Download ANTH 361: The Anthropology of Food

ANTH 361: The Anthropology of
Food
Instructor: Ann Anagnost
Topical Themes
• Food and Culture
• Food and Social Connection
• Food and Identity (Race, Class, Gender,
Ethnicity, National Belonging)
• Food and Memory
• Food and Place
• Food and the Senses
Gastronomy
• Gastro (stomach) + Nomos (law)
• The term was first coined by Jean Anthelme BrillatSavarin in his book The Physiology of Taste (1825).
• "Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are."
• The pleasures of the table considered as a science.
• Nomos stands for order, valid and binding on those
who fall under its jurisdiction; thus it is a social
construct with ethical dimensions. It is a belief, opinion
or point of view; it is a human invention.
• Ethical Dimension: What is the good and how do we
seek it?
Eco-Gastronomy
• A 19th Century idea revived and elaborated by
Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food
Movement.
• Why do we need to understand the back-story
of our food? How did we become so alienated
from where our food comes from?
• The Slow Food ideals of “good, clean, and fair.”
Gastronomy as a Holistic Field of
Knowledge
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Biological
Aricultural
Cultural
Culinary
Ecological
Sensorial
Historical
Social
Psychological
Political
The Human Sensoriam
• A hierarchical order in Western epistemology
(ways of knowing).
• Seeing and hearing as senses associated with the
mind.
• Tasting, touching, smelling as senses associated
with the body.
• An anthropology of the senses combined with an
anthropology of food = a mode of knowing that
connects us with the world around us in every
bite.
Cooking as a Cultural Practice
• It transforms nature into culture.
• It transformed proto-humans into humans.
• It connects us together in the creation of
social life.
• It is something we can all do.
• What happens when we no longer cook?
Four Kitchen Days
• Jan 21: Collard Greens, Hoppin' John, and
Spoon Bread
• Feb 11: Tuscan Bean Stew, Polenta, Cherry
Walnut Cake
• Feb 23: Lentil Soup, Sourdough Bread, Rustic
Salad
• March 9: Chinese Dumplings, Sweet Mung
Bean Soup.
Three Reading Assignments
• Food and Identity.
• Food-centered life history.
• Food and ethics (care of the self and of the
other)
The Meatrix
• Meatrix/Matrix
• Seeing through the commodity fetish.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEkc70zt
Orc