F0907 Food and Culture in the Globalized World
This course aims to inform students about the role that eating and drinking play in culture. First, it places its subject firmly in the history of ideas, anthropology and history. Second, it focuses on the Italian experience in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Third, it investigates the contemporary world, which is the major theme of this course. No prior knowledge of the subject is required
In order to contextualise the subject, the course begins with a series of key readings of the authors who have most promoted the importance of food as a subject for academic study: the first of these is Brillat-Savarin. It is no coincidence that this major ideologue is a man of the Enlightenment. As well as looking at his ideas on cooking, menus, the role of women and the shifting language of food and sexuality, we will pay specific attention to the formal aspects: his use of secular, scientific language, amongst other things. The work of Stephen Mintz is central to the modern study of food. The final chapter of his epic work on sugar allows us to see how food can determine historical change, in this particular case, the end of the formal meal. Harris’s anthropological study cases are controversial, but they at least force us to consider what we eat and drink, be it milk, or things we do not eat, insects, dogs and so on.
The second part of the course turns its attention to Italy. This in part obeys the obvious strategy of studying our immediate environment but also Italy - as an exemplary case - demonstrates how cuisine became part of the distinctively nation-state ideology of the nineteenth and early twentieth-century. We will proceed by analysing how scholars have interpreted the reception of two cookbooks: Pellegrino Artusi’s La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene (1891) and Filippo Marinetti’s La cucina futurista
(1932). Although this might seem abstract in approach, evidence is immediately available every time a student goes to eat in the university canteen: pasta and tomato sauce has its own history!
The third and largest part of the course focuses on the contemporary world. The first subject of study is Coca-cola; the article we use acts as a bridge between the second and third parts of the course, as it explains how and why a national product was purposefully changed into one of the earliest examples of a global one. The possible lines of inquiry are numerous, but those which immediately suggest themselves are as follows. Schlosser is particularly useful for the notoriety of both book and film. I will stress his emphasis on youth, both as consumer and employee in the fast-food world. Less well known, but of equal if not greater interest is his study of (non-existent) flavours. Patel will explain to us, through his hourglass theory, how it is possible that both producers and consumers of basic food products can be economically worse off at exactly the same time. Recent events in Africa (2008) show the validity of his argument. Patel will also provide us with an interesting account of how supermarkets are organised and persuade us to continually look at and buy products. The course will close with the reading of less scientific and more journalist pieces on subjects like mineral water, wine, waiting and the globalisation of national dishes, pizza, sushi and so on.
Methodology
As this is a highly interdisciplinary course covering the history of ideas, economics, anthropology and so on, careful preparation of selected discussion texts and classroom debate form the basis of the learning process.
A reading pack will be made available before the beginning of term. They will take the form of extracts from books in the bibliography that students will also be encouraged to consult in the reading room. The course emphasises the application of certain ideas to the world in which we live. Learning about e-numbers, for example, is an interesting subject, but students will be encouraged to consider how they themselves are affected by them. Students will therefore be encouraged to read up and follow stories as they appear in the press and internet. Film and documentaries will also be used.
In order to contextualise the subject, the course begins with a series of key readings of the authors who have most promoted the importance of food as a subject for academic study: the first of these is Brillat-Savarin. It is no coincidence that this major ideologue is a man of the Enlightenment. As well as looking at his ideas on cooking, menus, the role of women and the shifting language of food and sexuality, we will pay specific attention to the formal aspects: his use of secular, scientific language, amongst other things. The work of Stephen Mintz is central to the modern study of food. The final chapter of his epic work on sugar allows us to see how food can determine historical change, in this particular case, the end of the formal meal. Harris’s anthropological study cases are controversial, but they at least force us to consider what we eat and drink, be it milk, or things we do not eat, insects, dogs and so on.
The second part of the course turns its attention to Italy. This in part obeys the obvious strategy of studying our immediate environment but also Italy - as an exemplary case - demonstrates how cuisine became part of the distinctively nation-state ideology of the nineteenth and early twentieth-century. We will proceed by analysing how scholars have interpreted the reception of two cookbooks: Pellegrino Artusi’s La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene (1891) and Filippo Marinetti’s La cucina futurista
(1932). Although this might seem abstract in approach, evidence is immediately available every time a student goes to eat in the university canteen: pasta and tomato sauce has its own history!
The third and largest part of the course focuses on the contemporary world. The first subject of study is Coca-cola; the article we use acts as a bridge between the second and third parts of the course, as it explains how and why a national product was purposefully changed into one of the earliest examples of a global one. The possible lines of inquiry are numerous, but those which immediately suggest themselves are as follows. Schlosser is particularly useful for the notoriety of both book and film. I will stress his emphasis on youth, both as consumer and employee in the fast-food world. Less well known, but of equal if not greater interest is his study of (non-existent) flavours. Patel will explain to us, through his hourglass theory, how it is possible that both producers and consumers of basic food products can be economically worse off at exactly the same time. Recent events in Africa (2008) show the validity of his argument. Patel will also provide us with an interesting account of how supermarkets are organised and persuade us to continually look at and buy products. The course will close with the reading of less scientific and more journalist pieces on subjects like mineral water, wine, waiting and the globalisation of national dishes, pizza, sushi and so on.
Methodology
As this is a highly interdisciplinary course covering the history of ideas, economics, anthropology and so on, careful preparation of selected discussion texts and classroom debate form the basis of the learning process.
A reading pack will be made available before the beginning of term. They will take the form of extracts from books in the bibliography that students will also be encouraged to consult in the reading room. The course emphasises the application of certain ideas to the world in which we live. Learning about e-numbers, for example, is an interesting subject, but students will be encouraged to consider how they themselves are affected by them. Students will therefore be encouraged to read up and follow stories as they appear in the press and internet. Film and documentaries will also be used.
Syllabus
Evaluation
Readings
Evaluation
Readings