Due in 36 hrs 1500 word count

FST 204: Appreciation vs Appropriation

Fall, 2018

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

Falk College, Room 204

Reminders:

•Cultural Appropriation paper due on Tuesday, October 3rd at the beginning of class. • All information is up on Blackboard!

• For Thursday – readings are up on blackboard. Read Fabien-Ouellet’s article FIRST, then read the popular responses and the public comments. • The article in French is optional!

•Next week: gender and food!

Quiz: Sept. 26 , 2017 • First and Last name •Date •Answers 1-5

1. Bowens suggests the growing prevalence of which projects as proof that we want to revert back to having community in our lives?

a) Farmer cooperatives b) Cooperative markets, restaurants, and food hubs c) Community kitchens and community gardens d) All of the above. e) None of the above.

2. Along with projects that foster a sense of community and togetherness, what do all of the portraits from today’s reading share?

a) A critique that current food systems are too localized and need to think more globally.

b) The fear that climate change will impact their projects or impede their work.

c) A worry that younger generations have largely lost interest in maintaining traditional foodways important to cultural community sustainability.

d) The love of rubber gardening boots to prevent soggy feet.

e) The common idea that greater funding for, and regulation of, agricultural labor forces will assist in their community projects.

3. Each of the portraits from today’s reading described a skepticism of outsiders related to different elements of their projects or communities. Which of the following IS NOT an example from the text:

a) Cherokee growers from The Center for Cherokee Plants don’t use the term Organic because it is a term produced by the US government.

b) Careful branding of the Backyard Gardeners Network in the Lower 9th Ward to avoid the White connotations of urban agriculture projects.

c) Hmong growers in St. Paul, Minnesota built a separate facility for culturally significant vegetable products sold only to the Hmong community.

d) Both a. and c.

e) Both a. and b.

4. This community of people have maintained a vibrant and distinct culinary, spiritual, and linguistic tradition since their ancestors were brought to the United States from the rice-growing regions of West Africa as slaves. Their communities span what is known as the Low Country, along the coast from Wilmington North Carolina to Jacksonville Florida.

a. Back-To-The-Landers b. Gullah-Geechee c. Creole French d. Indo-Hispano e. Hill Country

5. Don Bustos of Santa Cruz Farm uses the ____________ system, a “democratic, cooperatively owned irrigation system of small canals engineered to carry water from the mountains to the fields, making a water commons.”

a. Acequia b. Hydroponic c. Olympia d. Polyculture e. None of these.

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: 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” → melting pot metaphor

• Recalls historic elimination of all cultural indicators to be truly “American”

Are Cuisines 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

Authentic vs. Traditional •Who are the gatekeepers of authenticity?

•Considering traditional foods (vs. authentic foods) recalls human elements of cuisine

•Begs the questions: •Whose tradition? •What is the history there? •What is the context?

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

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

•Publishing recipes and cookbooks → Knowledge production and ownership

•Colonization of a particular group’s foodways → false “discovery” and (mis)representation by outsiders

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 resources 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.

Regional and Community Foodways

•Bowens’ text: Community-cultivated projects

•What are some examples of community-cultivated projects from today’s reading? •Why is it important that these projects are led by members of the

communities these projects serve?

•What are the risks of imposing a project on a community? Why is it not enough in some cases to “mean well”?

Appreciation vs. Appropriation •Power → who has it (historically) who doesn’t •Tied to imperialism and colonization •Tied to global racism and systems of power based on religion, ethnicity, class,

gender, and more.

Present when one group’s culture is consumed (literally) or fetishized by someone(s) of another group.

The trouble with the “exotic” • Lumped in with the ”authentic” and “ethnic” challenges taboos but also raises

eyebrows due to “weird” ingredients, cooking methods or culinary consumption traditions tied to that cuisine. Instigates exploration, fads, and adventuring as a step into the “wild” → so what do we think of the people?

Food Histories 1: Spam in Hawaii

• SPAM – “spiced ham” •The use of spam in different parts of Asia and the Pacific Islands, like

spam musubi or spam in hot pot, are a direct result of US occupation.

•WWII – between 1941 and 1945, Hormel shipped over 100 million pounds overseas (spam.com)

•Hawaii was a US colony until 1959

Food Histories 2: Bánh mì & French Colonialism •What is now Vietnam was part of China for thousands of years. • France colonizes the area in 1887 forming French Indochina • French elements: jalapenos, mayonnaise, pate, baguette •Chinese/Vietnamese elements: coriander, cucumber, picked carrots, daikon •Popularized in the US after 1975 and the US

involvement in the Vietnam War

• Similarly: Banh Xeo (crepe)

Did Sean Brock “bring back” Low Country Cooking? • Sean Brock –

chef, author of Heritage •Michael W. Twitty –

culinary historian

Who Profits off of Culinary Cultural Appropriation? • "With the attention given to Mike Lata and Sean Brock, none of the places

that people go to first in Charleston are African-American owned," Michael Twitty.

• "Charleston is just now, over the last 15, 20 years, beginning to respect the presence, the significance, and the importance of Gullah people,” Gullah Society founder Dr. Ade A. Ofunniyin

• See Eater article: “How Gullah Cuisine Has Transformed Charleston Dining: Exploring the line between shared history and appropriation” by Hillary Dixler Canavan

• See original Twitty article “Dear Sean, We Need to Talk” on Afroculinaria March 23, 2016