Po(sey) Sessions

Why do we eat food? We may be under the mistaken point of view that we eat food to survive. We have long since abandoned the elements of food that keep us alive and are more concerned with how food tastes, or makes us feel, or makes us look to those around us. We are concerned with calorie counts, verification of organic, all natural, no sugar added, and what we are allowed to eat. What is the language of food? Foodies talking about tastes and textures and satisfaction levels, Nutritionists talk about diets, calorie counts, complex carbohydrates, fiber intake. Restaurants talk about ingredients and prices. We are missing the discussion of flavor and agriculture more often than not. The sociology of food is both the combination of a capital focused society and the vanity and social pressures of health. At its most basic level, as Thoreau writes, food is about fuel. But as we emerge from a survival situation, food becomes a whole myriad of things beyond fuel. Sat...

The Gullah people have gotten the short end of the stick for many generations. Food and land have always been the center of their struggle but also the center of their survival. The Sea Islands comprise some of the first land ever to be owned by Blacks in the United States. These fields and islands were not only about self sufficiency, but how to create profit in a time that resented the color of your skin. Gullah cooking  about the tradition of making delicious food from the ingredients you have whatever those ingredients happen to be. It is this resourcefulness that finds itself in South Carolina kitchens today and hundreds of years ago. Charleston was one of the first 13 colonies, it is easy to forget it is one of the oldest cities in the country. Rice: The place of rice in the youth and among the diet of the slaves has been the subject of much interest in many books. Though I would like to say a few brief thoughts on rice as an ingredient and rice cultivation in the...

I was watching an episode of Good Eats when I first fell in love with stories that food hold inside of them. The food that they were talking about was corn. The transition of the grass thiocyanate into the grain we know as corn, spoken of elsewhere as maize is a mixture of magic and science. The knowledge that brought prehistoric people to cultivate corn amazes me.  Corn has become deeply American. Perhaps because it is native to the Americas or the way that it transformed the Midwest. Even the canning industry transformed Maine through sweet corn. Corn was an important part of many agricultural systems for Native Americans across what is now the United States. Many of these tribes utilized the three sisters method of planting. THE THREE SISTERS The three sisters system of agriculture used by many Native Americans in the Southwest and beyond. Mounds are built for each cluster of crop. A corn, bean, and squash seed would be planted in each mound. As the crop...

When I watched the documentary City of Gold, I saw in Jonathan Gold a man very much like myself. He was driving down the street and pointing out the best dish at each restaurant, no matter the type of food or price point. I am always in the search for delicious food. Sometimes this comes with hefty price points and other times I find my happy food at chain diners. Ever since I can remember food has been a place of comfort for me. And this was sometimes connected with shame. A lot of times it was just connected with desire. I think we are a society that has been trained to become disconnected from desire. Maybe that is shifting more and more now. The pleasure center seems to be the only driving force in most human interactions. People are no longer willing to be uncomfortable. But this is a relatively new transition. At some point I just decided I didn't care how much I ate in front of other people or if I dropped food on my shirt. I realized that I saw all these construction...

" I am obsessed with M F K Fisher. The Gastronomical Me is such a foundational book as far as seeming to be about being food but actually about becoming a woman. I think that I am reading about pea soup on an ocean liner but I am in tears. Food is a metaphor for transportation." - Stephanie Danler, interview Fisher and Danler both write about food in different ways. Although Fisher is possibly one of the most influential writers about food, yet I find something about the way she write inaccessible. I think time has changed the role of women in food over the past twenty year, and especially in my own household. At our house, my husband does most of the cooking. First of all he does it because he likes it. Second of all, especially a few years ago, he was the one who had time to put into shopping and meal planning. Third, I make huge messes when I cook. We constantly find the social expectations of cooking pressed upon us by friends and family. I am often a...

We eat every day, yet become more and more disconnected from the meaning of words in the food industry and agriculture. To use precise language when talking about food is seen as a way of betraying the experience and forming it into a foodie experience. Foodie experiences are often seen as elite status improving endeavors. But what do we really need to know about the language of food? And shouldn’t we all be more informed eaters? When it comes to the future of food, sustainability is a hot button issue. As concerns for the ecology of food production environments rise, more and more attention will be paid to the science and details of food.

I came to study food as a way of entry into communes and intentional communities across the country. I though that even the most private group would most likely be willing to share a meal. The following is a draft of interview questions I created for field work I hoped to do on intentional communities and their mealtime practices. Intentional Community food survey How many people live in the community? Adult. Children. Is there a limit to how many people can live or visit? What is this limit based on? How are members selected? How many people visit the community? Does a distinction between these change the nature of meals? Is food grown on the property? What is the size of the lot? What is the size of plots dedicated to which grown food? It any food sold or traded outside of the community? How are meals structured? Do they follow traditional meal breakdowns? Where does the food come from? What is the food served on? How is the food served? Wh...