tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/food-culture-13953/articles
Food culture – The Conversation
2022-10-06T12:16:50Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/191839
2022-10-06T12:16:50Z
2022-10-06T12:16:50Z
Dude food is not patriotic – vegetables and moderation are more deeply rooted in the nation’s early history
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488168/original/file-20221004-14-983iyd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C24%2C8167%2C5420&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Neither George Washington nor Thomas Jefferson would have approved of this bacon cheeseburger. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/bacon-cheeseburger-with-salad-in-bun-served-on-royalty-free-image/1374703509?phrase=beef%20barbecue&adppopup=true">zoranm/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dude food is on a roll in America. Gargantuan pizzas, footlong subs, high-stacked burgers and extra-loaded nachos remain <a href="https://www.fatherly.com/health/dude-food-masculinity">a basic choice for any real or pretend He-Man</a>.</p>
<p>Eating dude food conjures not just manliness, however. There’s patriotism, too. <a href="https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/guy-fieri-food-network-salary-shows-interview-1235388817/">TV networks keep churning out shows</a> that celebrate the quasi-magical equation between <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469660745/diners-dudes-and-diets/">generous portions, masculinity and devotion to country</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.foodnetwork.com/profiles/talent/guy-fieri">Guy Fieri, the multimillionaire guru of dudeism</a>, has a clear-cut philosophy. His barbecues and other cooking performances are a means to celebrate American patriotism, counteracting what he describes as a lot of “<a href="https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2022/04/28/guy-fieri-serves-lunch-military-members-ahead-stagecoach/9561740002/">infighting and democratic craziness that goes on</a>” in the U.S. </p>
<p>Dude food, Fieri says, would remind Americans about “what a great country we are and how lucky we are to be <a href="https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2022/04/28/guy-fieri-serves-lunch-military-members-ahead-stagecoach/9561740002/">the greatest country in the world</a>.”</p>
<p>But as an author of a new book on George Washington, notoriously <a href="https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12786/first-among-men">the first among men</a>, I can assure you that there was a time when dude food was not celebrated as either masculine or patriotic.</p>
<p>At that moment in American history, devouring heaping helpings wasn’t considered manly by the country’s leaders. It was seen as grotesque, perhaps even a vestige of aristocratic British habits: “I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1785, “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-06-02-0120">which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488165/original/file-20221004-19-jugmvt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C13%2C2995%2C2447&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A bleached blond man with a goatee and wearing a camo shirt grills steaks over a fire, which is flaming high." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488165/original/file-20221004-19-jugmvt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C13%2C2995%2C2447&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488165/original/file-20221004-19-jugmvt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488165/original/file-20221004-19-jugmvt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488165/original/file-20221004-19-jugmvt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488165/original/file-20221004-19-jugmvt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488165/original/file-20221004-19-jugmvt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488165/original/file-20221004-19-jugmvt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chef Guy Fieri demonstrates how real men cook real meat in real fire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/chef-and-television-personality-guy-fieri-prepares-food-at-news-photo/957632110?phrase=guy%20fieri%20food&adppopup=true">Ethan Miller/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Revolution meets the kitchen</h2>
<p>After gaining independence, one of the founders’ main concerns was to make the new “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-04-02-0363">experiment</a>,” as they called the nation, as little “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=corrupt%20Author%3A%22Jefferson%2C%20Thomas%22&s=1111311111&r=7&sr=">corrupt</a>” and as little British as possible.</p>
<p>It was in the kitchen, Jefferson joked, that a “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-06-02-0120">reformation must be worked</a>.” He wasn’t entirely joking. Educating Americans to eschew gluttony, to cut down on red meat and to model their manliness upon ideals of moderation, self-control and other <a href="https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2785&context=cklawreview">republican virtues</a> was serious stuff to Jefferson and his fellow founders.</p>
<p>Self-styled manly men, today as well as a couple of centuries ago, eat a lot. And, as author Carol J. Adams writes in “<a href="https://caroljadams.com/spom-the-book">The Sexual Politics of Meat</a>,” they do not eat vegetables, berries or <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780826404558">ingredients that can be easily cultivated or foraged</a>. </p>
<p>But eating roast beef as King <a href="https://owlcation.com/humanities/Henry-VIIIs-Kitchens">Henry VIII</a> did wasn’t a habit American leaders sought to imitate, or in any way encourage. We are what we eat, an old adage says, and in the eyes of the founders, those who indulged in humongous servings or blood-soaked chunks of flesh couldn’t become a good model for the nation.</p>
<p>John Adams, the second president, found it “humiliating,” “degrading” and “mortifying” that Americans should excel in intemperance, regarding food or when it comes to their drinking habits. </p>
<p>“Is it not humiliating that Mahometans and Hindoes,” Adams asked, “should put to shame the whole Christian world by their superior examples of Temperance? is it not degrading to Englishmen and Americans that they are so infinitely exceeded by the French in this cardinal virtue and is it not mortifying beyond all expression that we Americans should exceed all other and millions of people in the world in <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=Is%20it%20not%20humiliating%20that%20Mahometans%20and%20Hindoes&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr=">this degrading beastly vice of Intemperance</a>?”</p>
<p>Washington, for one, stood up as an example of temperance. He largely adhered to “a vegitable and milk diet,” eating only small amounts of red meat. Washington’s alimentary philosophy was to avoid “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-13-02-0033">as much as possible animal food</a>.” </p>
<p>Medical doctors, similarly, frowned upon the consumption of meat. In November 1757, for example, Washington was bedridden with dysentery. As the doctor arrived, he pronounced his therapy. “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-05-02-0035">He forbids the use of meats</a>,” Washington wrote in one letter.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488169/original/file-20221004-24-guw299.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A tidy and large garden, with a group of visitors in the middle of it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488169/original/file-20221004-24-guw299.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488169/original/file-20221004-24-guw299.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488169/original/file-20221004-24-guw299.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488169/original/file-20221004-24-guw299.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488169/original/file-20221004-24-guw299.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488169/original/file-20221004-24-guw299.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488169/original/file-20221004-24-guw299.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Jefferson believed in a diet dominated by vegetables, more than 300 varieties of which were grown in his garden at Monticello, shown here in 1987.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/guide-talks-with-a-group-of-visitors-in-the-garden-at-news-photo/142770631?phrase=Monticello%20garden&adppopup=true">Robert Alexander/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>As a whole, Washington never turned his meals into occasions during which he would promote his masculinity. He always aimed for moderation – even if, by today’s standards, he does not appear ascetic.</p>
<p>Washington was fond of fish. On Saturdays, especially during his time as president, <a href="https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12786/first-among-men">he usually had what was called a “salt fish dinner</a>,” a potpourri of boiled beets, potatoes and onion mixed with boiled fish, fried pork scraps and egg sauce. </p>
<p>His soldiers as well had to learn the habit of temperance – and to learn it the hard way. </p>
<p>“The health of the army,” one of Washington’s orders goes, “cannot be preserved without a due portion of vegetable diet. This <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=cannot%20be%20preserved%20without%20a%20due%20portion%20of%20vegetable%20diet&s=1111311111&sa=&r=2&sr=">must be procured whatever may be the expense</a>.”</p>
<p>Washington’s officers were expected not only to supervise the “cleanliness of the camp” but above all “to inspect the food of the men, both as to the quality and the manner of dressing it.” It was crucial to push soldiers “to accustom themselves more to boiled meats and soups and less to broiled and roasted, which, as a constant diet, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-09-02-0584">is destructive to their health</a>.”</p>
<p>It wasn’t only “destructive to their health”; it was a bad example for the nation. Many people could see the famous general and later the president <a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820328249/life-of-general-washington/">eating moderately</a>. Washington thus established a clear-cut difference between himself, a civilized and modern man, humble and calm, and those hapless creatures who were trapped at an inferior stage of civilization.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488170/original/file-20221004-18-3s15jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An 18th century family, consisting of a well-dressed boy and girl, and their parents, at a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488170/original/file-20221004-18-3s15jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488170/original/file-20221004-18-3s15jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488170/original/file-20221004-18-3s15jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488170/original/file-20221004-18-3s15jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488170/original/file-20221004-18-3s15jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488170/original/file-20221004-18-3s15jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488170/original/file-20221004-18-3s15jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Washington, seen here in a family portrait, believed in eating ‘a vegitable and milk diet’ and avoiding ‘as much as possible animal food.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.561.html">Edward Savage painter, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, National Gallery of Art</a></span>
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<h2>Moderation and self-control</h2>
<p>The founders’ culinary preferences were a political act. They were inviting men to repudiate one of their allegedly essential masculine privileges, the craving to sate their vast appetites.</p>
<p>“I have lived temperately,” old Jefferson explained to Dr. Vine Utley, “eating little animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-14-02-0144">condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet</a>.”</p>
<p>Adams, Washington and Jefferson didn’t fear that by abstaining from dude food they would have been seen as weak. They didn’t dread exclusion from male company. For them, moderation and self-control were more important manly assets.</p>
<p>Moderation and self-control, the founders believed, would give Americans a clearer mind to think about the future of their nation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191839/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maurizio Valsania does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The celebration of generous portions, meat and fat as masculine and patriotic would have been alien to Washington and Jefferson, who advocated vegetables and moderation as American ideals.
