{"id":11072,"date":"2026-05-08T10:34:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T14:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/?p=11072"},"modified":"2026-05-08T10:34:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T14:34:18","slug":"red-green-bu-class-inhabits-cultural-and-culinary-tourism-in-new-mexico-by-jose-j-lopez-ganem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/2026\/05\/08\/red-green-bu-class-inhabits-cultural-and-culinary-tourism-in-new-mexico-by-jose-j-lopez-ganem\/","title":{"rendered":"Red & Green: BU Class Inhabits Cultural and Culinary Tourism in New Mexico by Jos\u00e9 J. L\u00f3pez Ganem"},"content":{"rendered":"

This course begins with a simple but layered question: why leisurely travel for food?<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Welcome sign at VisitABQ office, displayed by our hosts Brooke Jung Brooke, Katrina Latka, and Brenna Moore (BU Food Studies \u00a9 Jose Lopez Ganem 2026)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a post-Bourdain world, what once felt like the \u201cparts unknown\u201d no longer exists in quite the same way. The places that Anthony Bourdain helped bring into view\u2014once distant, unfamiliar, or outside the scope of mainstream travel\u2014are now widely accessible, whether through long-distance travel or the screen of a smartphone. This expanded visibility invites social scientists to ask not only how and by whom the global food tourism industry is sustained, but also what it produces: its human and environmental impacts, its promises and contradictions, its legacies and claims of innovation. It also prompts reflection on the motivations that lead us to line up outside C\u00e9dric Grolet\u2019s p\u00e2tisserie in Paris or spend generously on M\u0101ori honey from Aotearoa (New Zealand).<\/span><\/p>\n

The origins of culinary tourism, however, are less straightforward than today\u2019s digital enthusiasm might suggest. Folklorist Lucy Long framed it as a response to the opacity of modern food systems\u2014or, at times, as a way of extracting culinary knowledge\u2014traveling for food has not always followed the now-familiar cycle of travel, purchase, photograph, and post. Still, as a pioneering scholar in the field, Long argues the enduring promise of culinary tourism lies in its potential for engagement on equal flooring, where encounters through food can challenge and even dissolve perceived and artificial boundaries of <\/span>otherness<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Practicum in New Mexico\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n

From March 12\u201315, 2026 students in Boston University\u2019s<\/span> Culinary and Cultural Tourism<\/span><\/i> course traveled through Albuquerque, Jemez Pueblo, and Santa Fe\u2014all in the State of New Mexico\u2014as part of a practicum designed to test classroom theories in real-world settings.<\/span><\/p>\n

New Mexico occupies a unique position within the United States: a state deeply shaped by history, cultural diversity, and a long-standing relationship with tourism; or perhaps too dependent on it. It is a place where landscapes, traditions, and foodways have been framed for visitors for over a century\u2014from Route 66 to the hospitality systems developed by the Fred Harvey Company. At the same time, it is a place marked by ongoing challenges, including environmental pressures and persistent inequalities that disproportionately affect Native American communities.<\/span><\/p>\n

This duality is central to understanding New Mexico as a site of study. It is both a destination carefully constructed for visitors and a lived environment where culture, identity, and food continue to be negotiated, experienced, and contested.The practicum brought students into direct contact with the people and institutions that shape the tourism ecosystem today.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Our group being guided through the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe by docent Roy Snable (BU Food Studies \u00a9 Jose Lopez Ganem 2026)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Albuquerque, a visit to the city\u2019s tourism office\u2014Visit Albuquerque (VisitABQ), a destination marketing organization (DMO)\u2014highlighted how food is strategically used to position and promote a destination. Through its master tourism plan, the city leverages key milestones such as the 100th anniversary of Route 66 in 2026 and the 400th anniversary of winemaking in New Mexico\u2014making it the oldest wine-producing region in the United States. These initiatives demonstrate how history, food, and narrative are mobilized to create a cohesive and marketable identity.<\/span><\/p>\n

