Category Archives: food history

by | September 15, 2018 · 4:55 pm

Review: Food in Zones of Conflict

Food in Zones of Conflict: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives. Edited by Paul Collinson and Helen Macbeth. Berghahn Books. 2014. 252 pp. ISBN  978-1-78238-403-8

Food in Zones of Conflict: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives

Jacquelyn Heuer (University of South Florida)

Food in Zones of Conflict is a multi-disciplinary volume on global studies in food and conflict consisting of sixteen chapters that each present a unique perspective on the issue. Covering a wide range of geographic areas, including sub-Saharan Africa, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, Croatia, Mexico, and Ethiopia, Food in Zones of Conflict emphasizes the need to examine inequalities and inequities in access to food, especially in times of conflict. Addressing concerns that seem all the more relevant in today’s political climate, the chapters demonstrate how food insecurity and conflict are often intertwined, with conflict causing food insecurity and food insecurity causing conflict, thereby creating a cyclical epidemic in these zones of conflict. The emphasis of this cycle also serves to illustrate the political significance of food, both as a means of social control and as an impetus for inciting rebellions and riots. Rusca’s chapter exemplifies this, utilizing examples from a post-World War I Weimar Republic, where famine was used both as a means to bring the Germans to heel after their involvement in the war, and as propaganda allowing the National Socialists to rise to power.

Food insecurity and conflict often also contribute to syndemic conditions, including trauma, disease, and poverty, as illustrated by a number of authors in this volume. Of course, as Shepler noted, these syndemic conditions often impact those who are of lower socioeconomic status, as the individuals who are fortunate enough to have fewer inequities are more likely to have the resources to eat better during times of conflict. Meanwhile, as Adeyemi Oyeniyi and Akinyoade demonstrated, these syndemic conditions are most likely going to affect those who produce the food for a country, creating a conundrum where these food producers and farmers cannot access the food they are growing, either because of physical barriers from the conflict or economic barriers due to their social class. It should be noted that removing individuals from these zones of conflict does not necessarily mean that food insecurity comes to an end, as Henry and Macbeth so aptly articulate in their chapter on nutritional concerns facing those who reside in refugee camps.

In her chapter on household food consumption in Sri Lanka, Kent provides an alternative measure to the USDA Household Food Security Survey Module. Instead of relying on the USDA measure, Kent sorted households into categories based on household consumption patterns that also took seasonal patterns of food shortage into account, thereby allowing for Kent to adequately assess if households dealt with food insecurity on a daily basis or only seasonally. Kimaro, on the other hand, utilized the three pillars of food insecurity—availability, access, and use—to ascertain the role that religion may play in the search for food security in sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, several chapters explore the complexity of identity and food in conflict, with Cwiertka discussing the implications of globalization as soldiers on the Pacific Front received provision packages during World War II. Meanwhile Campbell provided a more personal story, discussing the identity crisis faced by American soldiers deployed in Iraq who often had to choose between eating MREs, going hungry, or willingly consuming “the enemy’s” food.

Yet while Collinson and Macbeth did an excellent job of compiling a wide range of studies in food and conflict, it is worth noting that a number of the studies take a historical approach, especially those that discuss food issues during WWI and WWII. That said, these case studies, while dated, contribute to the existing literature and provide potential frameworks for other studies to utilize in their examination of food and conflict. Given this, it should be noted that many of the case studies in this volume could benefit from the application of a more applied approach, or at least an examination of how these examples from the past can contribute to contemporary issues of food in zones of conflict today. This lack of an applied approach is felt especially when the chapters are examined in the larger context of conflict today, with refugee crises in Syria, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Myanmar. Furthermore, given the conflicts in the United States with regards to immigrants, detention centers, and the increased border patrol presence in the U.S.-Mexico border region, an applied approach that speaks to current instabilities seems all the more relevant today.

