Readings | Food and Culture | Anthropology

Required Texts

There are three books required for class.

[G&E] Gewertz, Deborah, and Frederick Errington. Cheap Meat: Flap Food Nations in the Pacific Islands. University of California Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780520260924. [Preview with Google Books]

[Striffler] Striffler, Steve. Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America's Favorite Food. Yale University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780300095296.

Poppendieck, Janet. Free for All: Fixing School Food in America (California Studies in Food and Culture). University of California Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780520243705. [Preview with Google Books]

Course readings.
SES #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	Introduction to food and culture: what's the relationship?	Brillat-Savarin, Jean-Anthelme. "Aphorisms." 1825.
Aperitif
2	Food paradoxes and dilemmas, I	Pollan, Michael. "Our National Eating Disorder." New York Times Magazine, October, 17, 2004. Mead, Margaret. "The Changing Significance of Food." American Scientist 58, no. 2 (1970): 176–81. Reprinted in Food and Culture: A Reader. 1st ed. (PDF) Fisher, M. F. K. "How to Distribute Your Virtue." In How to Cook a Wolf. Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1942. ISBN: 9780865473362. Bittman, Mark. "A Food Manifesto for the Future," The New York Times, February 1, 2011.
3	Food paradoxes and dilemmas, II	Levenstein, Harvey. "Paradoxes of Plenty." In Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America, Revised Edition (California Studies in Food and Culture). University of California Press, 2003, pp. 237–55. ISBN: 9780520234406. [Preview with Google Books] [G&E] pp. 1-71
4	Food and Power	Mintz, Sidney. "Food and its Relationship to Concepts of Power." In Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Culture, and the Past. Beacon Press, 1997, pp. 17–32. ISBN: 9780807046296. [G&E] pp. 72-147
5	Food and Labor	start reading [Striffler] Supplemental readings for Ses #5 and 6: Burros, Marian. "Chicken with Arsenic? Is That O.K.?," The New York Times, April 5, 2006. Price, Catherine. "A Chicken on Every Plot, a Coop in Every Backyard," The New York Times, September 19, 2007. Martin, Andrew. "Largest Recall of Ground Beef is Ordered," The New York Times, February 18, 2008. Saulny, Susan. "Hundreds are Arrested in U.S. Sweep of Meat Plant," The New York Times, May 13, 2008.
6	Recitation	finish reading [Striffler]
7	Research	Watch: Buffet
The Meal: What Makes Good Food Good?
8	Good food is culturally authentic	Dash, Julie. "Rice Culture." In Through the Kitchen Window: Women Explore the Intimate Meanings of Food and Cooking. Edited by Arlene Voski Avakian. Diane Publisher Company, 1997, pp. 19–23. ISBN: 9780756791216. Beoku-Betts, Josephine. "We Got Our Way of Cooking Things: Women, Food, and Preservation of Cultural Identity Among the Gullah." In Food in the USA. Edited by Carole Counihan. Routledge, 2002, pp. 277–94. ISBN: 9780415932325. Heldke, Lisa. ""Let's Eat Chinese!" Reflections on Cultural Food Colonialism." Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture 1, no. 2 (2001): 76–9. Josephson, Paul. "Technology and Culture." The Ocean's Hot Dog: The Development of the Fish Stick 49, no. 1 (2008): 41–61. Watch: The Meaning of Food (a PBS short)
9	Recitation	Narayan, Uma. "Eating Cultures: Incorporation, Identity and Indian Food." Social Identities 1, no. 1 (1995): 63–86. Wilk, Richard. ""Real Belizean Food": Building Local Identity in the Transnational Caribbean." American Anthropologist 101, no. 2 (1999): 244–55. Kugel, Seth. "World Food Without Leaving the Neighborhood," The New York Times, February 24, 2008.