At Los Poblanos Historic Inn and Organic Farm, we encountered a different dimension of tourism\u2014one shaped by private enterprise. The property offers a carefully curated, almost cinematic environment that illustrates how businesses can harness storytelling to highlight, preserve, and perfectly exemplify the construct of a <\/span>sense of place<\/span><\/i>. A particular highlight of our time was our engagement with Kate Gardner (Culture and Community Event Director), Christopher Bethoney (Executive Chef) and Judy Hartine (Farm Manager), whose work inspired our group of individual – yet might – solutions that invest in culture with intention and care, making it a great place for professional development. What emerged was not only a beautiful place to visit or a rewarding place to work, but a compelling case for culture as a central pillar of sustainability. In particular, Gardner\u2019s work made clear that any human endeavor that aspires to be sustainable must also be cultural: attentive to meaning, identity, and the communities it seeks to serve.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI saw that they were bringing together many aspects of cultural tourism\u2014building both an experience and a destination, creating a sense of place through farming and land, and connecting food to that landscape in a way that felt authentic and grounded.\u201d<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span><\/i>\u2014 Adeline Wong<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At Jemez Pueblo, the encounter unfolded first through food\u2014grounded, generous, and deeply rooted in a new interpretation of guests beyond textbook tourism. Students were welcomed with Jemez-style enchiladas, a millennia-old staple sustained by Bertha Gachupin, a town elder and celebrated cook. Alongside them came horno-baked bread <\/span>a la minute<\/span><\/i>, prepared in a historic outdoor oven; freshly rolled tortillas shaped by hand; and <\/span>biscochitos <\/span><\/i>made with locally picked pi\u00f1ones,<\/em> a sacred staple and flavor carrying the visible landscape itself. Each dish was more than a meal\u2014it was a\u00a0 solidification of the social experience that made our group permanent, indelible.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Left to right: Clarice Fragua and Julia Wall take out bread from the horno at the Flower Hill Institute in Jemez (BU Food Studies \u00a9 Jose Lopez Ganem 2026)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And yet, what defined the experience was not only what was served, but how it was offered. This was not an encounter framed around culinary tourism, nor even a class exercise. Students were welcomed as pilgrims and, in many ways, as extended family\u2014received with a level of openness that cannot be replicated through payment or programmed experience. It was an invitation into a relationship, however brief, that carried the weight of reciprocity and presence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The visit also carried a ceremonial dimension, guided by Joseph \u201cBrophy\u201d Toledo, whose presence framed the day through both place and history. Along the Jemez River and in the vicinity of the Valles Caldera, students were introduced to the layered and often contested relationships between the National Park Service (NSA) and Pueblo communities. These are not abstract tensions, but lived realities in a landscape that holds profound cultural, spiritual, and environmental significance. Here, conservation is not only a federal mandate, but also a matter of sovereignty, memory, and belonging.<\/span><\/p>\n

For many, this was one of the most striking aspects of the practicum. It revealed the limits of conventional tourism models\u2014those built on access, efficiency, and growth\u2014and pointed instead toward a more complex framework: one that must account for multiple stakeholders, competing histories, and uneven power dynamics. The experience challenged students to consider what it means to build a visitor economy not solely for profit, but in ways that recognize cultural integrity, environmental stewardship, and the rights of those whose relationship to the land predates tourism itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe experienced many of the critical frameworks from our course, but also witnessed the sharing of culture and local practices in a way that felt like a true encounter with cultural tourism. The environmental impact was especially clear during our time at Jemez Pueblo.\u201d<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span><\/i>\u2014 Sarita Bhagwat<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At La Fonda on the Plaza, the practicum took on a different rhythm\u2014one that felt less like visiting a site and more like inhabiting it. Welcomed by hotel historian Ed Pulsifer, students were guided through a property where hospitality, architecture, and storytelling converge. To stay at La Fonda was, quite literally, to sleep in history: a space layered with visual artifacts, curated interiors, and culinary traditions that extend back to the era of the Fred Harvey Company. The experience became deeply sensorial\u2014an immersion in color, texture, taste, and narrative\u2014that allowed students to understand food not only as something consumed, but as something staged, remembered, and circulated.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Family photo at the Terraza at La Fonda on the Plaza, with our host Ed Pulsifer, with the background of The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe (BU Food Studies \u00a9 Sunjeev Sawai 2026)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In this setting, concepts from across the Food Studies curriculum became tangible. Questions from the anthropology of food surfaced naturally: who stays here, who dines, who shops, and why does a place like this continue to attract particular audiences? At the same time, the hotel\u2019s visual and material culture\u2014murals, design elements, and archival references\u2014offered insight into how Southwestern identity has been constructed and presented. Through the lens of Fred Harvey, and with tools from the study of food history, students encountered a figure whose legacy remains complex: an architect of a hospitality economy that created opportunity and infrastructure, while also contributing to the selective representation\u2014and, at times, tokenization\u2014of Native American cultures. At La Fonda, these tensions were not abstract; they were lived, observed, and, for a moment, inhabited.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the Santa Fe School of Cooking, the practicum shifted once again\u2014from observation to participation. The class centered on core New Mexican dishes\u2014green chile chicken tamales, cheese enchiladas with red chile sauce, corn tortillas, and chile rellenos\u2014each recipe revealing layers of technique, history, and regional identity. Cooking became both a method of learning and a form of translation, where local foodways were rendered legible\u2014and reproducible\u2014for those encountering them for the first time. At the same time, the experience prompted reflection: if these recipes can be taught, replicated, and carried elsewhere, what remains tied to place? The class made clear that culinary tourism does not simply bring visitors closer to food systems\u2014it also participates in their circulation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI loved the cooking class and learning about New Mexican dishes. Being actively engaged and interacting with classmates and the instructor helped me better understand the state and its Indigenous communities.\u201d<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span><\/i>\u2014 Melissa Teng-Towle<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reflection\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n