Maurizio Valsania, Professor of American History, Università di Torino
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/184142
2022-06-01T03:32:48Z
2022-06-01T03:32:48Z
Should you feed child guests dinner? What #Swedengate tells us about food culture and social expectations
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466471/original/file-20220601-48845-4zgi4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C0%2C5431%2C3637&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>From meatballs and cakes to soups and seafood, Sweden is known for its hearty cuisine. It’s also renowned for its <a href="https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/sweden/">quality of life</a>, topping many countries in happiness, equality and social connection.</p>
<p>Perhaps this is why news on Reddit and Twitter that Swedes don’t feed child guests dinner caused a stir online. As <a href="https://twitter.com/SamQari/status/1529868644846641153">one poster explained</a>, while over at a friend’s house as a child, the family ate dinner together – and the friend was expected to wait.</p>
<p>Some Swedes supported these claims, saying unannounced child guests often weren’t accounted for in meal planning, that it could be <a href="https://twitter.com/malin_ryden/status/1530849758755028994">down to class</a>, or food wasn’t offered “<a href="https://www.thelocal.se/20220530/fact-check-do-swedish-parents-really-not-feed-kids-on-playdates/">out of respect</a>” for the parents of the visiting child – they might have planned dinner which would then be “wasted”.</p>
<p>Who is allowed to go without in a prosperous and inclusive society was debated under the hashtag #Swedengate, and ignited discussion about expectations of hospitality in Sweden and further abroad.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1529868644846641153"}"></div></p>
<h2>The anthropology of food</h2>
<p>The act of eating is steeped in cultural practice. Food and eating possess cultural meanings that impose order on what is eaten, when, how and by whom. </p>
<p>Social anthropologists have long studied how people eat and what this says about cultural norms.</p>
<p>In the 1960s, <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo3614777.html">Claude Lévi-Strauss’ work</a> among Brazilian Indigenous peoples highlighted ingrained cultural habits about food preparation and how these practices can inform a culture’s system of knowledge. </p>
<p>In the 1980s, <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674212770">Pierre Bourdieu’s analysis</a> of French society showed how a person’s ability to exercise “good taste” is connected to the operation of power and their position in society.</p>
<p>The company we keep during mealtimes has also been explored by anthropologists. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40971306?seq=1">Maurice Bloch famously quipped</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>in all societies, sharing food is a way of establishing closeness, while, conversely, the refusal to share is one of the clearest marks of distance.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is easy to observe this in our own lives. We prefer to eat with friends rather than strangers. It is possible to sit too closely to people we don’t know and sometimes not sit closely enough to loved ones. There are observable differences in expected behaviours when consuming finger food versus a sit-down dinner.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1530940506506674178"}"></div></p>
<h2>The kindness of a meal</h2>
<p>The #Swedengate controversy demonstrates how cultural norms regulate behaviour and produce expectations. </p>
<p>In Australia – and seemingly most countries, accounting for the ensuing discussion on Reddit and Twitter – we believe physical presence should lead to a meal invitation.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-elementary-structures-of-kinship-9780807046692">Lévi-Strauss wrote</a>, eating with others is based on reciprocity: receiving guests is repaid through offering a meal. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1530961995209805824"}"></div></p>
<p>Twitter users quickly <a href="https://twitter.com/QJUXUQ/status/1531092011280891904">suggested</a> meals were similarly not offered to unaccounted for children in other Nordic countries, with comparisons made to more “hospitable” areas of <a href="https://twitter.com/KantyashLive/status/1530914952319475714">Europe</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/Mystic_Cabbages/status/1530961995209805824">Asia</a>.</p>
<p>Connections were also made with Nordic Viking culture from antiquity and how a meal or gift was <a href="https://twitter.com/WallySierk/status/1530956689855217665">similar to a debt</a>.</p>
<p>There is limited evidence of the honour and debt practices of the Vikings bearing on contemporary Nordic culture. But we can clearly see how differences in eating practices can highlight the different meanings different communities attach to sharing a meal.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-americas-sandwiches-the-story-of-a-nation-86649">In America's sandwiches, the story of a nation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Sharing meals in Iceland</h2>
<p>The culture of not extending an invitation to guests for dinner is certainly not standard across all Nordic cultures.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02757206.2020.1762589">research I conducted</a> among Icelandic families after the 2008 global financial crisis, I observed the way I was received at mealtimes as a cultural “outsider”.</p>
<p>At one gathering, I sat as an invited guest among a family of seven spaced out around a large dining table, highlighting the formality of the afternoon. </p>
<p>At another event, a farewell party, several people known to one another crowded around a four-seat kitchen table, picking at food on a few plates. The closeness of bodies at this event gestured at its informality and social intimacy.</p>
<p>But meals aren’t always to be shared. One woman I interviewed recalled her decision to walk out of a restaurant when a banker associated with the economic crisis arrived:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I just looked at him and walked out. We don’t forgive or forget, not these men. Most people wouldn’t scream or anything, we’re a little more polite. We walk away. They can have the restaurant to themselves.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1531266478909149184"}"></div></p>
<h2>The meaning of a meal</h2>
<p>The offer or denial of a meal can be telling of social relations. #Swedengate shows how invites can be dependent on historical precedent, parental expectation or food wastage.</p>
<p>Localised norms have existed in all cultures across history. Denial isn’t necessarily an act of inhospitality – it just points to cultural norms, contested as they may be, as seen through the #Swedengate controversy.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1531296270077288450"}"></div></p>
<p>Hasty judgements about food and eating are not always accurate. Deeper meanings have always been behind mealtime offerings. </p>
<p>Perhaps what is most interesting about #Swedengate is not what it tells us about Sweden, but what it tells us about ourselves.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/will-european-countries-ever-take-meaningful-steps-to-end-colonial-legacies-148581">Will European countries ever take meaningful steps to end colonial legacies?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184142/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research was supported by the Australian Government's Research Training Program (RTP). Timothy Heffernan is also affiliated with ANU College of Health and Medicine as a research assistant.</span></em></p>
Perhaps what is most interesting about #Swedengate is not what it tells us about Sweden, but what it tells us about ourselves.