Finally, Food in Zones of Conflict could benefit from additional theoretical and methodological grounding. As it is written, the volume serves as a “taste test,” allowing the reader to skim the surface of a number of issues that arise in areas of conflict, from food insecurity to human rights violations to the pervasive use of food as a way to wield power over people. While this approach succeeds in providing the reader with a review of the current literature, it misses an opportunity to contribute to the reader’s theoretical understanding, despite having a multitude of opportunities to interweave contemporary theories. For example, while some chapters touched on the embodied consequences of conflict, the continued shaping of practice and agency surrounding food choices and practices is largely overlooked. Furthermore, given the emphasis on the interconnectedness between food, conflict, and power, it seems strange that theories of power, syndemics, political economy, and structural violence were not further expanded upon in order to strengthen the arguments made by the authors.

In sum, despite the seeming lack of theoretical contribution, Food in Zones of Conflict is an excellent read for anyone who is interested in the issue. The broad range of topics, time periods, and geographic locations make the volume approachable to those who are only seeking to gain a grounding in the topic while the focus on food insecurity also makes this volume ideal for any academic seeking to review the current literature. Furthermore, the interdisciplinary perspectives provided by the authors make these case studies relevant to a number of fields, including anthropology, history, sociology, public health, and food policy and planning. Given the accessibility of the volume to a number of audiences, I expect that Collinson and Macbeth’s edited work will influence future food studies in zones of conflict for years to come.

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by | September 10, 2018 · 9:02 pm

What FoodAnthropology Is Reading Now, September 10, 2018

David Beriss

A brief digest of food and nutrition-related items that caught our attention recently. Got items you think we should include? Send links and brief descriptions to dberiss@gmail.com or hunterjo@gmail.com.

I have been on a bit of a vacation from the blog, but that does not mean I have not been reading…and the result is an overstuffed collection for you to enjoy. A lot of these items may be of use for class readings, which should come in handy for the new academic year.

Let’s start with an interesting article from Finbarr O’Reilly, in the New York Times, on the production and distribution of vanilla in Madagascar. The article notes that about 80% of the world’s vanilla comes from that country, but the production and sales are subject to both crime and corruption. There are some great photos here too, although at least one recent visitor to the area tells me that the article makes the region look gloomy and scary, which she insists is a misrepresentation. A critique of this representation could be a great class exercise.

Making a non-meat burger that tastes anything like a real burger has been a mostly impossible task. I have long thought that the best vegetarian burgers would sell better if we all just agreed they are more like falafel in puck form and stopped pretending they are hamburgers. And yet, there is the “impossible burger,” a fake burger that “bleeds” like one made of meat and that has a taste and mouthfeel (in my opinion) remarkably like the real thing. Could this be a really sustainable food product destined to help us reduce our meat consumption? Maybe not, according to this article by Clint Rainey, that appeared on Grub Street.

If you want to help your students think about how science works, you might have them read this article, by Joel Achenbach, from the Washington Post, which reports on a study that claims that the “optimal amount of alcohol someone should consume is none.” It is a both an interesting report on a study and an opportunity to discuss the difference between studies of populations and conclusions about what might be best for individuals, along with ideas about health, risk, quality of life, etc. One useful corrective appeared in this article, by Aaron Carroll, in the New York Times.

Blog editor Amy Trubek recently wrote here about the implications of meal kits for American culinary culture. There have, of course, long been efforts to simplify cooking for Americans, including meal kits that you can buy in the grocery store. In this blog entry on the Historical Cooking Project web site, Katherine Magruder presents the fascinating and bittersweet history of Old El Paso taco kits and their associated products. Back in the 1960s and 70s I think a lot of Anglo Americans probably thought that this was the only way to get tacos outside of a Mexican restaurant.

Echos of slavery and of the Civil War continue to inhabit American life. Perhaps our inability to make sense of the past is rooted in an unwillingness to fully confront the consequences that echo even today. In this article from the Oxford American, John T. Edge explores why a new Southern vodka (Dixie Vodka, originally called Beauregard Dixie Vodka) raised these issues for him. While we are on the subject of the U.S. South, you might also want to read this tribute to John Egerton, also by John T. Edge, from The Bitter Southerner.

If you are thinking about the U.S. South and the Caribbean and the legacy of slavery, then you might as well think about sugar too. In this wide-ranging bit of art and social criticism and history, Ruby Tandoh (on Eater), looks into the material and metaphorical place of sugar across both time and cultures. There is some amazing art in all of this too.

