A classic gastronomical challenge taunts, "Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you who you are." This implies that food is an indicative medium of local, ethnic, religious, and perhaps most tellingly, class cultures. This course reexamines these issues and extends the stated challenge to various social arenas such as immigration, globalization, mass production, and niche marketing. If, in common parlance, we are what we eat, then what might we learn about a society in which a fish caught in Japan is served the same evening in New York? What might we learn about the migration and transformation of food culture by ordering Thai delivery in Massachusetts? Beyond the global patterns of taste, availability, and modes of consumption, we must additionally ask questions about production. For example, telling us who we are if we eat fast food hamburgers includes a full account of cattle ranching, feedlots, corporate meatpacking conglomerates, sanitation, and mass marketing of brands. Finally, the course explores the gendered patterns that food production and consumption transmit and reproduce. Format: seminar. Enrollment limit: 20 (expected: 15).

Hour: STANCZAK