Timothy Heffernan, Postdoctoral fellow, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/172596
2022-01-05T16:02:17Z
2022-01-05T16:02:17Z
A competitive cooking show puts a humble fermented rice dish on the global stage
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436732/original/file-20211209-25-116pmlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A growing interest in fermented foods may direct people to a Bengali fermented rice dish.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/a-competitive-cooking-show-puts-a-humble-fermented-rice-dish-on-the-global-stage" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>It was Kishwar Chowdhury, a competitor and second runner-up on the 13th season of <em>MasterChef Australia</em>, <a href="https://www.indiatimes.com/entertainment/originals/meet-kishwar-chowdhury-who-is-making-aloo-bhorta-panta-bhat-popular-in-masterchef-australia-544845.html">who made a dish called panta bhat internationally famous</a>. A rather humble dish from eastern India (Assam, Odisha and West Bengal) and Bangladesh, one could never have imagined it achieving such a level of critical acclaim.</p>
<p>Panta bhat is cooked parboiled rice that is soaked in cold water and left to ferment. Very often it’s left overnight, although some may even ferment it longer. The rice is then eaten with accompaniments that can vary depending on the economic condition of the family or the individual — ranging from basics like mustard oil, raw onion and green chillies to more elaborate sides like fried fish, batter-fried veggies and potatoes. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mOc1QdNHHEw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">How to make panta bhat.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fermenting in pond water</h2>
<p>Ten years ago, panta bhat was <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/764530">associated with several cases of cholera</a>. The dish is a rural staple and popular breakfast in eastern India and Bangladesh, but the use of contaminated water in the preparation of the rice created the perfect conditions for the development of disease. </p>
<p>Using pond water in making panta bhat <a href="https://doi.org/10.3329/jhpn.v29i5.8895">had been a major cause of the disease</a>. There were several public health campaigns that were specifically designed to prevent the villagers from using pond water, but they were often ineffective. </p>
<p>Despite its role in causing cholera, the popularity of the dish never declined. It’s a cheap meal that needs no refrigeration. Further, one can cook the rice in a pot and soak the leftovers in the same pot. Finally, it is not only cheap and convenient, but also needs very little time to make.</p>
<p>The role of panta bhat is so central to Bengal that there is a popular folkloric figure called Panta Buri — “old woman who eats panta” — who has many adventures after a thief steals her panta bhat. In order to seek justice for the theft, she goes on a long journey to meet the king. On her way, she meets many eclectic characters like a talking knife, a catfish, a bael (a native fruit species) and an alligator. While the characters change in different versions, <a href="https://golpojuri.blogspot.com/2019/12/panta-buri-bangla-golpo.html">the context of her journey remains the same</a>. </p>
<p>Panta bhat is a dish that reflects the soul of rural Bengal. Yet the dish has now made it to a very popular television show, and feeds into the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizzysaxe/2019/02/06/fermented-foods-are-up-149-percent-as-long-as-theyre-unfamiliar/">growing interest in fermented foods</a>. </p>
<p>Panta bhat is an acquired taste — a penchant for fermented rice is certainly not as widespread as, say, fried potatoes. Immigrant chefs are now pushing us towards bolder taste, a taste that is defiant, and not overshadowed by past colonial ambivalence. </p>
<h2>Acceptance through food</h2>
<p>Increasingly, immigrants have become unapologetic about their culinary roots. For example, British-Ghanaian chef Zoe Adjonyoh actively discusses issues like colonialism and racism that <a href="https://www.foodandwine.com/chefs/chef-zoe-adjonyoh-is-not-here-to-summarize-african-food-for-you">influence how traditional cuisines are perceived and accepted</a>. Nadiya Hussein became popular after winning the 2015 season of <em>The Great British Bake Off</em>, and helped <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/apr/18/nadiya-hussain-i-never-even-dreamed-of-being-a-part-of-all-this">popularize unique fusion foods through her writing and a series of television cooking shows</a>.</p>
<p>This interest in ethnic cuisines can also be seen in the growing number of food shows and documentaries like <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/david-chang-ugly-delicious-asian-american-culture_n_5a85c109e4b0774f31d33120"><em>Ugly Delicious</em></a>, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-20/this-netflix-series-gets-to-the-heart-of-black-american-food-culture"><em>High on the Hog</em></a>, <a href="https://time.com/5896336/china-us-food-flavorful-origins-netflix/"><em>Flavorful Origins</em></a> and many others that show a growing interest in the subject and a curiosity about authentic culinary storytelling. </p>
<p>We have a very long way to go when it comes to embracing versatile tastes from non-western cultures. In 2019, American national security affairs professor Tom Nichols felt the need to openly disparage Indian food on Twitter.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1198349042683658241"}"></div></p>
<p>While it sparked a major controversy, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50550735">Nichols’ tweet exposed the fault lines of racism that so frequently get expressed in belittling immigrant tastes</a>.</p>
<p>But there is hope, and a lot of curiosity. Instead of trying to alter and adjust their cuisine to existing western standards, young immigrant chefs are learning about their culinary past, and slowly trying to integrate their unique flavours into the growing world of global cuisine in very honest, authentic ways.</p>
<p>Let’s face it, fermented rice with strong mustard oil and spicy green chillies is like a bold, raw taste of defiance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172596/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aditi Sen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A rice dish’s debut on a cooking competition show reflects the growing acceptance of ethnic foods.
Aditi Sen, Assistant Professor, History, Queen's University, Ontario
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/130710
2020-01-30T14:42:44Z
2020-01-30T14:42:44Z
Britain’s European food connection pre-dates the EU and will survive Brexit
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312827/original/file-20200130-41541-1l6wl4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C22%2C2970%2C3694&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Temperance Enjoying a Frugal Meal' depicting George III and Queen Charlotte at table. By
Hannah Humphrey (1745–1818) and
James Gillray (1756–1815).</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Metropolitan Museum of Art</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The EU and the UK are now negotiating the terms of their new relationship after Brexit. Food supply problems are a <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-food-shortages-are-not-inevitable-keep-calm-and-dont-panic-buy-110543">very real potential problem</a>, but we are also having a food-related identity crisis: what will happen to our cosmopolitan and global diet? Will we end up having to replace olive oil with lard or gateau with steamed pudding? Are we destined to return to a diet of roast beef (or Quorn, for the vegetarians)?</p>
<p>The question of what it might mean to be both British and European, however, is one that has been asked for longer than the past three years. Our research team is <a href="https://recipes.hypotheses.org/15575">examining Britishness and European identity</a>, focusing on the eating habits of the English at the end of the 18th century – the first age of nationalism. </p>
<p>We started our project when we came across a book of menus (not yet available online, sadly) written by William Gorton, the steward at Kew Palace. His job was to keep track of food bought and served at the palace, since even George III had to answer to the taxpayer.</p>
