A. Cara (Hispanic Studies)
4 HU, WRi, 4 Hours
Fall Semester FYSP 092-01 TR 3:00-4:15
Folklorists will tell you the last thing that immigrants change is their eating habits. Food equals home, motherhood, comfort, familiarity; food signifies identity. "We are what we eat" is as much a cultural recognition as a biological truth. Both are linked to survival. The body and the spirit are equally nourished by our culinary traditions. The culturally constructed practices of what we eat, how we eat, where we eat, with whom, when, and to what end, define the politics and poetics of food in a community. Though eating is a universal, panhuman necessity, specific culinary practices give us greater understanding of human interaction, expressive and symbolic behavior, communal values, tradition and innovation, and power dynamics in society. Interdisciplinary readings, films and directed field projects will help us explore the experiential and expressive ways in which food is imagined, yearned for, held, remembered, voiced, lived, and contested. Among the topics we will address are: what constitutes the category of food; gender in the production, marketing and consumption of food; food in/as performance; edible art; the rhetoric of portions; food and sex; culinary tourism; ethnic eating; holy foods; playing with food; eating disorders; manners; fast food; food and literature.