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I just wrapped up teaching an undergraduate food history course & want to share a handful of non-scholarly pieces that I've taught or plan to teach that showcase how much students & scholars can learn from good food writing. #MENAFoodAtTufts
For anyone teaching about food in any capacity these are great, short, accessible reads you can assign for homework or as in-class activities and my students really took a lot from them! #foodstudies #foodhistory #AcademicTwitter
1. @KaeLaniSays has an excellent thread about positionality and food writing. What is your relationship to the food you are writing about/studying? Her framework of curiosity vs authority was one my students engaged with thoughtfully all semester long. https://twitter.com/KaeLaniSays/status/1183394267538120705?s=20
2. @hooleil's brilliant "Words You'll Never See Me Use in Restaurant Reviews." I encourage students to draw on their own experiences in their coursework (everyone eats!) & this is a great primer for thinking about how to do that critically & productively. https://www.sfchronicle.com/restaurants/article/Words-you-ll-never-see-me-use-in-restaurant-13652564.php
3. When I teach this course again in the fall I'm excited to add @aliciakennedy's work. This recent essay covers *so much* so succinctly & pushes us to question what many of us may perceive as the virtues or gains of the food movement... https://heated.medium.com/who-wins-when-the-food-industrys-elite-debate-selling-out-786e6511c67a
...as well as how to avoid letting questions of justice be glossed over as or by questions of taste or luxury when we talk about food. As she puts it, "The coffee always comes from somewhere." I just subscribed to her newsletter and highly recommend! https://aliciakennedy.substack.com/
4. @shanegoesforth's essay on okra wrapped up the semester, spanning from the vast culinary scholarship of the medieval Islamicate world to the importance of African diaspora foodways & legacies of slavery to understanding Middle Eastern cuisine today... https://bittersoutherner.com/an-undeserved-gift-okra-shane-mitchell
...I really wanted our last unit to drive home that "Middle Eastern cuisine" (a category we had already pushed back on & critiqued) does not only happen in or involve or matter to parts of Africa & Southwest Asia, and this essay was the perfect way to set up that conversation.
Will add more as I revise my syllabus for the fall & in the future. If others have other pieces to recommend please add them here!
