{"id":5023,"date":"2015-12-04T09:00:13","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T13:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gastronomyatbu.com\/?p=5023"},"modified":"2018-03-28T17:49:28","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T21:49:28","slug":"playing-with-your-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/2015\/12\/04\/playing-with-your-food\/","title":{"rendered":"Playing with Your Food"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Marina Starkey<\/a><\/p>\n

As a child, I always played with my food. Ok, so I still play with my food. There\u2019s something about turning one thing into something else, maybe something better, toying with my strong kinesthetic senses, indulging my (possibly misguided) creativity, and seeing how flavors work together on the palate, on and off the plate. Maybe it\u2019s gross, but maybe it\u2019s important too, because it led me here.<\/p>\n

When I tell people what I\u2019m studying in grad school, the normal response goes something like, \u201cYou study astronomy? That\u2019s awesome!\u201d To which I respond, \u201cNo, gas<\/em>tronomy, with a \u2018g\u2019\u201d only to be met with confused looks and a need to quickly explain my academic career. While home for Thanksgiving my own father called me a \u201cgastroenterologist.\u201d Not quite.<\/p>\n

Gastronomy, a relatively new field of study concerning itself with how we, as humans, relate to food, perplexes many, and understandably so. When I applied to Boston University\u2019s Gastronomy program, I <\/em>barely knew what I was getting myself into. I was looking for direction or a peek into something I wanted to do with my life. I knew I wanted to be involved in the culinary world in one way or another: I wanted to play with my food. And although I\u2019m only heading into my second semester in this program, it\u2019s easy for me to say my education is much more than that.<\/p>\n

My course of study includes a focus on food communications, which includes everything from writing to PR, marketing, and advertising. I\u2019ve been lucky enough to have an internship in hospitality PR at 451 Marketing to supplement my education. But even though communications is my focus, my education through this program is full of history, sociology, science, and government policy, to name a few. Though I can\u2019t be sure of the direction I\u2019m headed towards, these experiences within different fields of the food studies world are extremely valuable. I came into this program hell-bent on becoming Alton Brown\u2019s successor. That piece of me that wishes to indulge myself in food science is still very present, but I also wonder what a career doing PR for chefs and restaurants would be like, what it would mean to do advocacy work for food pantries, or how I would begin to start my own food business.<\/p>\n

These considerations within any field of study are an essential part of one\u2019s education. The Master\u2019s in Gastronomy program at Boston University allows me to explore aspects of the food studies world of which I previously held no knowledge. It\u2019s introducing me to hundreds of new ways to look at food. From the anthropological significance of certain kitchen objects to the philosophical and psychological beginnings of our personal palate, there are no limits on what\u2019s possible. In its essence, this program teaches me new ways to see, to feel, to taste, and most importantly, to understand. It allows me to turn one passion into something else, toy with my senses, indulge my (well-guided) creativity, and have a better understanding of what works for me and what doesn\u2019t. It teaches me all the new ways I can play with my food.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Student Marina Starkey writes about her course of study in Food Communications in the BU Gastronomy program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14625,"featured_media":5026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,27],"tags":[47,570],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5023"}],"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=5023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8255,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5023\/revisions\/8255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}