Spring 2022 Pépin Lecture Series in Food Studies & Gastronomy
Spring 2022 lectures will be presented in webinar format. Registration is free and open to the public - please follow the link for each program to register.
The Fruits of Empire Art, Food, and the Politics of Race in the Age of American Expansion
Friday, February 11 at 12 pm EST
Shana Klein Reisig, Assistant Professor of Art History at Kent State University
The Fruits of Empire is a history of American expansion through the lens of art and food. In the decades after the Civil War, Americans consumed an unprecedented amount of fruit as it grew more accessible with advancements in refrigeration and transportation technologies. This excitement for fruit manifested in an explosion of fruit imagery within still life paintings, prints, trade cards, and more. Images of fruit labor and consumption by immigrants and people of color also gained visibility, merging alongside the efforts of expansionists to assimilate land and, in some cases, people into the national body. Divided into five chapters on visual images of the grape, orange, watermelon, banana, and pineapple, this book demonstrates how representations of fruit struck the nerve of the nation’s most heated debates over land, race, and citizenship in the age of high imperialism.
Welcome New Gastronomy and Food Studies Students, Spring 2022 part 2
We look forward to welcoming a wonderful group of new students into our programs this spring. Enjoy getting to know a few of them here.
Amanda Leavitt: I’ve loved food since the second my godmother propped me on a stool in the kitchen to learn about the art of the vinaigrette, so while earning my BS in Communications at Boston University, I found myself immersed in numerous food businesses. My professional experiences include working food retail at my family’s business in Puerto Rico, hosting in a fine dining restaurant, making chickpea fritter sandwiches on a Clover Food Truck, and leading chocolate tastings out of a boutique in Copley Square. All of this allowed me to use my love for communication and my love for food simultaneously. One of my most treasured professional experiences was working for the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation in London, whose mission was to make cooking accessible to everyone. I currently work for a restaurant tech company in Boston, where I’m constantly interacting with restaurant owners. My biggest goal is to fully immerse myself in all things food. When I’m not working or studying, I can be found making cooking videos, lately of Salvadoran or Puerto Rican food. If you need a good curtido or tostones recipe, I’ve got you!
Welcome New Students, Spring 2022!
We look forward to welcoming a wonderful group of new students into our programs this spring. Enjoy getting to know a few of them here.
Ana Acevedo-Barga Whether brewing fresh coffee, baking up a hot batch of chocolate chip cookies, or serving a 20-course meal, my delight in the experience of dining is everlasting. Food is magic! I have spent the past decade working in the food service industry, sharing my love for delectable cuisine and warming hospitality. My most recent years have been at o ya, a Japanese inspired restaurant in Boston, specializing in weaving flavor and texture into a mouthwatering journey. My work in fine dining has led me here, eager to explore food beyond its relationship to the restaurant industry. I look forward to studying the intersections between agriculture, history, society, economics and food. With my masters I hope to deepen my understanding of these origins of food and food practices in order to better contribute (and hopefully improve) the ever-evolving world of dining and hospitality.
Course Spotlight: Sociology of Taste
MET ML 716, Sociology of Taste, with Dr. Connor Fitzmaurice, will be offered as a hybrid class in the spring 2022 semester.
Taste has an undeniable personal immediacy: producing visceral feelings ranging from delight to disgust. As a result, in our everyday lives we tend to think about taste as purely a matter of individual preference. However, for sociologists, our tastes are not only socially meaningful, they are also socially determined, organized, and constructed. This course will introduce students to the variety of questions sociologists have asked about taste. What is a need? Where do preferences come from? What social functions might our tastes serve? Major theoretical perspectives for answering these questions will be considered, examining the influence of societal institutions, status seeking behaviors, internalized dispositions, and systems of meaning on not only what we enjoy--but what we find most revolting.
This course is a graduate level seminar where discussion and class participation are central to student success. As such, this class will feature weekly zoom meetings on Thursday evenings throughout the semester from 6:00 pm to 8:45 pm (with a mid-class break!).
Students will be able to take advantage of three in-person learning opportunities during the spring 2022 semester. During these weeks there will be no Thursday evening Zoom meeting:
- Saturday, March 19, 10 am to 12:45 pm - Project workshop, on campus
- Saturday, April 16th from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm (Rain date April 23rd) - Farm visit
- Saturday, April 30th from 10:00 am to 12:45 pm - Final research presentations, on campus
Opportunities for asynchronous participation will be available via blackboard.
This class is open to graduate students and upper level undergraduates. Non-degree seeking students may register here.
Course Spotlight: Sustainable Food Systems
This course will examine the contemporary food system through a multi-disciplinary lens. Taught by Chef Michael Leviton, the course will allow students to put readings and ideas into culinary practice. By examining the often-competing concerns from other domains, including economic (both micro and macro—social), social welfare, social justice and social diversity, health and wellness, food security and insecurity, and resiliency, we can begin to move towards solutions that treat the disease (our food system) and not just the symptoms (domain specific issues). Students will read widely in the topic area, engage in classroom discussion, and work together in the kitchen to understand hands-on culinary approaches to some of the most important issues of our time.
The reading list will be drawn from a wide range of contemporary authors include selections from Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, Maryn McKenna’s Big Chicken, Saru Jayaraman‘s Behind the Kitchen Door, and Wenonah Hauter’s Foodopoly . Guest speakers will bring in scholarly and practical approaches being put into use in the contemporary food scene.
Some class meetings will include tastings of different products (different origins, local, heritage, commodity, sustainable, organic, etc.) and cooking instruction around techniques for working with underutilized species, grass-fed (vs grain) beef, pastured vs coop chicken etc.