<p>The menus reveal that even though England and France were often at war in the 18th century, the British royal family ate a lot of dishes with French-sounding names. Dishes such as “<a href="https://www.acanadianfoodie.com/2018/01/31/princess-cake-aka-the-duchess-cake/">gateau a la duchesse</a>” and “mutton roulade” were frequently on the tables of King George and Queen Charlotte, the equerries (officers of the royal household) and pages, and the princesses and their governess. </p>
<p>For the royal household, French food was not associated with a specific European identity – indeed, “identity” is a recent concept that would have made little sense to 18th-century royals. Rather, French food marked their high social status. At Kew, grooms and servants were served roasted meats: the plain, hearty fare of the English working people.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312789/original/file-20200130-41554-n37rwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312789/original/file-20200130-41554-n37rwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312789/original/file-20200130-41554-n37rwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312789/original/file-20200130-41554-n37rwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312789/original/file-20200130-41554-n37rwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312789/original/file-20200130-41554-n37rwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312789/original/file-20200130-41554-n37rwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sumptuous: George III’s Dining Room At Kew Palace in London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jim Linwood</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While many well-off Britons dined happily on French-inspired cuisine, it remained a commonly held view that English food was more honest than the food served on the other side of the Channel. Some writers, for example, disparaged <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DVVsBL6eTH0C&pg=PA378&lpg=PA378&dq=French+food+as+%22foreign+kickshaws%22&source=bl&ots=Ds0NWVjPyH&sig=ACfU3U1ZhOPA9CJGy1ldUyYha4hZn2lY4w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjTo7rrmKvnAhXcUxUIHQgvCvoQ6AEwAHoECCoQAQ#v=onepage&q=French%20food%20as%20%22foreign%20kickshaws%22&f=false">French food as “foreign kickshaws”</a>, a word supposedly derived from the French <em>quelque chose</em> (which has come to mean a trinket, but originally was about foreign – French – food). Yet by the 1860s, Mrs Beeton, the most British of cookery writers, could describe “modern cookery” as “greatly indebted to the gastronomic propensities of our French neighbours” – even offering a three-page lexicon of French culinary terms used in English.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-macaroni-scandal-of-1772-gay-trial-a-century-before-oscar-wilde-99876">The 'macaroni' scandal of 1772: 'gay' trial a century before Oscar Wilde</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>French cuisine was not the only foreign influence we found at the king’s dinner table at Kew, although it might have been the most established. French dishes had been making their way into the elite English diet since at least the English translation of <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a2a61b4c-3f84-11e4-a5f5-00144feabdc0">Francois Pierre de La Varenne’s The French Cook</a> in 1653. By the mid-18th century, other European flavours were arriving in England via travellers, particularly well-to-do young men who extended their education by taking a “Grand Tour” of European cultural sites. The link between food, travel and nation was made clear in terms such as “macaroni”, the name given to the young Englishmen who <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-macaroni-scandal-of-1772-gay-trial-a-century-before-oscar-wilde-99876">mimicked European behaviours</a>.</p>
<h2>The royal table</h2>
<p>Here are some other European foods the royal household bought and ate in the winter of 1789, as George recuperated from his first bout of mental illness:</p>
<p><strong>Macaroni:</strong> On January 29 1789 the King’s equerries were served macaroni as part of their dinner. Macaroni was not mainstream yet in the 18th century, but by 1800 it was <a href="https://recipes.hypotheses.org/10510">beginning to appear</a> in <a href="https://rarecooking.com/2014/06/30/maccarony-cheese/">published cookbooks</a>, which suggests that aspirational middle-class housewives were starting to consider it respectable.</p>
<p><strong>Sausage:</strong> One of the dishes served to their majesties on Friday, January 30 1789, was a Mettwurst made out of Richmond pork. This is the perfect marriage of local and global: a German sausage prepared from meat raised nearby at Richmond. Mettwurst appeared often on the royal menus, suggesting that the royal family’s recent German heritage was still present at their table.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312836/original/file-20200130-41490-118luil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312836/original/file-20200130-41490-118luil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312836/original/file-20200130-41490-118luil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312836/original/file-20200130-41490-118luil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312836/original/file-20200130-41490-118luil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312836/original/file-20200130-41490-118luil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312836/original/file-20200130-41490-118luil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Buying a German Sausage, or a Foreign Dainty for the Wedding Feast by J Sidebotham (1818)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The Trustees of the British Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Vermicelli soup:</strong> The following day, Saturday, the soup at dinner was vermicelli, showing yet more evidence of Italian influence at the table. Vermicelli appeared in English cookbooks more often than macaroni, and vermicelli soup was one of about five soups that frequently appeared on the royal table. The other soups tended to have French names, such as <em>Soupe Santé _or_Soupe Julienne</em>.</p>
<p><strong>Toasted cheese:</strong> On Sunday, Feb 1 1789, ramekins – a dish of French origin – were on the menu for the equerries. This savoury dish of baked cheese, butter and eggs appeared in English as early as 1653, as a recipe in Varenne’s French Cook. By 1801, it was basically toasted cheese.</p>
<p><strong>Parmesan:</strong> This famous cheese appeared on a list of the foods received from suppliers on February 6 1789. “Parmezan” was a common feature of palace meals and regularly appeared in cookbooks available to upper- and middle-class domestic cooks. It made its first appearance in an English publication as far back as 1519 – and was considered so fine, that diarist Samuel Pepys buried his parmesan during the Great Fire of London.</p>
<h2>Shared traditions</h2>
<p>It is difficult to identify specifically British foods. Many of the European foods on the royal menu are still in our diet today, as the foods moved from being high status and unusual to the everyday. Even the cultural association of roast beef with English working people is complicated, since across Europe roasts were medically considered a suitable food only for robust and working bodies, not delicate, aristocratic ones. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312838/original/file-20200130-41554-xhb3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312838/original/file-20200130-41554-xhb3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312838/original/file-20200130-41554-xhb3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312838/original/file-20200130-41554-xhb3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312838/original/file-20200130-41554-xhb3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312838/original/file-20200130-41554-xhb3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312838/original/file-20200130-41554-xhb3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Hogarth O the Roast Beef of Old England (‘The Gate of Calais’).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tate Britain</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the late 18th-century menus highlight, Britain has had a long tradition of mixing the local and the European in our diet – even during outright warfare. We will not be giving up our olive oil any time soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130710/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Rich receives funding from the British Academy. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>LWSmith receives funding from the British Academy. </span></em></p>
Britain’s food relationship with Europe goes back centuries – is it unlikely to end post=Brexit.
