FYSEM: Good Food | MUSEUM FATIGUE

Good Food Class: Ramen Cookoff

November 15, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

“In fact, instant noodles may well be the most successful industrially produced food, at least in terms of world penetration: they constitute a huge social reality—and one inviting attention. Much like sugar, instant noodles are a capitalist provision that provisions capitalism…Because they feed people quickly and cheaply, they appeal to busy and economy-minded people everywhere” (Errington, Fujikura and Gewertz 2013: 6). This last week our Good Food First-Year Seminar finished reading The Noodle Narratives: The Global Rise of an Industrial Food […]

Categories: Anthropology, Assignments, Food, FYSEM: Good Food • Tags: class activity, Deborah Gewertz, food, Frederick Errington, ramen, Tatsuro Fujikura, The Noodle Narratives

Good Food Class Midterm Tasting Meal, Part Two

October 18, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

This past Monday night our First Year Seminar gathered together for a food tasting meal—an event that gave us a chance to taste a wide variety of foods in dialogue with the books we have been reading and discussing so far this semester. In Part One of this post I summarized some of those books, our menu and the experience of shopping for all of the items—complete with photos. While dreaming up that menu and shopping for the foods […]

Categories: Assignments, Education, Food, FYSEM: Good Food • Tags: American food system, Colossal Cafe, Farmers Market, FYSEM, meals, organic, Pizza Luce, Sara Lee® Apple Pie, supermarket

Good Food Class Midterm Tasting Meal, Part One

October 12, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

This semester I am teaching a First Year Seminar titled Good Food: Eating and Culture. For the first half of the semester we have been learning about different aspects of the American food system and its history. Beginning with Michael Pollan’s classic Omnivore’s Dilemma and James E. McWilliams Just Food: Where Locavores Get it Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly, this past week we have been wading into Susan Friedberg’s excellent social history of food and technology, Fresh: A Perishable History. Along the […]

Categories: Assignments, Education, Food, FYSEM: Good Food • Tags: American food system, cheese, Farmers Market, Fruits, FYSEM, James McWilliams, meal, Meat, Michael Pollan, Rainbow Foods, supermarket, Susan Friedberg, Vegetables

Good Food: First Day Food Activity

August 31, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

This semester I am teaching a first year seminar (FYSEM) called Good Food: Eating and Culture. The primary goal of the class—in addition to all of the standard introduction-to-college kinds of things required of all FYSEMs—is to consider what makes a food “good.” Humans can and do eat pretty much everything on the planet that won’t kill them, but what makes something good to eat is primarily dependent on sociocultural contexts. Eating is an intimate, personal act of taking something […]

Categories: Assignments, Food, FYSEM: Good Food • Tags: class activity, First Year Seminar, food, Good Food, Hamline University, students