I have lately been obsessed with the possibilities of podcasts and audiobooks. There are a lot of good food podcasts out there, but one of my recent favorites has been the oddly named “Racist Sandwich.” They deal with questions of ethnicity, race, and racism in the world of food. Here are links to three recent episodes that I found interesting and that you can use to start discussions with students. First, in this episode, author Lilian Li talks about growing up in the U.S. and Chinese restaurants. Next, Darnell Ferguson, one of the few black chefs in Louisville, Kentucky, discusses his career and mentoring in the industry. Finally, an exploration of why Asian communities may be making Houston the most interesting food city in America. Each episode is about 30 minutes long.

Part of the allure of Houston these days (which David Chang also promoted in his Ugly Delicious Netflix series) are the innovative ways in which Vietnamese-American chefs are approaching Cajun and Creole dishes. This has resulted in a debate over who makes the best boiled crawfish (which, just FYI, are out of season now, so you can’t have any). In this article from GQ, Brett Martin argues for everything being in its place and peace among crawfish eaters. He may have a point. By the way, over at the New York Times, Pete Wells has recently argued that David Chang “matters” to the food world today, but less for what he says than for how he manages his many restaurants. Wells does not take a stance on crawfish in this article.

Kenny Shopsin, owner of the eccentric restaurant Shopsin’s General Store, died a few weeks ago. A great lamentation was heard across the food world, especially from chefs and others who admired the history and management and food, along with the owner and his interesting writing. Neil Genzlinger wrote a helpful obituary in the New York Times. Perhaps an even better way to understand the significance of Kenny Shopsin would be to read this article by Calvin Trillin, which appeared in The New Yorker in 2002.

It is always interesting to think about the foods people could eat, but mostly do not. Goat, for instance, is relatively popular around the world, but not so much in the United States. According to Jan Greenberg, from the New Food Economy, this may be changing as both immigrants and farmers work to popularize the meat (goat cheese is already popular in the U.S.). In New England, figuring out how to market an underappreciated crab—the Jonah Crab—is a problem confronted by fishers, according to Dan Nosowitz, writing for Modern Farmer. By the way, the goat article makes the claim that goat is the most popular meat in the world. In this article from the Huffington Post, Julie R. Thomson disputes that claim.

Debates about whether certain kinds of foods are in fact drugs or if certain drugs are in fact food are, it turns out, pretty old. In fact, a few of Sidney Mintz’s old “proletarian hunger killers” were included in those debates in Europe in the seventeenth century, as historian Ken Albala explains in this article, from EuropeNow. Go get yourself a cup of tea, coffee, or chocolate (or, if you are in the right state, some marijuana infused versions of these, just to enhance the point) and read the arguments for and against the drug or food nature of these items. The humors may be different, but the core of the argument really seems not to have changed for a few hundred years.

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by | September 2, 2018 · 2:35 pm

Review: The Story of Soy

 The Story of Soy. Christine M. Du Bois. London: Reaktion Books, 2018. 266 pp. + References and Index. ISBN 978 1 78023 925 5.

Jacket Image

Ellen Messer, (Tufts University School of Nutrition Science and Policy and Boston University Gastronomy Program)

Anyone interested in global diet and agriculture should be interested in soy because it is by far the most grown oilseed and fourth most cultivated crop in the world (after the cereals maize, wheat, and rice) (p.223).  As a major source of plant protein, it sustains the diets of humans and livestock, and has contributed the world over to agricultural livelihoods and nutrition.  That said, this voluminously documented volume takes care to situate soy in its diverse historical and contemporary contexts. It shows how soy in each era paradoxically created conditions to sustain life, including fixing nitrogen for agricultural ecosystems, but also to destroy environments and societies through relentless and sometimes violent pursuit of food and wealth based on soybean cultivation, processing and distribution.