Rachel Rich, History Course Director, Leeds Beckett University
Lisa Smith, Lecturer in History, University of Essex
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/119004
2019-06-18T13:57:34Z
2019-06-18T13:57:34Z
Meat is masculine: how food advertising perpetuates harmful gender stereotypes
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279991/original/file-20190618-118510-139ki83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C4%2C995%2C658&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's always a bloke seen attacking a huge burger in the adverts, isn't it?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Odua Images via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK Advertising Standards Authority has introduced a new rule in its advertising code which <a href="https://www.asa.org.uk/news/ban-on-harmful-gender-stereotypes-in-ads-comes-into-force.html">bans adverts which feature gender stereotypes</a> “that are likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence”. </p>
<p>This is a welcome step towards challenging the everyday normality of patriarchy in popular culture. But gender stereotypes in advertising cannot be untangled from human oppression of other animals. Consuming other animals is normalised in our culture, so those sorts of “stereotypes that are likely to cause harm” go unnoticed, and aren’t usually judged to have caused “serious or widespread offence”. </p>
<p>In recent years there has been an increase in the popularity and visibility of veganism – and there are <a href="https://www.mintel.com/press-centre/food-and-drink/veganuary-uk-overtakes-germany-as-worlds-leader-for-vegan-food-launches">more new vegan products being launched in the UK</a> than anywhere else in the world. While animal ethics remains a core reason for adopting vegan practices, <a href="https://veganuary.com/blog/veganuary-2019-the-results-are-in/">increasingly health concerns and the climate crisis</a> are prompting people to switch to veganism. </p>
<p><a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781786606471/Critical-Animal-Studies-Towards-Trans-species-Social-Justice">We have previously written</a> about adverts that reproduce harmful gender stereotypes while normalising human oppression of other animals. For example, in a <a href="https://vimeo.com/166342843">2015 Father’s Day TV</a> advert for Aldi supermarket, a girl’s voiceover says her favourite thing is cooking her father a roast dinner. </p>
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<p>The accompanying visual shows a woman’s hand serving a roasted chicken’s carcass. This is followed by a voiceover from a boy explaining his favourite thing is watching his father eat a “juicy steak”. This communicates a subtle message – girls aspire to prepare and serve cooked animals and sons aspire to share the adult male pleasure of consuming those animals.</p>
<p>Is that “likely to cause harm”? Obviously consuming animal products is harmful to the animals – but it harms humans too, especially women. This isn’t just about reinforcing gender stereotypes, like in the Aldi advert. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt14bt0z5">Research has shown</a> that some married women are deterred from vegetarianism because of the disapproval, rejection and even violence from their husbands. But are boys also being harmed by these stereotypes? Certainly insofar as they are encouraged to identify with a version of masculinity that depends on power over women and over other animals. </p>
<p>We have argued <a href="https://academic.oup.com/isle/article-abstract/24/4/767/4795356?redirectedFrom=fulltext">elsewhere</a> and here that “humour” is a defensive response that attempts to insulate oppressive power relations from critique. But we should remain alert to the potency and power dynamics of jokes in advertising. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/vegans-why-they-inspire-fear-and-loathing-among-meat-eaters-106015">Vegans: why they inspire fear and loathing among meat eaters</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Just a bit of fun?</h2>
<p>Like many adverts, Cravendale’s “<a href="https://youtu.be/t4Xt_XS9BJA">Milk Me Brian</a>” uses comedic armour to deflect criticism of its gender stereotypes. It features a spoof origin myth of the human consumption of cows’ milk. The advert begins with a modern man gazing through a kitchen window at a field of contented-looking cows, while a woman is busy with housework in the background. “Brian” daydreams a bygone version of himself – lying beside a sleeping woman and being visited by a spectral cow inviting him to “milk me Brian”. The voiceover then heralds Brian as a “lion among men”, for having solved the “problem” of expropriating cows’ milk for human consumption. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/t4Xt_XS9BJA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>“Milk me Brian” naturalises male dominance as resulting from controlling female reproductive processes. That is, Brian is lionised for successfully milking a cow. <a href="https://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-culture/how-we-teach-children-a-separate-morality-for-food-animals/">Comparing men to lions</a> in particular, is a common tactic for normalising rigid and immutable hierarchical social relations. This is because patriarchal cultural meanings tend to associate masculinity with charismatic carnivorous animals, who are used to symbolise masculine power and authority.</p>
<p>Cultural Studies researcher <a href="https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004325852/B9789004325852_006.xml">Vasile Stanescu</a> wrote in 2016 about the highly successful 2008 Burger King campaign “<a href="https://youtu.be/xWDkC3HXG64">The Whopper Virgins</a>”. It featured “blind” taste testing by people in countries who had been “deprived” of American fast food. The campaign used the tag line: “Real locations. Real burgers. Real virgins.” These adverts play into shared understandings of links between meat eating, gender and western superiority. Here, lack of familiarity with Western fast food is equated with sexual immaturity (“virgins”) and inferior masculinity.</p>
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<h2>The male appetite</h2>
<p>Feminist scholar <a href="https://caroljadams.com/spom-the-book">Carol J Adams</a> has written about connections between gender and animal products for 30 years. Her work illustrates the symbolic links between the consumption of meat and the oppression of of meat and the oppression of women – and the way that adverts are never only promoting products, but also promoting dominant cultural meanings. </p>
<p>Foremost among these are gender stereotypes that harm women and harm non-human animals. The packaging of dead flesh and female flesh have long been connected in advertising. Adams has collected a <a href="https://caroljadams.com/examples-of-spom">massive archive</a> of advertising imagery in which both meat and women are presented as wanting to be ravished/consumed.</p>
<p>In advertising images such as “Chick It Out”, which advertised a new menu at a self-styled “eatery and funhouse” in Nottingham in the Midlands, anthropomorphic images of animals as human women are presented in sexually provocative ways. They position both women and animals as purposed for the enjoyment of appropriate male appetites for food, sex and power. Eating and fun, therefore, at this venue (and many others using similar imagery) is aimed at the straight male meat eater and, by association, communicates this space as a place for men. </p>
<p>If the advertising watchdog really wants to remove harmful gender stereotypes, it needs to recognise and address how the invitation to consume any bodies as objects for enjoyment reinforces these destructive power relations and objectifies both animals and women.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Stewart is a life member of The Vegan Society</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Cole is a life member of The Vegan Society. </span></em></p>
In the world of advertising, meat is for men, while serving dinner is for the women.
Kate Stewart, Principal Lecturer in Sociology, Nottingham Trent University
Matthew Cole, Lecturer in Sociology, The Open University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/117532
2019-05-22T07:58:44Z
2019-05-22T07:58:44Z
Jamie Oliver restaurant closures – did the celebrity chef bite off more than he could chew?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275711/original/file-20190521-23826-1t1q7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>More than a decade after being launched with a great fanfare of publicity, Jamie Oliver’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/may/21/jamie-oliver-jobs-administrators-restaurants-jamies-italian">restaurant group has been taken into administration</a> with the potential loss of up to 1,300 jobs. One person unlikely to be redundant, though, is Oliver himself, as the 43-year-old chef and television presenter will almost certainly continue with his television work and the sponsorship deals and advocacy work that his celebrity has brought him. </p>
<p>It is easy to be cynical about celebrity enterprises, whether they are built on real skill – as in the case of Oliver – real talent or pure celebrity status, as in the <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/lyapalater/things-built-under-the-kardashianjenner-empire">case of the Kardashians</a>. </p>
<p>Admittedly he was lucky in getting his break while working at the River Cafe in west London where a film crew was making a documentary and identified his chirpy TV presence as the next big thing in TV chefs. As one <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/why-are-they-famous-jamie-oliver-1092402.htmlas">commentator remarked at the time</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>While some have been par-boiling for decades, young Jamie had put in a mere soupcon of an apprenticeship before his star quality was spotted at London’s famed River Cafe. Take one lad, sprinkle with some clever sexy marketing, add wacky camera angles, and hey presto, a fully-formed superchef is born.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But Oliver was – and is – a natural on television. And he has used his undoubted star power <a href="https://www.jamieoliver.com/features/jamies-plan-to-tackle-childhood-obesity/">as an advocate</a> to try to get people to understand about healthy eating – especially for children and young people – and the importance of home cooked food. </p>
