Due in 36 hrs 1500 word count

FST 204: Food Adventuring

Fall, 2018

Tuesdays & Thursdays, 9:30-10:50 a.m.

Falk College, Room 204

Quiz: Sept. 19 , 2017 • First and Last name • Date • Answers 1-5

1. Lisa Heldke coined the term ____________ which describes her tendency to favor foods from economically dominated cultures. This phrase, she says, can be applied to others, “who set out in search of ever “newer,” ever more “remote” cultures that could be co-opted… for their own efforts at creation and discovery”

a. Cheap food favoritism

b. World foods appreciation

c. Cultural food colonialism

d. Multicultural foodie-ism

2. Heldke is critical of the way cooks and eaters seek the “____________” through their culinary adventures where “the ethnic Other is turned into a resource for the food adventurer’s own use.”

a.Healthy b.Exotic c.Candid d.Craft

3. In her Washington Post article, Ramanathan suggests eliminating the term “ethnic food,” not because she has a problem with the phrase itself, but because it’s most often applied “selectively, to cuisines that seem the most foreign, often cooked by people with the __________.

a.Brownest skin b.Highest degree c.Lightest skin d.Most awards

4. What is Krishnendu Ray’s $30 theory? (Quoted in the Ramanthan, Washington Post Article).

a.A good dinner should always cost $30 or less.

b.There’s no way to get a good dinner for under $30 in New York City.

c.Diners will pay $30 for food they consider exotic to support the community

d.Diners refuse to pay more than $30 for what they perceive as ethnic food.

5. In the podcast reading of “Craving the Other,” what is the paradox that Soleil Ho describes, whereby “happiness eludes the cultural foodie?”

a.Their cultural cache depends on being the only white American in the room, but they can’t cash in on it unless they share their discoveries with someone else.

b.They can always find the best hole-in-the-wall, but they always get their after the restaurant has closed.

c.Their need to find the most authentic ethnic cuisine leads them to the most Americanized ethnic food.

d.Their taste for authentic pho creates a desire to travel to Los Angeles, but they can’t afford the plane ticket.

Review: Cuisine

• Cuisine - a style or method of cooking, especially as characteristic of a particular country, region, or establishment.

• may vary based upon food availability and trade, varying climates, cooking traditions and practices, and cultural nuances

• indicative of food cultures & cultural histories • Distinct diets that reflect identities • Basic foods (meat & potatoes; rice & soy) • Flavor principles (garlic & olive oil; chili & cumin) • Preparation techniques (frying & grilling; stir-fry) • Rules for consumption (fingers; silverware; sticks)

Review: Americanization

• Defined by patterns of assimilation • Historic assimilation into “white culture” which itself is a mesh of other fair

skinned populations • See “Whiteness of a Different Color” by Matthew Frye Jacobson

• Homogeneity / “sameness”

• “Sociologically alike” vs. “culturally alike” • What does Mintz mean by this?

• Industrialization, processing, and convenience • Lewis cautioned against this as well!

Regional Food Traditions vs. National Cuisines

Regional Food Traditions vs. National Cuisines

Regional Food Traditions vs. National Cuisines

Teaberry Red bean Avocado Lobster Blue Moon Date Tiger Tail

Are Cuisines Important? • Why debate a national cuisine? • Are these definitions important? • How is identity tied to the foods we consume? • How are the identities we craft for ourselves

and our community tied to food?

• Is it sufficient to have many regional and cultural food traditions? Or do we need a national cuisine?

• If so, how are our foodways representative of socially constructed American Identity/ies

Authenticity

• How do you know if a cuisine is “authentic”? • Who are the gatekeepers of authenticity? • Can we have authentic cuisine AND global food homogeneity? • “Because it is unfamiliar to me, I assume it must be a genuine or

essential part of that other culture,” (Heldke, 331)

Food Adventuring • Food adventuring/tourism/vacationing:

• Exploring different parts of the world through food consumption and preparation commonly associated with those cultures.

• The desire for continual novelty in our diets (Heldke) that is satiated by the “discovery” of new “ethnic” cuisines.

• The ability to be the first expert in our social groups on a “new” cuisine, and to be the purveyor of such a new trend (Soleil Ho) – the cultural foodie paradox

• How is Food Adventuring connected to colonialism?

Cultural Food Colonialism

Lisa Heldke

•Associate Professor of Philosophy at Gustavus Adolphus College

•“committed to exploring the philosophical significance of food”

•Author of several chapters and articles as well as books on the topic such as Exotic Appetites: Ruminations of a Food Adventurer (2003)

Cultural Food Colonialism

• What parallels can we draw between colonialism (or Colombus-ing) in a traditional sense and food adventuring?

• How does Heldeke arrive at this connection?

• What role does she say publishing recipes and cookbook play in the colonization of a particular group’s foodways?

Valuing Food = Valuing People

• Ramanathan’s states: “Immigrants identities are deeply tied to the foods we bring with us. When we heard our cuisine described as exotic, hodgepodge, greasy or cheap, you might as well be remarking disdainfully about our clothes or skin color.”

• $30 rule (the $2 taco rule)

• Cultural Food Colonialism is clearly negative, but is there another way to go about things?

Valuing People = Valuing Food

• If a foodie eats a “new” dish but has no one to tell about it, did it happen?! • Soleil Ho refers to this phenomenon and suggests this is why

“happiness eludes the cultural foodie”

• Foodie popularizing and legitimizing of ethnic cuisines • Pho • Ramen • Tacos • What’s next???

The importance of Context • Ramanthan argues against the term “ethnic” for cuisine.

• Instead prefers Immigrant because it’s more indicative of most foods served in the U.S.

• We must take into account the cultural histories of the people behind the food we prepare and consume.

• We must make the effort to understand the pathways that brought the food here, to our plates. • West African and slave influence on Southern barbeque • Kalbi from Kobe • “Indian food” actually = Punjabi, Goan, Kashmiri, and more!

The importance of Context

• Ramanathan quotes Michael Twitty, “We’d cling tightly to our own food traditions, and respect others.”

• Heldke calls this practice “anti-colonialist food work”

• Learn how to engage with cuisines, cooks, and eaters from cultures other than our own – not as resourses but as conversation partners

• Recognize our privilege: race, class, gender, nationality all impacts our ability to access particular foods and experience things new to our personal worldview.

Next week: How to Paint a Curry

• How have we come to define curry? • Where does “curry” come from? • Who eats curry? • Who cares?

• Think of two questions based on what you know about trade, colonialism, identity, food, and power.

• You will receive two points on your quiz for thoughtful, intelligent, well-informed questions.

Cultural Appropriation in Food Assignment

• 5-page discussion paper on cultural appropriation as it relates to a food product, dish, or restaurant (not a cookbook, film, or tv show) of your choosing.

• Using food as the proxy for power & identity, you will examine a restaurant, food product, or dish of your choosing and explore the ways that sentiments around authenticity, assimilation, and appropriation work through food to create larger statements about society.

• You should pull from your notes, texts from class, and additional sources. • This assignment is due at the beginning of class on Tuesday, October 3rd

1. What is your item for analysis?

2. What is your argument for why this item represents cultural appropriation?

3. Back up your argument with additional scholarly and popular sources

4. Close with suggestions for how this item might exist without being culturally appropriative.

A full assignment document will be on Blackboard on Thursday!

Cultural Appropriation in Food Assignment