The opening chapter, “Hidden Gold,” introduces readers to the long-term history of soy, as a food, feed, and industrial crop, and to major flash points, like the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905, which made soy loom large in political-geographic history. Chapter 1, “Asian roots,” speculates about soy’s original domestication and diffusion as a significant food that was processed to facilitate and extend its nutritional reach. Chapter 2 documents the European history of soy, including war-related developments that expanded soy’s nutritional potential to feed hungry populations that could afford little meat.  Chapter 3 turns to United States adoptions and genetic and agronomic improvements for food, feed, and industrial purposes. Chapter 4, “Soy Patriotic” returns to Asian soy as a war and post-war crop.  Here the stories include post-World War II innovations, like citric acid processing that removed off flavors, and utilization of stainless steel processing equipment that prevented contamination. These stories include how soy became implicated the development of the defoliant, Agent Orange, which drew botanists into ethical and political opposition to the Vietnam (American) War after military scientists used their basic research understandings of crop maturation to de-forest Vietnam and expose fighters’ hiding places.

Chapter 5, “Fattening with Feed” covers developments of inexpensive, soy-based animal nourishment, which transformed and enabled concentrated poultry and pig production the world over.  Like all the other chapters, this one opens with a human, personal-interest story, then opens out onto implications for larger scale economies, social units, and national, regional, and world diets.  In this case, the human-interest story tells how “chickens dramatically changed the destiny of a rural woman, thirty-year-old Amal Ismail, as well as the lives of millions of her fellow Egyptians:

“Since the 1950s, both beneficial and injurious aspects of the mass feeding of soy to animals have powerfully shaped our world, thanks to the export of American techniques for livestock production.  Mrs. Ismail and her chickens serve as a humble yet revealing entry into a far larger story.  Our survey of soy and livestock will include a chicken-blood cookbook, giant economic aid programmes, airlifted hogs, corporate treatment of animals, antibiotics, wild-bird diseases, obesity, fecal river pollution, drowned hogs and more.” (p.93)

Positive and negative consequences pile up, as the world population in aggregate gains greater access to healthy protein, either directly by eating processed soybean products or indirectly by consuming more and cheaper soy-fed animal meats.   But this expansion, particularly of the soybean feed industry has not been without environmental destruction, covered in Ch.6, “Soy Swoops South” which scrupulously documents deforestation, erosion of land and biodiversity, and violence against the people who were already living there.  Country by country, soybean livelihoods demonstrably increased soy-related household, provincial, and national incomes, but also pitted subnational private soybean interests against state desires to establish and use soybean taxes and revenues to pay for national infrastructure and human development programs.  All also proved vulnerable to multi-national (biotechnology) seed and chemical companies, which imposed their will as they sought ever greater control over farmers and national agricultural regulations. Ch. 7 continues these discussions of corporate control over seeds, toxic chemicals, and water and land use.  But again, outcomes need not prove pre-determined.  As the author summarizes in the conclusion to this chapter,

‘           ’Growing soybeans and other crops poses many actual and potential challenges to environments, including habitat loss, monoculture, genetic modification, toxic chemicals, climate change, erosion, and depletion of fresh water.  But fatalism is misguided: the destructive effects of farming can (emphasis in the original) be mitigated through careful research and ingenuity.  No-till cultivation, pest control through organic methods or chemicals with reduced toxicity, effective penalties for environmental rule-breakers and a reduction in meat eating that drives so much agriculture can each make a genuine difference. The question is how much effort we will put into protecting our natural world. This is our only world. There is no other planet for us. There is no ‘escape hatch’ from our responsibilities—or from the consequences of our actions.” (p.172).  Readers here get a sense of the author’s ambivalent sensibilities, which are also passionate, and draw on a complete range of pro- and anti- technology advocates.

The book could have ended here.  But wait, there’s more.  The two-sided approach continues, in subsequent chapters on nutrition and international business and trade. Ch.8, “Poison Or Panacea” discusses the positives (accessible protein) and negatives (anti-nutritional and allergenic factors) associated with soy nutrition, and also certain health issues, like relationship between soybean consumption, female estrogen levels and male sperm counts, and a range of possible risks and benefits associated with more extensive genetic engineering of soybeans for food and medicine.  There are also added discussions of soy in disaster relief and food aid. Chapter 9 examines “Big Business”, which is largely under the control of a few very large agricultural production, processing, and trading firms, like ADM.  In this chapter, readers can follow the journey from mid-western farm to global feedlot or food processor.  The author adroitly unpacks the abstractions and workings of commodities futures contracts, including the thought processes of hedgers and speculators, winners and losers. (There’s even a reference to the 1983 hit movie, “Trading Places” and FBI investigation of fraud on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (pp.226-232)).  There follow the dynamic mergers and acquisitions among leading seed (biotechnology) companies competing for markets, the politics of managed markets and subsidies in industrialized, developing, and transition countries; and finally, the land grabs that have characterized soy-growing areas especially since the world food price crisis of 2007-2008.