<p>Various popular food brands have leveraged off his popularity and credibility. But his latest <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/19/jamie-oliver-is-burnishing-shells-reputation-and-tarnishing-his-own">association with oil and gas company Shell</a> certainly caused a lot of comment – and in the current climate change debate we doubtless have not heard the last of it. </p>
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<p>The contradiction that he’ll be revamping the oil giant’s food offering is unmistakable to those concerned about climate change – he has been praised as an “environment champion” by the UN’s environment programme after years of campaigning, while Shell’s business plans don’t come close to doing what is required to address the climate crisis. </p>
<h2>A lot on his plate</h2>
<p>So enough of the man, what about his business skills? This is where it might be that the problem lies. While celebrities can and do move into other business for which they have not been trained – Victoria Beckham as fashion designer comes to mind – it is not an easy transition to go from being a TV personality to running what is effectively a large and complex hospitality business. While building a Michelin-starred restaurant such as Le Manoir aux Quatre Saisons requires high-end culinary skills, it is after all only one business. On the other hand, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/16/gordon-ramsay-restaurant-group-hit-by-38m-loss">as Gordon Ramsay found</a>, even having a few premium establishments is a tough business model.</p>
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<p>Of course Oliver himself was not running the business on a day-to-day basis, but he was the driving force behind it and it may be that he did not have the experience or knowledge to recognise that a fashion for dining out is just that – probably temporary when the economy is on the up and people aren’t fearful for the future. At the same time people <a href="https://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Article/2017/11/15/How-many-UK-consumers-are-eating-out-in-2017-2018-and-2019">have been tightening their belts</a> – literally and metaphorically – and while people are still buying food from restaurants, the number of people actually going on “dinner visits” is falling while the number of people taking advantage of the <a href="https://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Article/2017/11/15/How-many-UK-consumers-are-eating-out-in-2017-2018-and-2019">growth of food delivery companies</a> is on the rise. For a branded restaurant chain like Jamie’s which is about the experience as much as the food, this is not good news. </p>
<p>When the business environment changes you have to be fleet of foot and either innovate your product – change it to meet the change in the environment – or at least drawback enough to reassess where to go next. The US restaurant market seems to be <a href="https://openforbusiness.opentable.com/features/grow-thrive/restaurant-evolution-when-to-change-when-to-expand/">particularly good at this</a>, for example, regularly remodelling one’s restaurant space and menu format. Fast expansion for a chain of restaurants is always risky, but – more specifically – here are some of the factors I consider to be key business problems for Oliver’s restaurant empire.</p>
<h2>Hard to swallow</h2>
<ol>
<li><p>The restaurant business is tough. Every day <a href="https://upserve.com/restaurant-insider/5-struggles-running-restaurant/">small independents are closing</a>. That has been the case for as long as I can remember – and many new restaurants close in their first year of trading. </p></li>
<li><p>The chain restaurant trade is newly highly competitive – over the last few years masses of new mid-market restaurants and cafes opened – Byron Burgers, Five Guys, Leon, Joe and the Juice and <a href="https://www.lovefood.com/news/56737/new-restaurant-chains-byron-bills-hummus-bros-wrapchic-barburrito">many more</a>. The market is saturated and this is not like internet shopping where the world is your oyster – restaurants are service businesses that are geographically constrained. People have to get to them and every table not filled on a night is a loss. </p></li>
<li><p>Mass marketing a premium product is difficult. This is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/may/21/jamie-oliver-jobs-administrators-restaurants-jamies-italian">what Oliver said</a> about the vision he had for his restaurants: “We launched Jamie’s Italian in 2008 with the intention of positively disrupting mid-market dining in the UK high street, with great value and much higher quality ingredients, best-in-class animal welfare standards and an amazing team who shared my passion for great food and service. And we did exactly that.” </p></li>
</ol>
<p>But these values come with a price and it isn’t a price everyone can pay and those that can pay, cannot pay every day. Mass-market restaurant chains are far cheaper to run and have a much bigger target market – think McDonalds, Burger King, Greggs.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that a long stretch of economic uncertainty and low wage growth has been a factor in this story – but it cannot just be put down to that. Successfully running restaurants is hard and running a large number of them is a good deal harder. Being a brilliant young chef is one thing – running a business with thousands of employees and a multi-million pound turnover is quite another.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Isabelle Szmigin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
He’s a top chef, a natural on TV, but perhaps Jamie Oliver underestimated the difficulties of running a restaurant chain in a recession.
Isabelle Szmigin, Professor of Marketing, University of Birmingham
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/113210
2019-03-18T12:08:12Z
2019-03-18T12:08:12Z
Brexit: Europe has changed UK food culture for the better – leaving could turn back the clock
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263924/original/file-20190314-28475-1ytzj73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C6216%2C4507&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jamie Oliver has a penchant for pasta.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Scandic Hotels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the UK joined the Common Market in 1974, the country’s restaurants had a total of <a href="https://blog.luxuryrestaurantguide.com/2018/10/11/michelin-history-for-all-restaurants-in-great-britain-ireland/">26 Michelin stars</a>, the industry standard restaurant rating, in Britain. In 2019 <a href="https://www.viamichelin.co.uk/web/Restaurants/Restaurants-United_Kingdom">there are 163</a>, including five restaurants with three stars – the highest honour awarded. Is this a coincidence or has membership of the European Union enabled the development of the UK’s vibrant contemporary food scene? </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"582138168046141440"}"></div></p>
<p>Despite what John Cleese might think, food culture in the UK is booming – chefs are becoming becoming superstars and prime-time TV slots are full of cookery programmes, which are exported all over the world. What the quality of restaurants and the global profiles of its top chefs suggests about the UK in 2019 is that it is not only a nation of foodies – but that the country has become immersed into the food and drink culture of Europe.</p>
<p>European food and ingredients have become staple food choices for the British. The use of ingredients such as garlic, peppers, avocados, Parmesan cheese and all those other European ingredients that are now taken for granted are relatively new and were still rare in the 1990s. When I was growing up in rural Devon in the 1970s, olive oil was only really readily available in chemists as a cure for earache – now it is found in most food cupboards. And wine drinking has permeated through all social classes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263903/original/file-20190314-28468-ojn8vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263903/original/file-20190314-28468-ojn8vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263903/original/file-20190314-28468-ojn8vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263903/original/file-20190314-28468-ojn8vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263903/original/file-20190314-28468-ojn8vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263903/original/file-20190314-28468-ojn8vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263903/original/file-20190314-28468-ojn8vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spanish delicatessen in London’s Borough Market.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paolo Paradiso via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So if Britain’s food is embedded in European culture, what will the impact of Brexit have on the restaurant industry in the UK? In order to answer this it’s necessary to identify how Britain’s ties to the EU have directly impacted upon UK restaurants. </p>
<h2>Free movement of chefs</h2>
<p>There has always been reciprocity in the hospitality industry, whereby chefs, sommeliers and maître ds, travel and work in other counties in order to develop their knowledge and skills. What is known in the industry as the “stage” is an important juncture in a chef’s evolution and training – and most UK-born Michelin-starred chefs have done one. <a href="https://www.jasonatherton.co.uk/">Jason Atherton</a>, who runs a suite of high-end restaurants around the country, undertook a stage at the three-star el Bulli in Spain, while Sat Bains, whose eponymous restaurant in Nottingham was <a href="https://www.thecaterer.com/articles/542467/restaurant-sat-bains-named-fourth-best-rated-restaurant-in-the-world">named fourth-best in the world in 2018</a>, undertook a stage at the three-star Le Jardin des Sens in France. </p>
