![\"steamykitchen.com\"](\"http:\/\/steamykitchen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/kogi-bbq-taco-31.jpg\" "\\"Korean")
<\/a>I did not come to BU for the gastronomy program. In fact, I didn\u2019t even know that it existed!\u00a0Instead, I had relocated from North Carolina to accept a job as a librarian at Mugar. It was only after I had started working here that I learned about the program, and it was one of those “OMG-this-is-amazing-how-did-I -not-know-about-this-before?!” moments.<\/p>\nI have a passion for food and a background in health, and if I were to get a second masters it would be in nutrition.\u00a0As I browsed the gastronomy course offerings, I was excited to find that I could study why food is so important to individuals, but from a different perspective than the one I would get in a nutrition course.\u00a0 I decided to take the plunge and sign up for Amanda Mayo\u2019s ML631 “Ethnic Foodways in the United States\u201d class to explore the relationship between food and culture.<\/p>\n
So how did it go?<\/p>\n
Well, my friends were somewhat surprised to find out that I was burning the midnight oil. Perhaps for them, the phrase \u201cgastronomy class\u201d conjured up the image of relaxing, eating, and drinking.\u00a0 And yes, there were the mid-class snack breaks and the outings to area ethnic restaurants, because after all, what are food studies without food?\u00a0 But make no mistake: this was a graduate level summer class, with a graduate level workload.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, the readings and class discussions were fascinating.\u00a0 I particularly enjoyed comparing the experiences of different ethnic groups that have immigrated to the US and how those experiences have shaped their foodways.\u00a0 I was amazed to discover how interdisciplinary the field is. We reviewed research on food and ethnicity by scholars from a wide range of disciplines, from anthropology to marketing. Amanda facilitated hands on practice with some research methods she personally employs as a food historian, taking oral histories and interpreting primary sources, the latter of which came in handy when I wrote my final paper.<\/p>\n
My paper was about the food voice (a concept explored by past researchers including Annie Hauck-Lawson and Carole Counihan) of Malaysians in the US.\u00a0 I coded for themes in cookbooks and memoirs written by Malaysians, but what I found most interesting was the use of online social media to communicate about food. Malaysians living abroad have created a particularly vibrant virtual food space, using blogs, Facebook, and Twitter to share recipes and reminisce about food from their home country. The course wrapped up with final presentations, and I brought in\u00a0kuih<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>to stick with my Malaysian theme.\u00a0 My classmates brought\u00a0papusas<\/em>,\u00a0palitaw<\/em>, fruit pies, and buffalo chicken dip- I\u2019ll let you wonder what their research papers were about!<\/p>\n I\u2019d encourage any BU students or staff considering a gastronomy class to give it a shot. The class I took was rigorous and rewarding, and the icing on the cake was getting to know the other people taking it: intelligent, articulate, and above all, passionate about food!\u00a0 Cheers to that!<\/p>\n Lisa\u00a0earned her Masters of Science in Library Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. \u00a0She is currently the Health Sciences Librarian at Mugar Memorial Library. \u00a0Lisa tweets about academia, health, and food at @LisaPhilpotts.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Lisa Philpotts I did not come to BU for the gastronomy program. In fact, I didn\u2019t even know that it existed!\u00a0Instead, I had relocated from North Carolina to accept a job as a librarian at Mugar. It was only after I had started working here that I learned about the program, and it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14625,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691"}],"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\/14625"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8429,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691\/revisions\/8429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}