These business and environmental concerns spill over into Chapter 10, on “Soy Diesel”, which continues country-by-country discussions of soy strategies such as  efforts to recycle soy oil in order to cut down on pollution and waste in Brazil and Indonesia.  In all these developing country stories, however, the reader sees the downsides, as small operators inevitably lose access to food and energy resources when world prices rise beyond their control.  The book ends with an “Afterword” about Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, which harbors some 27,000 varieties of soy. This short chapter ends with a rehash of the individually grounded, cultural stories that show promise and peril inherent in soybeans, which are used as a “lens for new perspectives on our very selves.” (p.266).  Readers can decide whether they appreciate and want to use these reflections to structure discussions of additional, non-soy domains.

As I was preparing this review of Christine Du Bois’s comprehensive, The Story of Soy  (London: Reaktion Books, 2018) I happened to read an “early view” of Andrew Ofstehage’s (2018) “Farming Out of Place,” which describes “flexible farming” modes of production by a younger generation of mid-Western US farmers, who buy up and farm South American lands after they have been priced out of the land market in their home places of origin.  I also read and reviewed Gerardo Otero’s Neoliberal Diet, which covers some of the same territory from a quantitative, larger-scale agricultural and nutritional perspective, focusing in part on the huge growth of plant fats in global diets.  To cover community cultural and the “big” political economic picture, I’d recommend that readers and instructors in food-studies and anthropology of food, nutrition, and diet courses use all three sources together.

Finally, as someone who has followed Du Bois’ work on soy (Messer 2009, 2016), and also as someone trained in ethnobotany, I particularly appreciated Du Bois’ exhaustive dedication to exploring the entire range of relations between this economic and nutritional species and the human populations that have used and will continue to use it.  I look forward to reading comparative studies on other oilseeds based on the excellent research presented here.

References cited:

Messer, Ellen (2009) Review of: The World of Soy, by C. DuBois, T-C. Chan and  S. Mintz, Gastronomy 9,4:101-103. Access at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/gfc.2009.9.issue-4

 

Messer, Ellen (2016) Remembering Sid Mintz. Food Anthropology, 4 January 2016. Access at: https://foodanthro.com/2016/01/04/remembering-sidney-mintz/

Ofstehage, Andrew (2018) Farming Out of Place: Transnational family farmers, flexible farming, and rupture of rural life in Bahia, Brazil.  American Ethnologist 45,3: 317-329

Otero, G. (2018) The Neoliberal Diet. Healthy Profits, Unhealthy People. University of Texas Press.

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by | June 18, 2018 · 3:20 pm

Before Farm to Table Fellowships

See below for information on semester-long fellowships at the Folger Shakespeare Library on early modern foodways. Follow the links for instructions on how to apply.

Before Farm to Table: Early Modern Foodways and Cultures, the inaugural project of the Folger Institute’s Mellon initiative in collaborative research, announces a competition for semester-long fellowships to be held in residence at the Folger Shakespeare Library in one of two semesters: either Spring 2019 or Fall 2019, for three to four months.  Each Before Farm to Table fellow will be awarded $10,000 for work in the Folger collections on topics relating to early modern food and foodways in the British world, broadly conceived.

The Before Farm to Table project uses the pervasiveness of food in everyday life as a window into early modern culture. Food, then as now, is a basic human need. It also has a history and is a gateway to understanding society and culture. In the course of this project, we will investigate big questions about the way food participates in and actively shapes human knowledge, ethics, and imagination. Such issues as the unevenness of food supply, the development and spread of tastes with their darker supply sides of enslaved labor, and the socially cohesive rituals of eating together will be explored. With fresh understandings of a pre-industrial world, this project also gives us purchase on some post-industrial assumptions, aspirations, and challenges encapsulated in any idea of recovering simpler, local, and sustainable food chains.

