Secondary Works
- Counihan, Carole, and Penny Van Esterik, eds. Food and Culture: A Reader. Routledge, 2013. 3rd Print.
- David, Elizabeth. Spices, Salts, and Aromatics in the English Kitchen.
- Flandrin, Jean-Louis, Massimo Montanari, and Albert Sonnenfeld. Food: A Culinary History. Columbia University Press, 2013. Web.
- Grigson, Jane. Food with the Famous.
- Parasecoli, Fabio, and Peter Scholliers, gen. eds. A Cultural History of Food. Vol 1-6. Bloomsbury, 2016. Print.
Academic Journal
- Food, Culture, & Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research. Published quarterly. Routledge. Run by The Association for the Study of Food and Society.
Keywords and Key Terms
- “Food culture/society”
- “Food history”
- “Gastronomy”
Description
I compiled this list based on: two syllabi provided by my aunt, Professor Alison Anrather at Wagner College, who teaches classes on food history and society; stumbling upon books in the food studies section of the library; typing my keywords into Jumpstart; and a conversation with Prof. Su. Because I am not yet sure what portion of the world or segment of history I want to focus on in my thesis – though I am leaning towards Western Europe and perhaps focusing on nineteenth century English food consumption – I intentionally kept my list over-arching and broad. Food: A Culinary History, Food and Culture: A Reader, and A Cultural History of Food will act as sturdy frameworks to contextualize the gradually narrowing scope of my research. Spices, Salts, and Aromatics in the English Kitchen and Food with the Famous will offer more detailed explorations of English-oriented food research and literary traditions of food writing.
Many questions currently frame my inquiry, some academic (in an effort to gear my food hobby towards a researchable topic), and some originating from pure intellectual curiosity. Why has food become the central focus of societies, and why would I argue that it has? What historical events – wars, famines – or traditions signify that cultures operate around the production of food and the social aspect of eating it? What were the food “norms” in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Early Modern Period, and the past two hundred years, and how do all those varying approaches to or treatments of food illuminate the state of a culture’s economy, commerce, or government? In summary, how does history support the notion that food is a cultural signifier? I realize the scope of history that I am exploring is extremely wide but I am excited to investigate my questions and hopefully emerge with a more detailed, exclusionary (in that it will provide specificity, not a limited perspective) focus for my thesis.
I love your central focus of thinking critically about how food can serve as a cultural signifier–what does food reveal about a culture and how does it shape a culture? The common phrase “we are what we eat” can certainly be unpacked to consider so many revealing factors/details about a particular culture–including thinking about what food materials a culture might have access to (or perhaps also, what they don’t have access to). Certain ingredients/foods become staples to specific cuisines, and that’s often for geographic reasons (climate, soil quality, etc.), but what happens when historical events impact that? I’m sure you already have something like the Irish Potato Famine in mind. I wonder if you might also be able to comparatively analyze two cultures with either very different cuisines or very similar ones and see what that reveals? Just one thought! You might also want to reach out to Professor Phillips via e-mail, I believe she’s taught on food studies in the past.
This sounds like such an interesting thesis and I’m very excited to hear about your future progress! I would be curious to know if you plan on looking at food in certain texts as code for other themes such as sexuality or some sort of deep-rooted emotion. For example, in a course I took here at Dickinson we close read a text that used food as a symbol for tension amongst the people within the room. In another course, we talked about an author using food to indicate a repressed sexuality in one of the characters. I’m excited to hear if you plan on looking more at the big picture or also zooming in to look at how food can work to indicate an implicit thought or feeling.
You current idea developing nicely here, Charlotte. I too am keeping things broad for now in order to consider what I want to focus on. When you mentioned Professor Su, I recalled talking to her about the problematic qualities of the word “exotic” as it applies to food. The concept of “exotic” or “ethnic” food might raise interesting questions about what makes a cultural signifier in food more dominant than another. Or is there a dominant food culture at all? Perhaps you can use these into your working thesis?
-Jonah
Great Post! I love your curiosity to find out more about food. I think some questions you might want to think about more with your research is, what makes some foods tasty while others are bad? Is that dependent on the individual or is it the food itself? Why does one culture see their food as the norm, while another culture sees that other groups food as being different or in some cases, barbaric? Overall, one last big question you may want to think about is, does food bring people and other cultures closer to one another or does it separate them more? Overall, very interesting ideas you bring up.