FOOD AND CULTURE

Table Topics
1. Food is Culture 2. Soul Food 3. La Gastronomie Franaise 4. Bella Italia 5. Caribbean Cuisine 6. Dinner and a Movie

Overview
Food is one of the most primal parts of our lives. Small wonder, then, that foodits smells, colors, tastes, texturesevokes visceral reactions of utmost pleasure or utter revulsion, triggering fond memories of home and away. We associate the warm smell of baked cookies with childhood memories of home; the pungent odor of camembert with backpacking in France during college. Over the course of six sessions, we will take a culinary tour of the tastes, texts and trails that link food with culture. We will sample the clichs of cuisine and feast on fine literary and audio-visual treats while interrogating cultural assumptions about foods relationship with travel, family, gender and ethnicity. Serve hot with lots of food, drink and fine conversation.

Copyright Brandeis National Committee 2011. All rights reserved.

FOOD IS CULTURE

Preparation
Entre: Watch the clip of Food, Glorious Food! from the film Oliver Twist [1969] Main Course: Read pages 1-9 in Food & Culture Dessert: New York Times article: Why Cilantro Tastes Like Soap to Some [Take a look at some of the comments as well, if you have time]

Discussion
What arguments, statistics or points in the book and article stood out to you? Are there foods and cuisines that you hate or consider weird? Why does food trigger such visceral reactions: warm memories, revulsion, etc.? Is gustatory pleasure cultural? Why do you think this is so? How would you define your cultural and culinary membership? What foods and cuisines are home for you? What are some of your fondest and most revolting food memories? If possible, bring to this meeting a sample of your favorite and your most revolting food items. Present this to the group and use the responses to start the discussion.

Copyright Brandeis National Committee 2011. All rights reserved.

SOUL FOOD

Preparation
Appetizer: Watch a live performance of Diana Kralls Frim Fram Sauce Main Course: Watch the movie Soul Food (or at least the first 15 minutes) [sexually suggestive material advisory] Fixings: Read an excerpt from Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye

Discussion
In what ways do the film, song and novel excerpt imbricate black culture and food? How does food relate to clichs or stereotypes about black culture? How does food unite families? (If youve watched the whole film, think of schisms in the family and how food heals them, or how lack of people to share food with contributes to them.) How is food linked to other appetites in the film? What elements of the role of food in this familys relationship resonate with your own, or food in the broader American culture/other cultures with which you are familiar?

Copyright Brandeis National Committee 2011. All rights reserved.

LA GASTRONOMIE FRANCAISE
Preparation
Entre: Excerpt from Hemingways A Moveable Feast Plat du jour: New Yorker article on Foodling (food with feeling) Le Dssert: Amazon page for French Women Dont Get Fat [note how different the content of this page is from regular book pages on Amazon; please watch the authors video to customers as well]

Discussion
What was most memorable for you about the article/novel excerpt? What are some common stereotypes about French cuisine and French food culture? How does the media (recent books, films, etc.) perpetuate these stereotypes? How do the French see their culture reflected in their cuisine, and how do debates about changes in gastronomie reflect French attitudes about food and Frenchness?

Copyright Brandeis National Committee 2011. All rights reserved.

BELLA ITALIA

Preparation
Antipasto: Watch video My City: Angela Schiavinas Food Tour of Ravenna [The Guardian] Formaggio e Fruto: Please read the excerpt from the memoir Eat Pray Love, and then listen to the NPR clip of the author reading from the book

Discussion
What elements of Italian culture are evident from their cuisine and attitudes to food? Is it really possible to taste/eat a cultures traditions? What are some problems with the kind of culinary tourism in the memoir? How does food function as an ersatz for sex, love and marriage for the jaded narrator of Eat Pray Love? How does food restore the narrator to herself? Why do you think food has this restorative quality?

Copyright Brandeis National Committee 2011. All rights reserved.

CARIBBEAN CUISINE

Preparation
Jamaica: Video of Portland Jerk Festival [Note the intertwining of food, family and music; food festivals are second only to music festivals in Jamaica]; for an explanation of this culinary nuclear bomb, see the New York Times article Sweat Heat Trinidad: Read Espinets story Indian Cuisine

Discussion
Although Espinets story is entitled Indian Cuisine, the notion of privilege, coo-coo, swallowing a cookbook from Boston and the recipe for the narrators (Afro) Jamaican feisty and fabulous friend are not Indian (or Trinidadian) at all. How does the writer use food and the metaphor of privilege to disassociate food and identity (ethnicity, nationality, etc.)? How does food function to illuminate class privilege? What are the different levels/layers of privilege evoked by food and cooking in the story?

Copyright Brandeis National Committee 2011. All rights reserved.

DINNER AND A MOVIE

Preparation
Watch one of these classic food films in its entirety [available on Netflix or your local library] and discuss the use and function of food for characters and cultures. You might also discuss the use of food as a character. Like Water for Chocolate (food and gender; food and culture; food and love) [Click on Look Inside and go to the first pages to read an excerpt] Babettes Feast (food as spiritual pleasure; gluttony versus sacrifice/piety; food and gender) Ratatouille Julie and Julia Tortilla Soup (food, family, ethnicity) Woman on Top (food, gender, sex, culture)

Copyright Brandeis National Committee 2011. All rights reserved.

LE CAFE

For Further Reading and Viewing

Web Articles and Features: An article on English cuisine Kerr Center article on new American food culture PBS feature The Meaning of Food New Yorker food and humor cartoons Food is Culture website

Food Poetry: Poetry Foundation Good Enough to Eat Menu Poems

Food Novels: List of food novels Another list of food novels

Copyright Brandeis National Committee 2011. All rights reserved.

Cooking and Travel Shows: Anthony Bourdains No Reservations (Travel Channel) Bizarre Foods (Travel Channel) Have Fork, Will Travel (Food Network) Man vs. Food (Travel Channel)

Culinary Travel: Gourmet Traveler International Cooking School Michelin Food and Travel

Food and Culture Books and Periodicals: Civitello, Cuisine and Culture Counihan, Food and Culture: A Reader Gastronomica Journal Kittler, Food and Culture Montanari, Food is Culture

Copyright Brandeis National Committee 2011. All rights reserved.

Prepared By Njelle Hamilton, Ph.D. Candidate Department of English and American Literature Brandeis University

Copyright Brandeis National Committee 2011. All rights reserved.