Po(sey) Sessions

Today I started wondering, are there different types of avocados? There must be! The different names and varieties of single ingredients has been challenging when I try to study food. I have been working on building a food database on the origin of food items and any folklore that might be connected with it. But food is so much more transmutable than we give it credit for. Of course, we know these transmutations happen, that is part of the appeal! The simple answer is YES! There are different kinds of avocados. Once I read an interview with a woman who was a turnip expert . I just though that was the coolest thing ever. Should I become and expert on avocados? A cursory Google search provided me with a fascinating glimpse into avocado identification. "There are hundreds of types of avocados, but seven avocado varieties are grown commercially in California. The Hass variety accounts for approximately 95 percent of the total crop each year" Visible variations in pi...

The movie Soul Food entered theatres in 1997 and centers around the tradition of Sunday dinner. In this family, the relatives get together for a meal at Mama Joe’s house; a tradition which has been alive for over forty years. But family drama is starting to tear everyone apart. Especially after Mama Joe enters the hospital due to diabetes complication. The movie is mainly narrated by Mama Joe’s young grandson, Ahmad, who provides some unique perspectives on the family drama. The term soul food is not without controversy. First coined in the 1960s, the terms has gone through a few iterations since. The most interesting controversy that may have arisen is the desire of African American to disconnect with the terminology and the food it represents. Since I started studying the cuisine of slaves and the descendants of slaves, referred to as Gullah in some regions, I have been curious about where soul food ends and Gullah cuisine begins. And if that line exists, I still do not know ...

Social research breaks down into two basic research approaches. These methods are quantitative and qualitative. Research with a quantitative approach focuses on separating the data into numbers than can be analysed. Research with a qualitative approach focuses on understanding and exposing trends of thought through the impression of the observer. The purpose of a quantitative research method is to create an action plan, while a qualitative research method is to create a basis of understanding. Quantitative research focuses on experiments, surveys, content analysis, and existing statistics. Qualitative research focuses on field research and historical comparative research. The two variables to be examined by this paper are poverty and food security. These two variables take on different and interesting dynamics depending on the method used to collect the data. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis provides insightful understandings to these issues and the dynamic between the...

I got a good start on my reading for the year this month. I have set a goal to read 104 books this year. I am already a little behind schedule, but I am feeling okay about my progress.  The holidays are not a motivated time for me. And while this year wasn't too bad, I did not get as much reading done when I was traveling as I had hoped. I have been focusing a little bit on books about creativity. I have started drawing and painting more. I find this work really fulfilling. I also got the idea about creating a calendar/to do list system that is specifically customized for the lives of creative people. It is just an idea I have right, but the books I have been reading on creativity have helped me with some of the ideas I am having. It is exciting to be reconnecting with my creative life. Now that school has started again, I am worried that may go to they wayside. I finished SIX books: 1. Children of Eden 2. The Dot 3. Year of the Cow 4. Steal Like an Artist 5. Howl...

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...