By the end of the practicum, students were left with questions that extend well beyond New Mexico – but also with tools and examples from there that can help us navigate this as professionals and practicing scholars.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  • How is authenticity constructed in tourism settings? Can it actually be constructed and represented?\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Does authenticity also carry the burden of quality too? Is something more authentic by default more expensive?\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • What do you do when a person or community does not want to be visited?\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • What are the pending wounds and reparations that need to be taken into account when building culinary or cultural proposals within contexts of conquest, extraction, and tokenization? Is economic development from the perspective\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • What roles do history and infrastructure play in shaping visitor experiences?<\/span><\/li>\n
  • How do communities balance tourism\u2019s economic benefits with cultural integrity?<\/span><\/li>\n
  • What does it mean to \u201cexperience\u201d a place through its food?<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Beyond the questions brought by critical studies, what happens to the more material lacks or challenges experienced throughout: lack of water, abundance of fire disasters, unprecedented migration from other (high-tax states), record heat?\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    These reflections align closely with the course\u2019s broader goals: to understand culinary tourism not only as an industry, but as a cultural and social practice shaped by the balance of power, the study\u00a0 and revision of history, and the need for the articulation of community\u2014not the dominance of one narrative \u2014as the recipe for success.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    New Mexico is, indeed, a land of enchantment and of learning. It is a place worth visiting, as long as one does so with awareness and respect for those who call it home. Within the boundaries of the United States, it remains a region shaped by peoples whose histories and relationships to the land long precede the nation itself, and through that knowledge can also protect it, one can say deliciously with some kick of either red or green.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"\"
    Left to right: Sanjeev Sawai, Bryn Fragua, Adeline Wong (back), Julian Towle, and Chris Wilcox chat admiring the Walatowa Slot Canyon trail in the background (BU Food Studies \u00a9 Jose Lopez Ganem 2026)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

     <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
    \n

    Students<\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

    Athena Anderson, Sarita Bhagwat (with Sanjeev Sawai), Rachael Marks (with Audrey Ostenson), Noel Motsinger (with Tom Motsinger), Marissa Nichols (with Maria \u201cMarilu\u201d Nicholas), Melissa Teng-Towle (with Julian Towle), Megan Vallejo (with Magdalena \u201cMaggie\u201d Vallejo), Christopher Wilcox, and Adeline Wong (with Tabitha Lim).\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

     <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
    \n

    Acknowledgements<\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

    \n

    VisitABQ<\/b>
    \n<\/span>Brooke Jung\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Katrina Latka\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Brenna Moore<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

    		New Mexico Wine Growers Association<\/b><\/p>\n

    Chris Goblet\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n

    		La Fonda in the Plaza<\/b><\/p>\n

    Ed Pulsifer\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

    \n

    Los Poblanos Historic Inn and Organic Farm<\/b><\/p>\n

    Kate Garner <\/span>
    \n<\/span>Sierra Shipman<\/span>
    \n<\/span>Christopher Bethoney<\/span><\/p>\n

    Amy Carrara\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Melissa Rivera<\/span>
    \n<\/span>Judy Hartline\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

    		\n

    Indian Pueblo Cultural Center<\/b><\/p>\n

    Bill Stimmel\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

    		\n

    New Mexico History Museum<\/b><\/p>\n

    Neil Dodge, PhD\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Cathy Notarnicola <\/span>
    \n<\/span>Roy Snable\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

    \n

    Manko<\/b>
    \n<\/b>Ryan Naranjo<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

    		\n

    University of New Mexico\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

    Ronda Brulotte, PhD<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

    \n

    Flower Hill Institute\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

    Roger Fragua\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Joseph \u201cBrophy\u201d Toledo<\/span><\/p>\n

    Nicole Mast\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Bryn Fragua\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

    		\n

    Pueblo of Jemez<\/b><\/p>\n

    Bertha Gachupin<\/span><\/p>\n

    Clarice Fragua<\/span><\/p>\n

    Julia Wall<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

    		\n

    Santa Fe School of Cooking<\/b><\/p>\n

    Nicole Ammerman<\/span>
    \n<\/span>Mica Chavez<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

     <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

    \n

    New Mexico State University\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

    Charles Havlik, PhD<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

    		\n

    Kakawa Chocolate House\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

    Bonnie Bennett<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

    		\n

    The Kitchen Table<\/b><\/p>\n

    \u00a0Andrea Abedi<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

    \n

    Special Appreciation<\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

    \n

    Alicia Kennedy and Shayan Lallani, PhD<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

    \n

    Author Bio<\/b>
    \n<\/span>Jos\u00e9 J. L\u00f3pez Ganem is a Lecturer and Outreach Coordinator in the Food Studies Programs at Boston University, where he teaches courses on culinary and cultural tourism. He also serves as Executive Director of the Institute for Cacao and Chocolate Research (ICCR). His work explores the intersections of taste, cultural and intellectual property, and global commodity systems.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This course begins with a simple but layered question: why leisurely travel for food? In a post-Bourdain world, what once felt like the \u201cparts unknown\u201d no longer exists in quite the same way. The places that Anthony Bourdain helped bring into view\u2014once distant, unfamiliar, or outside the scope of mainstream travel\u2014are now widely accessible, whether […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25896,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11072"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25896"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11072"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11088,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11072\/revisions\/11088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}