10	Good food tastes good	Brillat-Savarin, Jean-Anthelme. The Physiology of Taste. CreateSpace, 2011, pp. 29–49. ISBN: 9781466268524. [Preview with Google Books] (Download from Project Gutenberg) Lehrer, Jonah. "Auguste Escoffier: The Essence of Taste." In Proust was a Neuroscientist. Houghton Mifflin, 2007, pp. 53–74. ISBN: 9780618620104. [Preview with Google Books] Peynaud, Emile. "Tasting Problems and Errors of Perception." In The Taste Culture Reader: Experiencing Food and Drink (Sensory Formations). Edited by Carolyn Korsmeyer. Berg Publishers, 2005, pp. 272–8. ISBN: 9781845200619. Khatchadourian, Raffi. "The Taste Makers: The Secret World of the Flavor Factory." The New Yorker, November 23, 2009.
11	Taste education	Shapin, Steven. "Hedonistic Fruit Bombs." London Review of Books 27, no. 3 (2005): 30–2. Terrio, Susan J. "Crafting Grand Cru Chocolates in Contemporary France." American Anthropologist 98, no. 1 (1996): 67–79. Roseberry, William. "The Rise of Yuppie Coffees and the Reimagination of Class in the United States." American Anthropologist 98, no. 4 (1996): 762–75. (PDF) Moskin, Julia. "Dark May Be King, but Milk Chocolate Makes a Move," The New York Times, February 13, 2008. Feiler, Bruce. "Corrections: Everything We Thought We Knew About the Science of Taste is Wrong." Gourmet Magazine, July, 2008. Watch: John Cleese's Wine for the Confused http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiBWHHqK7W8
12	Good food reminds you of your mother (or homeland or childhood… or somewhere you've never been)	Proust, Marcel. "The Madeleine." From Swann's Way. Translated by Lydia Davis. Viking Adult, 2003. ISBN: 9780670032457. [Preview with Google Books] Fisher, M. F. K. The Gastronomical Me. Duell Sloan and Pearce, 1943, pp. 3–35. Katrak, Ketu H. "Food and Belonging: At 'Home' and in 'Alien-Kitchens.'" In Through the Kitchen Window Women Explore the Intimate Meanings of Food and Cooking. Edited by Arlene Voski Avakian. Berg Publishers, 2005, pp. 263–75. ISBN: 9781845203252. Seremetakis, C. Nadia. "The Breast of Aphrodite." In Taste Culture Reader: Experiencing Food and Drink (Sensory Formations). Berg Publishers, 2005, pp. 297–303. ISBN: 9781845200619. Silva, Cara de. Introduction to In Memory's Kitchen: A Legacy from the Women of Terezín, plus sample recipes. Jason Aronson, 1996, pp. xxv–xliii and 3–13. ISBN: 9781568219028.
13	Recitation: discuss food memories	Sutton, David. "Whole Foods: Revitalization through Everyday Synesthetic Experience." Anthropology and Humanism 25, no. 2 (2000): 120-30. (PDF - 1.9MB) Batuman, Elif. "The Memory Kitchen: A Chef Recovers the Foods that Turkey Forgot." The New Yorker, April 19, 2010, pp. 56–69. Allison, Dorothy. "Panacea," The New York Times, October 28, 2007. Holtzman, Jon. "Remembering Bad Cooks: Sensuality, Memory, Personhood." Senses and Society 5, no. 2 (2010): 235–43.
14	Good food is clean and pure	Douglas, Mary. Deciphering a Meal. In Implicit Meanings: Mary Douglas: Collected Works, Volume 5. Routledge, 2002. ISBN: 9780415291088. [Preview with Google Books] Harris, Marvin. "The Abdominal Pig." In Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture. Simon & Schuster, 1985.
15	Recitation	Rouse, Carolyn, and Janet Hoskins. "Purity, Soul Food, and Sunni Islam: Explorations at the Intersection of Consumption and Resistance." Cultural Anthropology 19, no. 2 (2004): 226–49. Gillette, Maris Boyd. "Children's Food and Islamic Dietary Restrictions in Xi'an." In Feeding China's Little Emperors: Food, Children, and Social Change. Edited by Jun Jing. Stanford University Press, 2000, pp. 71–93 and plus Appendix. ISBN: 9780804731331.
16	Good food produces and maintains relationships	Conklin, Beth A. ""Thus Are Our Bodies, Thus Was Our Custom": Mortuary Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society." American Ethnologist 22, no. 1 (1995): 75–101. Markens, S., C. H. Browner, et al. "Feeding the Fetus: On Interrogating the Notion of Maternal-Fetal Conflict." Feminist Studies 23, no. 2 (1997): 351–72. Appadurai, Arjun. "Gastro-Politics in Hindu South Asia." American Ethnologist 8, no. 3 (1981): 494–511. Later in the term, "Thus Are Our Bodies, Thus Was Our Custom" was replaced with: Anna Meigs. "Food as a Cultural Construction." In Food and Culture: A Reader. Edited by Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik. Routledge, 1997, pp. 95–106. ISBN: 9780415917094.
