studies. To write about your own graduating project, send an email to gastronomyatbu@gmail.com.
by Ilona Baughman
I came to the Gastronomy department, not surprisingly, with an abiding interest in many aspects of food. In the course of my studies, I found myself most particularly interested in food’s utility as a lens into culture. A class with chef Ana Sortun opened my eyes to the sophisticated culinary legacy of the Ottoman Empire. I soon began to investigate food’s utility as a lens into my culture, me being a daughter of Greek parents, and a granddaughter of Ottoman subjects.
I learned that although Greeks have lived throughout the Eastern Mediterranean for millennia, only a fraction of them actually lived in the place that became Modern Greece in the early nineteenth century. The Ottoman Empire was comprised of a diverse, multi-cultural population. The new republic quickly and successfully promulgated a nationalist agenda that rejected that diversity, along with any memory of its legacy, which resulted in an almost entirely homogeneous Greek population. This collective amnesia of the recent past enabled the newly constructed national narrative to leapfrog over time, and trace a straight line from the present back to a glorious past in antiquity.
The idea of Greek culture as a modern construction, in opposition to the Ottoman past was the subject I wanted to tackle in my thesis, using food and eating practices as a way to illuminate cultural differences and similarities. The problem was how to narrow the scope to a manageable, meaningful project, with sources to which I had access.
The answer came to me after seeing the 2003 film A Touch of Spice. It is the story of a Greek family from Istanbul who, for political reasons, are deported to Athens, a place as alien to them as anywhere on earth. Berated there as foreigners, they are considered positively unpatriotic for continuing to cook and consume “Turkish” food.
The film thus poses the question “what is Greek food – and by extension – how does one really define Greek identity?” An analysis of the film has allowed me to investigate the issues inherent in teasing out these questions of national identity, anchored in recent history.
Using the film has also solved the issue of sources: the film and cookbooks are my primary sources. Secondary sources include works in food studies, film studies, nationalism and Modern Greek history. The writing is finally underway. With a little luck, you will see me at graduation this May!
Practicing Gastronomy date change
Our first Practicing Gastronomy discussion with Alicia Towns Franken has been moved from Monday, March 21 to Monday, March 28. We hope you can join us as we kick off this discussion series on careers from all corners of the food and drink world. And if you've got ideas for future guests, please send suggestions to gastronomyatbu@gmail.com.
PRACTICING GASTRONOMY
Gastronomy in the Wine World with Alicia Towns Franken
Monday, March 28
808 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 109
4:45-5:45pm
Food news roundup: March 11
From around the web this week, a few bites of food news. Feel free to comment with thoughts, reactions and anything else of interest.
Massachusetts plagued by shortage of grocers, according to new report from MA Public Health Association
Food safety implications in the federal budget debate
NY Congresswoman introduces legislation to reduce antibiotic use in livestock farming
Can Pasadena farmers really trademark the phrase "urban homestead?"