Questions about the program, details on how to apply, etc. can be found here.

Deadline: September 1, 2018.

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by | June 9, 2018 · 6:35 pm

CFP: Agricultural History Society Meeting, June 2019

Having received this call for papers twice in two days, it seems necessary to share it here. As the CFP below notes, the Agricultural History Society is interdisciplinary, so contributions from anthropologists would be, we assume, welcome.

Call for Papers

Agricultural History Society Annual Meeting

Washington, DC

June 6-8, 2019

Power in Agricultural History

The 100th anniversary meeting of the Agricultural History Society will be held in Washington, DC, an appropriate location to address the theme of “Power in Agricultural History.” Power, in its multiple guises—whether political, social, economic, or physical—is embedded in every aspect of agricultural production, food and fiber marketing and consumption, and rural society and culture. The organizing theme is meant to encourage historians who refuse to accept that the current and future conditions of farms, food systems, and rural society and culture are the result of autonomous logics. It is worth remembering that among the founders of the Agricultural History Society were rural sociologists and agricultural economists who sought to influence public policy by developing their insights through historical research. The 100th anniversary meeting offers an opportunity to celebrate and extend the interdisciplinary sensibility and public mission of the society, no small matter given the challenges that confront rural citizens and agricultural policymakers in our own time. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

  • the political power of farm organizations, electoral processes, policymaking institutions, for-profit firms, and third-sector and nongovernmental organizations
  • social power in rural societies as enabled and/or constrained by gender, class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, or religion
  • dynamics of power in rural landscapes, rural and urban ecologies, and between humans and non-human organisms in agricultural systems
  • the application of animal, mechanical, or fossil-fuel based power sources to the production and distribution of agricultural goods
  • historical analysis of economic power imbalances in rural society and agricultural markets
  • theories and processes of modernization and rural development as exercises in power across national boundaries
  • modes of cooperation and conflict, trust and mistrust in rural culture, society, and political and economic institutions
  • social movements that have sought to transform the balance of power in rural environments

As befits the society’s inclusive approach we especially encourage contributions from emerging scholars and researchers covering understudied geographical regions or time periods, and as custom dictates we will also support significant contributions that do not directly address the conference theme.

Information on submission:

•         The Society takes a broad view on what constitutes rural and agricultural history. Topics from any location and time period are welcome.

•         The AHS encourages proposals of all types, including traditional sessions with successive papers and commentary, thematic panel discussions or debates, roundtables on recent books or films, workshops, and poster presentations.

•         If you will need video projection technology for presentations, please indicate this in your proposal.

•         The program committee prefers complete session proposals, but individual papers will be considered.

•         The AHS extends a special welcome to graduate students and has a competitive travel grant for students presenting papers.

Instructions:

1. Session proposals should include a two-hundred-word abstract for each paper and a one-page CV for each panel member (in MS Word).

2. Individual paper proposals should consist of a two-hundred-word abstract and a one-page CV (in MS Word).

3. All proposals should be submitted electronically in Word format. Submit all proposals to the Program Committee by email at: <aghist2019@gmail.com>.

Deadline for submissions is September 28, 2018.

Questions may be addressed to Shane Hamilton at <shane.hamilton@york.ac.uk>

Program Committee Members: Shane Hamilton, University of York (Chair); Prakash Kumar, Pennsylvania State University; Sarah Phillips, Boston University; Maggie Weber, Iowa State University; Nicole Welk-Joerger, University of Pennsylvania.

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by | April 16, 2018 · 2:47 pm

CHNY Scholars Grant Awards 2018

From the Culinary Historians of New York, small grants of interest to SAFN readers who are engaged in current research projects. They do not have to focus on New York! May 24, 2018 deadline for submissions.

The Culinary Historians of New York Scholar’s Grant

The CHNY Scholar’s Grant promotes research and scholarship in the field of culinary history and is awarded annually to individuals seeking financial support for a current, well-developed project that will culminate in a book, article, paper, film, or other scholarly endeavor, including ephemera. The grants are unrestricted and can be used to defray research expenses, attend conferences, or engage in other activities related to the applicant’s project. The CHNY Scholar’s Grant is merit-based; financial need is not considered in making the award.

