Author: lesurem

• research 2 articles that can help you build your critical understanding of your topic,

Sandler, R. L. (2014). Food Ethics: the basics “Food and Culture”. Routledge.

Dickinson Archives primary sources.

• define your field more precisely (identify its limits and area of interest),

Over the course of my four years at Dickinson and as an academic with a food studies focus; I find that food has become commonplace in most settings and fields. The focus of food plays a pivotal role in our lives, more than we often give credit to. In this project, I want to bridge the gap between Dickinson Students, Faculty and community members who have access to the library and the immense amount of information that is available. This project will look at the intersection of food and culture. Specifically, I want to look at Dickinson Archives and find parallels between food, culture and archival records. For instance, Dickinson College did not always have a farm, what led to this addition? Dickinson did not always have farm to table events, how did this contribute to the community? I am also interested in looking at the different food related organizations and institutions that led to the modernity of food as it exists here in the Dickinson community and communities in proximity to Dickinson, specifically Project SHARE and the weekly Farmers Market. This project is relevant in the community on the premise that food is too often overlooked in discourse surrounding culture, history and institutions as they exist in the modern world. Through a carefully curated exhibition, I hope to illuminate areas where people might not be aware of food studies and how it has played a formative role in society overall. This project will also offer me the opportunity to utilize a department/facility I have not gotten to experience yet and will provide me with a new skillset in curating exhibitions and learning more about contextualized events and experiences throughout chronology. For the final ‘unessay’ project, a finished product will reflect my use of the Dickinson Archives, academic literature, and a curated exhibition in the library that expresses the major takeaways from my findings. As I meet with Malinda Triller-Doran, the Special Collections Librarian, my project focus will developed into a more focused topic and prominent themes.

On Monday January 27th, I ate sriracha chicken and french fries for lunch. I usually do not eat breakfast when I am at Dickinson. But, I started to feel a head cold coming so I went to the underground and got a Ginger Zinger juice. For dinner, I went to the Dden and bought some snacks for dinner. On Tuesday, I made dinner with friends. We made black bean chili soup, broccoli, and rice. Some of the ingredients were scavenged from the Snar and Dden, while some were store brought. We took broccoli and two pieces of chicken breast from the Snar, and to make things ~fancy~ I included some eggs, which I purchased at the Dden. Over the course of the week, I realized that I depend heavily on getting some of my food from the Dden. I live at one of the farthest points on campus, so it makes more sense for me to buy food to carry home with me for later. I also realized that I ate a lot of cereal throughout the course of the week. Cereal usually is not a staple in my diet, but I find it to be super convenient when all else seems like too much work. It is delicious and nutritious. If I eat cereal, I realize it requires milk, this is also bought at the Dden. In all honesty, I am not exactly sure where all my food traces back from. However, a lot of the stuff you can buy at Dickinson is locally grown and made. For instance, I absolutely love the kettle corn from the Dden, and found that it was a good snack I ate throughout the week, which is also locally-made and can be traced back less than 20 miles away. Same for the milk and eggs. On the third day, I went to the Snar because of it’s convenience (I was too ill to make food for myself and felt weak, so I needed some protein), I decided to buy a cheeseburger and french fries for breakfast at 3pm. Doing this assignment made me realize how sporadic and unconventional my diet is here at Dickinson. I think it is also the case for when I am back at home too, I do not really pay this much attention to what I am eating or when I am eating. I also realized that I like to snack a lot, so my diet mainly consists of easy processed foods like popcorn, potato chips and cereals. In any average week, I eat a lot of grains and starches when at Dickinson. When I am at home, my diet is very meat-heavy. This was not always the case when I was vegetarian 2 years ago. Going abroad enlightened me, and that’s when I decided that I should eat more meat. Although, I do need to stop eating as much meat as I have been since returning to the US. Wheat is the primary ingredient in cereal, but also some cereals contain a lot of sugar. I usually eat granola based cereals, such as Honey Bunches of Oats. The ingredients are corn, whole grain wheat, rice, canola oil, corn syrup, salt, honey, barley, natural and artificial flavors and BHT (preservative). I also drink coffee almost everyday, I prefer dark roast coffee from Trader Joe’s. The packaging says that the coffee came from California, which is not surprising. Most of the things we eat come from California, considering the environmental limitations of living in a place that experiences seasonality. My estimation is that the food that I consume on a daily basis traveled between 100 – 1,000 miles to get to where I am. From the production to the consumption, there was a large environmental impact in that it requires a lot of CO2 emissions to get a commodified food product from farm to table.