<p>The immersion by chefs in European gastronomy means they have brought back techniques, ingredients and contacts that have contributed to the UK’s food scene becoming so rich and vibrant. The thriving food scene has also encouraged talented expatriates to invest in the UK restaurant industry and to choose the UK as a place to work. </p>
<p>The influx of European workers are not only attracted by the UK food scene, but also by the availability of varied employment opportunities in the hospitality sector. Employers have difficulty in filling vacancies, as there is a lack of qualified chefs in the UK. In 2017, <a href="http://people1st.co.uk/getattachment/Insight-opinion/Latest-insights/21st-century-chef/Report-download/Exec-summary-_-The-chef-shortage-A-solvable-crisis.pdf/?lang=en-GB">People 1st</a> (the sector skills council for hospitality and tourism) found that 25% of hospitality businesses had vacancies, 22% of which were for chefs. Many of these vacancies were reported as being hard to fill because there simply weren’t enough skilled applicants. In 2018, <a href="https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/13779">according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies</a>, out of 330,000 chefs in the UK, 15% were EU immigrants. Of these, 28% were graduates and 22% of all new hires came from the EU.</p>
<p>What this demonstrates is that EU workers are key to the continued success of the UK restaurant industry. They are often portrayed as a source of cheap labour, but in fact are skilled, well-educated individuals who make a positive contribution to the sector. Even though many of the workers are highly skilled, wages remain low – so any move to place an income threshold of £30,000 to earn a visa will exclude the majority of EU hospitality workers. But without the labour provided by EU immigrants it is difficult to see how the sector can continue to thrive.</p>
<h2>Free movement of ingredients</h2>
<p>Great chefs rely on great ingredients, and seamless trade ensures that food arrives in Britain in the freshest possible state. Food items such as strawberries, peppers or chillies are delivered to supermarkets and restaurants throughout the year. Britain imports a huge amount of fresh produce from the EU – in fact, in terms of food security, through a lack of investment in farming over the past two or three decades, the UK <a href="https://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/challenge/uk-threat/">is not and cannot be self-sufficient</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263907/original/file-20190314-28483-1oxky1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263907/original/file-20190314-28483-1oxky1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263907/original/file-20190314-28483-1oxky1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263907/original/file-20190314-28483-1oxky1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263907/original/file-20190314-28483-1oxky1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263907/original/file-20190314-28483-1oxky1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263907/original/file-20190314-28483-1oxky1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Heston Blumenthal’s ‘culinary journey’ at his restaurant The Fat Duck.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">By First Class Photography via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The EU ensures that the UK can both import and export foodstuffs in an efficient manner, as there are no delays caused by custom checks or embargoes on products. Unless the UK remains part of the customs union, it is difficult to see how the cuisine to which they have become accustomed to can continue to enter the supply chain without disruption.</p>
<p>Many of the 163 Michelin-starred restaurants in the UK pride themselves on sourcing high-quality, seasonal local food. Many sustainable farming practices and conversion to organic forms of production have been supported by the EU’s accreditation of farming standards and subsidies. They also provide strict rules as to how products are grown, the pesticides used and the limitation of genetically modified processes. All of these standards are higher than touted new trade partners <a href="https://fullfact.org/europe/usa-trade-food-standards/">such as the US</a>. The UK and EU over a period of 47 years have crafted a set of standards around production and food safety that is among the most stringent in the world. </p>
<p>This philosophy of quality has directly influenced the quality of the food, consumers and restaurants can access. As can be seen from a government briefing paper from January 2018, <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-library/Brexit-UK-agriculture-policy-CBP-8218.pdf">Brexit: Future UK Agricultural Policy </a>, there is little detail around how food and agricultural policy will look post-Brexit. </p>
<p>But even if the UK’s agricultural sector can increase production and the variety of products grown, it currently relies on seasonal workers from the EU to harvest produce.</p>
<h2>Back to cheap sausages?</h2>
<p>The vibrant food culture in the UK depends on the EU to provide innovation, influence, skilled labour and products. This is reflected all the way from the shelves of Aldi and Lidl to the five UK three-star Michelin restaurants. If I am right in believing food and cuisine to be an expression of culture, then Britons are European. As the <a href="https://heavy.com/news/2018/08/robin-leach-quotes/">writer and social commentator Robin Leach stated</a> before his <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/08/robin-leach-remembered">death in 2018</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Whoever would have guessed that in the land of cheap sausages and mashed potatoes there could be such a change which would actually bring the French from Paris every weekend to invade Britain en masse to eat great food and drink great wine.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Perhaps Brexit will have a positive impact on British food culture and protect the future and integrity of the great British chip rather than being replaced by the insidious <em>pommes frite</em>. It will be interesting to see in the coming decade whether the number of Michelin-starred restaurants increases further. I suspect it won’t.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113210/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Tresidder does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Once derided, UK food culture has improved out of sight thanks to Europe.
Richard Tresidder, Reader in Hospitality Studies, Sheffield Hallam University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/103321
2018-10-02T23:14:03Z
2018-10-02T23:14:03Z
Essays On Air: the politics of curry
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236540/original/file-20180917-96155-6xi579.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">I had never encountered the word 'curry muncher' until I arrived in Australia 10 years ago.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/keep-calm-curry-on-handbag-710808244?src=K8tE2f3oHZAWBfV2cNGiJg-1-1">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Opening Night, Melbourne Comedy Festival 2018. Dilruk Jayasinha’s introductory salvo:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is so exciting. I honestly… Sorry, it’s unbelievable — that I get to do stand-up comedy here at the Palais in Melbourne. Because I… I’m from Sri Lanka! And I used to be an accountant. Yeah. A Sri Lankan accountant!!! So — not just a money cruncher, but a curry-munching money cruncher!</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Thaaat</em> word … is it back again? For someone who has spent the last 30 years of her life specialising in English literary, postcolonial and cultural studies, I had never encountered it until I arrived in Australia 10 years ago.</p>
<p>On today’s episode of <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/essays-on-air-48405">Essays On Air</a>, a podcast from The Conversation, I’m reading my essay, titled <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-politics-of-curry-97457">The politics of curry.</a></p>
<p>Find and subscribe to Essays on Air in <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/essays-on-air/id1333743838?mt=2">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://play.pocketcasts.com/">Pocket Casts</a> or wherever you get your podcasts.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/when-a-suburbs-turn-for-gentrification-comes-75609">When a suburb's turn for gentrification comes ...</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Additional audio</h2>
<p>Big Mojo Vadodara by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X_LvXLFt9c">Kevin MacLeod</a></p>
<p>Dilruk Jayasinha’s performance at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOKT8u9P3Bg">Melbourne Comedy Festival 2018</a> (used under fair dealing)</p>
<p>Indian beats by <a href="https://soundcloud.com/delta9thc-2/indian-beats">delta9THC #2</a></p>
<p>Indian dream by <a href="https://soundcloud.com/zebra404/indian-dream">zebra 404</a></p>
<p>Old Man’s Tale by <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/David_Szesztay/Cinematic/Old_Mans_Tale">David Szesztay</a></p>
<p>Snow by <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/David_Szesztay/Cinematic/Snow">David Szesztay</a></p>
<p>Sound effects from <a href="http://www.orangefreesounds.com/">Orange Free Sounds</a> and <a href="https://freesound.org/browse/">Free Sound</a></p>
<p><em>Today’s episode was recorded and edited by Maggy Liu.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103321/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mridula Nath Chakraborty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Whether being called 'curry munchers' or pigeonholed as authorities on a dish largely invented by the British, diasporic South Asians are emulsified in a deep pool of curry.