All recipients will present their findings to Culinary Historians of New York, either in an in-person program, as an article to be included in NYFoodStory: The Journal of the Culinary Historians of New York, or as another appropriate event. Further information is included in the Application and General Release Form.

Since 2012, the importance of the CHNY Scholar’s Grant has been recognized by The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts and rewarded with generous financial support. We are pleased to announce that the support has been increased this year, allowing CHNY to award THREE grants in the amount of $3,500, $2500, and $1,500, respectively.

Details on how and when to apply are here: https://www.culinaryhistoriansny.org/awards-grants/the-scholars-grant/.

Here are some of the previous winners (a more complete list is on the web site):

2017: Clare Alsup, Elizabeth Zanoni, Tove Danovich

Claire Alsup, “Colatura di Alici: How One Town on the Amalfi Coast Preserved Ancient Roman Fish Sauce” ($3500)

Elizabeth Zanoni ,”Flight Fuel: Pan Am and the Creation of Inflight Cuisines, 1930-1980 ($2500)

Tove Danovich, “When Kosher Isn’t Kosher: 100 Years of Murder, Crime, and Fraud” ($1500)

2016: Stacy Williams, Anthony Buccini

Stacy Williams, “Recipes for Resistance: Culinary Writings from American Feminists, 1875-2005” ($3,500)

Anthony Buccini, “From Kongri to Diri ak Djondjon: Slavery, Creolization, and Culinary Genesis in Saint Domingue and Independent Haiti” ($1,500)

2015: Francis and Bronwen Percival, Emily Arendt

Francis and Bronwen Percival, “Every up-to-date cheesemaker knows: How starter cultures changed cheese, 1880-1930” ($3,500)

Professor Emily Arendt, “Making Politics Palatable: Food and Partisanship in the Early American Republic.” ($1,500)

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by | January 12, 2018 · 1:10 pm

Postdoctoral Fellow at the Culinaria Research Center at the University of Toronto

The Culinaria Research Centre at the University of Toronto invites applications for a full-time postdoctoral fellowship in the field of Food Studies. The Culinaria Research Centre is one of the world’s largest research centres in the study of food and society. To learn more about the Centre, its projects and affiliates, please visit our website online at: https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/culinaria/

The postdoctoral fellow will have the opportunity to work with a range of Food Studies faculty at the University of Toronto under the direct supervision of Daniel Bender, Director of the Centre. This fellowship is open to all scholars who have completed a Ph.D.- either in Food Studies or a related field within the humanities and social sciences- by the time of appointment and within the last five years. The postdoctoral appointment will commence on 1 July 2018 for the duration of one year. Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience but with a minimum of $31,000 CAD.

The Culinaria Research Centre seeks postdoctoral fellowship applicants with primary research experience in one or more of the following areas: Urban food security; food and diaspora; food activism; food, urban livelihoods/labour, and urban agriculture; food and sensory experience; food and inequality; food and identity; and/or critical approaches to nutrition discourses and practices. Fellows will interact with faculty, graduate students, undergraduates and culinary professionals across a wide range of disciplines. In addition to engaging in collaborative and independent research, the Fellow will assist in planning and administering a speakers’ series, along with other Food Studies events through the duration of their tenure. The Fellow is expected to be in residence at the Culinaria Research Centre and will be able to conduct research at the University of Toronto libraries and in the Culinaria Kitchen Laboratory. The Centre is located at the University of Toronto Scarborough campus, within the richly diverse eastern end of the Greater Toronto Area.

Applications should be submitted by 20 February 2018. However, review of applications will begin immediately. Applications must include: 1) a cover letter; 2) a curriculum vitae; 3) three letters of reference from supervisors or professors sent separately; (3) a writing sample; and 4) a statement of current and future research interests, as well as a delineation of possible contributions to the research culture of the Centre.

Employment as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto is covered by the terms of the CUPE 3902 Unit 5 Collective Agreement.  This job is posted in accordance with the CUPE 3902 Unit 5 Collective Agreement. The University of Toronto is a non-discriminate employer and is welcoming to all diversity within its heterogeneous community. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.

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