17	Recitation	DeVault, Marjorie. "Conflict and Deference." In Feeding the Family: The Social Organization of Caring as Gendered Work (Women in Culture and Society). University Of Chicago Press, 1991. ISBN: 9780226143590. Counihan, Carole. "Food Rules in the United States: Individualism, Control, and Hierarchy." In The Anthropology of Food and Body: Gender, Meaning and Power. Routledge, 1999, pp. 113–28. ISBN: 9780415921930. Murphy, Kate. "I Love You, But You Love Meat," The New York Times, February 13, 2008.
18	Good food is good for you	Scrinis, Gyorgy. "On the Ideology of Nutritionism." Gastronomica 8, no. 1 (2008): 39–48. Poppendieck, Janet. Free for All: Fixing School Food in America (California Studies in Food and Culture). University of California Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780520243705. [Preview with Google Books] Moss, Michael. "On Inherent Contradiction Within the USDA," The New York Times, November 6, 2010.
19	Recitation	Poppendieck, Janet. Free for All: Fixing School Food in America (California Studies in Food and Culture). University of California Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780520243705. [Preview with Google Books] Allison, Anne. "Japanese Mothers and Obentōs: The Lunch-Box as Ideological State Apparatus." Anthropological Quarterly 64, no. 4 (1991): 195–208. Martin, Andrew. "Dietary Guidelines Urge Less Soda and Smaller Meals," The New York Times, January 31, 2011.
20	Good food is handmade	Paxson, Heather. Artisan Cheese: Valuing Craft in Post-Pastoral America. Chapters from draft manuscript.
21	Good food is sustainably produced	Kloppenberg, J., Hendrickson, J., et al. "Coming In to the Foodshed." Agriculture and Human Values 13, no. 1 (1996): 1–10. Bowen, Sarah, and Ana Valenzuela Zapata. "Geographical Indications, Terroir, and Socioeconomic and Ecological Sustainability: The Case of Tequila." Journal of Rural Studies 25, no. 1 (2009): 108–19. Clark, Dylan. "The Raw and the Rotten: Punk Cuisine." Ethnology 43, no. 1 (2004): 411–22. Reprinted in FC.
22	Recitation: good food is traditional	Cavanaugh, Jillian R. "Making Salami, Producing Bergamo: The Transformation of Value." Ethnos 72, no. 2 (2007): 149–72. Heath, Deborah, and Anne Meneley. "The Naturecultures of Foie Gras: Techniques of the Body and a Contested Ethics of Care." Food, Culture and Society 13, no. 3 (2010): 421–52. Kurutz, Steven. "Not Buying It," The New York Times, June 21, 2007. Bennett, Drake. "The Localvore's Dilemma," The Boston Globe, July 22, 2007. Specter, Michael. "A Reporter at Large: Big Foot: Reporting & Essays." The New Yorker, February 25, 2008. Burros, Marian. "The Dairies Are Half-Pint, but the Flavor Isn't," The New York Times, February 20, 2008. Hedin, Jack. "My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables)," The New York Times, March 1, 2008. Rosenthal, Elisabeth. "The Environmental Costs of Shipping Food," The New York Times, April 26, 2008. "Local, Organic Milk: Profit Remains Elusive," The New York Times, February 18, 2011.
23	Any food is good food if you're hungry	Fitchen, Janet. "Hunger, Malnutrition and Poverty." In Food and Culture: A Reader. 1st ed. Edited by Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik. Routledge, 1997, pp. 384–401. ISBN: 9780415917100. Clapp, Jennifer. "The Political Economy of Food Aid in an Era of Agricultural Biotechnology." Global Governance 11, no. 4 (2005): 467–85. (PDF) Sklaver, Ben. "Humanitarian Daily Rations: The Need for Evaluation and Guidelines." Disasters 27, no. 3 (2003): 259–71.
Digestive
24	Rethinking food "choice"	Pollan, Michael. "Voting with Your Fork," The New York Times, May 7, 2006. Nestle, Marion. "The Supermarket: Prime Real Estate." In What to Eat. North Point Press, 2006, pp. 17–24. ISBN: 9780865477049. Interview with an artist inspired by Sahadi's in Brooklyn. (PDF - 1.6MB)
Feast
25	Final Paper Presentations
26	Potluck and Final Paper Presentations