MET ML 723, Sustainable Food Systems, will meet on Monday nights in the Spring 2022 Semester, beginning on January 23. This class is open to graduate students and upper level undergraduates. Non-degree seeking students may register here.
International Education Week Cookbook Giveaway
Wednesday, November 17; 11:30 am to 1:00 pm
Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground
Fuller Building, 808 Commonwealth Avenue
As part of BU's International Education Week, Boston University students, faculty, and staff are invited to explore a new cuisine by choosing a free cookbook at this event. We have culled through our collection for duplicates, so you will be helping us make room on our shelves for some additional titles.
Have you ever wondered what books we have in our collection? You can browse through them virtually here, or contact us to arrange a time to visit the library in person.
Fall 2021 Pépin Lecture Series in Food Studies & Gastronomy
Fall 2020 lectures will be presented in webinar format. Registration is free and open to the public: please follow the link for each program to register.
Cheffes de Cuisine: Women and Work in the Professional French Kitchen
Rachel Black, Associate Professor, Anthropology Department Connecticut College
Though women enter France’s culinary professions at higher rates than ever, men still receive the lion’s share of the major awards and Michelin stars. Rachel E. Black looks at the experiences of women in Lyon to examine issues of gender inequality in France’s culinary industry. Known for its female-led kitchens, Lyon provides a unique setting for understanding the gender divide, as Lyonnais women have played a major role in maintaining the city’s culinary heritage and its status as a center for innovation. Voices from history combine with present-day interviews and participant observation to reveal the strategies women use to navigate male-dominated workplaces or, in many cases, avoid men in kitchens altogether. Black also charts how constraints imposed by French culture minimize the impact of #MeToo and other reform-minded movements.
Evocative and original, Cheffes de Cuisine celebrates the successes of women inside the professional French kitchen and reveals the obstacles women face in the culinary industry and other male-dominated professions.
Cosponsored by the BU Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program
Friday, October 15, noon to 1:00 pm. Register here.
New Gastronomy and Food Studies Students, Fall 2021 part 3
We look forward to welcoming a wonderful group of new students into our programs this fall. Enjoy getting to know a few of them here.
Dedicated to closing the gap of achieving higher education, Melvin Nguyen has served as a College Access Mentor for Breakthrough New York, Let’s Get Ready, and Strive for College to support first-generation low-income BIPOC seniors navigate the complex college application process.
In addition to college access, Melvin is passionate about the power of hands-on learning in kitchen environments, working in restaurants since the age of 14. His time between the foodservice and nonprofit world has shown him the inadequacy of career and technical education in current school systems. His lived experiences have pushed him to become an ardent advocate for vocational learning and classes. As a shift leader and bakery associate at DŌ, Cookie Dough Confections, he leads team members in the daily production of safe-to-eat cookie dough. He has interned at Haley House, a community cafe and soup kitchen for the underserved. He played a key role in spearheading the refresh of catering services for their social enterprise cafe and helping teach healthy and affordable cooking classes to young community members. Recently, Melvin completed two fellowships with the Edwin Gould Foundation Accelerator and Asian Pacific Islander American Scholars Organization.
Melvin graduated from New York University this past May where he majored in Hospitality and Tourism with a concentration in Organizations and Operations and a minor in Food Studies.
New Gastronomy and Food Studies Students, Fall 2021 part 2
We look forward to welcoming a wonderful group of new students into our programs this fall. Enjoy getting to know a few of them here.
Emma Campbell was raised in a suburb south of Boston and spent almost every Sunday of her childhood going to Sunday dinner at her grandmother’s house. This tradition and the days’ accompanying cooking instruction from her mother and grandmother, reinforced her love of food and cooking. Her grandmother’s recipe box full of handwritten notecards, magazine clippings, and miscellaneous notes remind Emma of food’s significant role in family life and the way in which food informs and evokes memories.Emma graduated from Boston College with a degree in Communication and a minor in American Studies with a concentration in Journalism. After almost three years since undergrad, she sincerely missed the world of academia. When she graduated from BC, she knew she was interested in the Gastronomy Master’s Program at BU and applied after COVID-19 and quarantine reaffirmed the idea that “there is no time like the present.” She hopes to learn more about the context and history of food systems, ingredients, and cooking methods and utilize that knowledge to enrich her life personally, and also prepare her for a future career in the food industry. She currently works at a Boston-based public media station, and spends most of her free time developing recipes and constantly pursuing informal culinary education and instruction. She also enjoys modifying and modernizing family recipes and taste testing them with her partner. She also has a cat named Mačka who will likely choose to introduce herself to Emma’s classmates during lectures on Zoom.
New Gastronomy and Food Studies Students, Summer and Fall 2021
We look forward to welcoming a wonderful group of new students into our programs this fall. Enjoy getting to know a few of them here.
Born and raised in northern Ohio, Michaela Gilgenbach’s love of food and culture developed early on. She spent most of her time engrossed in food shows and making a mess of the kitchen. She made it her duty to attend every food festival every summer where her interest only grew bigger.
While completing her undergrad in Spanish and International Studies at Wittenberg University, Michaela began to share her love of food and culture with others. Hosting big family style meals alongside her best friend starting in their tiny dorm room and later on in their apartments.
Even after moving to Tennessee to teach Spanish, Michaela took her love of food and culture with her. She helped host a food club, where students would learn about the process of making certain foods and their history. She would try to master the different cooking styles and expand her knowledge even more during the pandemic. She spent most of her time researching and exploring what new foods she could learn about and make next.
Following her long journey to Boston with her two old pomeranians in June. Michaela is excited to be joining the Gastronomy program starting in the fall. She hopes to continue to learn and grow her love of food. She is thrilled to see where this new journey takes her!