Mridula Nath Chakraborty, Deputy Director, Monash Asia Institute, Monash University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/101879
2018-08-22T09:04:58Z
2018-08-22T09:04:58Z
Jamie Oliver’s ‘jerk rice’ is a recipe for disaster – here’s why
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232893/original/file-20180821-149496-1yk73bx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=95%2C6%2C925%2C649&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver in New York.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">really short via Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Jamie Oliver is no stranger to controversy, as <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11821747/Jamie-Oliver-admits-school-dinners-campaign-failed-because-eating-well-is-a-middle-class-preserve.html">the failure of his</a> 2004-5 “<a href="http://www.feedmebetter.com/">Feed Me Better</a>” campaign to improve UK school dinners demonstrated. But he really has trouble in the kitchen now, after MPs and other celebrity cooks waded into a heated public debate about culinary authenticity and cultural appropriation over his latest line in convenience foods: “Punchy Jerk Rice.” </p>
<p>It is not just the alleged act of cultural appropriation that has caused disquiet, although many – including the shadow minister for equality, Dawn Butler, and Conservative MP Neil O’Brien – have certainly <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-45246009">interpreted it in this way</a>. Oliver also appears to have misunderstood that the term “jerk” is a cultural tradition which is very specific, as Butler recognised <a href="https://london.eater.com/2018/8/20/17758706/jamie-oliver-chef-jerk-rice-twitter-dawn-butler-cultural-appropriation">when she questioned</a> whether Oliver even knew what “jerk” was.</p>
<p>Crucially, jerk is not the same as barbecue, although the terms are often used interchangeably. Historically, jerk refers to the Afro-Caribbean practice of dry rubbing or wet marinating meat with citrus juice, allspice and scotch bonnet, then wrapping it in banana or plantain leaves and cooking it in a pit fire or hole fire over allspice branches, in a method designed to retain the distinct flavours.</p>
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<p>Barbecue, by contrast, usually involves marinating meats and then cooking them above ground on a raised platform made from wicker, plant matter or newer stone or metal constructions. Jerk derives from <em>charqui</em>, a Spanish word of indigenous South American origin which means salted dried meat (linked to jerky). It denotes a specific method of marinating and cooking meat which is linked, historically, <a href="http://www.afrikanheritage.com/resistance-and-rebellion-in-jamaica-the-maroons/">to the “Maroons”</a> – or runaway slaves – of colonial Jamaica who are known to have traded their signature jerked wild meats to passing ships from the 1700s onwards.</p>
<p>Jerk is now most commonly associated with roadside cooks in Jamaica who have retained this popular technique. It’s also one of Jamaica’s <a href="http://jamaicans.com/jerk/">most successful and iconic</a> culinary exports. </p>
<p>Barbecue from the Spanish <em>barbacoa</em> has <a href="http://time.com/3957444/barbecue/">even older origins</a>. It derives from a method of cooking known to have been used by the Amerindians, the Caribbean’s first inhabitants. African slaves arriving in the Caribbean may well have known of similar methods of preserving and cooking meat, but they also clearly adopted and adapted the methods which they encountered in the Caribbean, a process called “”<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0957155815597648?journalCode=frca">creolisation</a>“. </p>
<p>In the light of this history, Oliver’s latest offering makes little sense. As Jamaican-born British celebrity cook, Rustie Lee <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/food/shortcuts/2018/aug/20/jamie-oliver-jerk-rice-recipe-for-disaster-caribbean-marinade">points out</a> "jerk rice” is a non-starter, not just because it is culturally inaccurate – it does not contain the key jerk spices of allspice or scotch bonnet – but because you cannot actually jerk rice. The classic starch and protein combination of rice and peas (beans) on the other hand, is a dish which has been eaten for centuries across the Caribbean and the Americas. It’s also widely enjoyed everywhere that there is a diasporan Caribbean population – but it is never called “jerk”.</p>
<h2>Authenticity and identity</h2>
<p>At the heart of the debate about cultural appropriation is the question of cultural – and especially culinary – authenticity. It is particularly important when it comes to food, which is one of the central ways in which particular ethnic, religion, caste, class, gendered or generational groups define themselves in relation to others.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1030741609984548864"}"></div></p>
<p>Indeed, the use of the label of “authentic” in relation to food is so ubiquitous that we rarely stop to think about how problematic it is. So talk of “authentic” Indian curries in the UK are anything but. Not only do most Indian restaurants <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/08/britains-curry-crisis-chefs-immigration">serve Bangladeshi food</a>, but there is no such thing as “Indian” food – only local or regional cuisines, as any Indian cook will tell you. </p>
<p>The best-known example of an “Indian dish” in Britain, chicken tikka masala, is a good example of what historian Eric Hobsbawm famously called “<a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/v05/n13/norman-stone/pastiche">the invention of tradition</a>” – the dish was invented in Britain. In 2001 this celebrated “Indian” dish featured as the focal point in a particularly lively exchange about British cultural identity and multiculturalism between Labour MPs Robin Cook and Keith Vaz, following the then <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/apr/19/race.britishidentity">foreign secretary’s speech</a> to the Social Market Foundation in London. Cook argued that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Chicken tikka masala is now a true British national dish, not only because it is the most popular, but because it is a perfect illustration of the way Britain absorbs and adapts external influences. Chicken tikka is an Indian dish. The masala sauce was added to satisfy the desire of British people to have their meat served in gravy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Although in the ensuing debate, Vaz attempted to correct Cook’s rather mangled account of the dish and its origins, Cook made an important point: that all traditions, culinary or otherwise, are constructed for particular means and that authenticity is neither stable not uncontested. Thus chicken tikka masala may not be authentically Indian but it does show how absorption and adaptation from external influences can be important processes in the emergent definition of a cultural practice or identity. Indeed, Cook’s speech has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/12/robin-cook-chicken-tikka-multiculturalism">studied by students</a> as a case study in debates on Britishness, cultural nationalism and multiculturalism as recently as 2013.</p>
<h2>Jamaican cool</h2>
<p>The problem with Oliver’s “jerk rice” is not so much that it involves an act of cultural appropriation, or that it “absorbs and adapts external influences” (which all cooks do and are free to do) but rather that it uses the term “jerk” as a kind of shorthand to evoke a range of attractive associations for his product. </p>
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<p>Jerk is a term which carries the infinitely marketable associations of what might be termed “Jamaican cool” – a heady mix of spicy “exotic” food, reggae music, muscular masculinity (jerk cooking is a very male-dominated practice), endless sunshine and the apparent health benefits of cooking and eating outdoors. It implies a chilled, laid-back vibe with traces perhaps of the potent but rather lazy construction of Jamaica as a narcotic idyll and tourist paradise. </p>
<p>Oliver is certainly not the first, nor will he be the last, to draw on such associations in his adaption of Caribbean food, as <a href="https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/cgi/facet/simple2?q=sarah+lawson+welsh&_action_search=Search&limit=10">my research</a> on the idea of tradition and culinary authenticity in the cookery books of Jamaican-born celebrity cook, Levi Roots has shown. Twitter user Regina Holland <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/20/jamie-olivers-jerk-rice-dish-a-mistake-says-jamaica-born-chef">aptly summed up</a> the problem of Oliver’s jerk rice as one of an ongoing “bastardisation” of Jamaican food. </p>
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<p>Oliver’s jerk rice is merely the latest in a series of recent debates on cultural appropriation in relation to culinary authenticity. Public <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/aug/12/curry-marks-and-spencer-meal-kits-outrage">controversy erupted</a> over Marks & Spencer’s line of “authentic” curry kits, including a Bengali turmeric curry which Mallika Basu, author of Indian Cooking for Modern Living, tweeted was “at best upsetting, and at worst, offensive and callous”. In the US, accusations of cultural appropriation <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/31/aloha-poke-co-cease-and-desist-letter-hawaiians-aloha">have been levelled</a> at the use of the term “aloha” by restaurants selling trendy “Hawaiian poke” sushi bowls. </p>
<p>These debates shouldn’t be reduced to a crudely binary divide between those who feel the need to police cultural traditions as pure, fixed entities and those who see the more complicated shifting story of absorption and adaptation as the real picture. We can show respect for the specific histories and cultural origins of the foods we cook and eat without losing sight of the notion that “authenticity” itself is a movable feast.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101879/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Lawson Welsh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The celebrity chef is being accused of cultural appropriation over his latest product. But what is ‘jerk’ food and why the uproar?
Sarah Lawson Welsh, Reader & Associate Professor in English & Postcolonial Literatures, York St John University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97457
2018-06-28T19:57:02Z
2018-06-28T19:57:02Z
Friday essay: the politics of curry
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225059/original/file-20180627-112614-1y1f3bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A curry-themed shoulder bag: 'Curry' is a word that no self-respecting subcontinental would own without a thousand caveats attached.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Opening Night, Melbourne Comedy Festival 2018. Dilruk Jayasinha’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOKT8u9P3Bg">introductory salvo</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is so exciting. I honestly… Sorry, it’s unbelievable — that I get to do stand-up comedy here at the Palais in Melbourne. Because I… I’m from Sri Lanka! And I used to be an accountant. Yeah. A Sri Lankan accountant!!! So — not just a money cruncher, but a curry-munching money cruncher!</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Thaaat</em> word … is it back again? For someone who has spent the last 30 years of her life specialising in English literary, postcolonial and cultural studies, I had never encountered it until I arrived in Australia 10 years ago and soon after chanced upon Roanna Gonsalves. </p>
<p>Not the real-life, award-winning writer of <a href="http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/about-library-awards-nsw-premiers-literary-awards/multicultural-nsw-award">The Permanent Resident</a>, but (to me, at the time) a little known author of the short story “<a href="https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=14613">Curry Muncher</a>.” In Gonsalves’ story, an Indian international student working night shifts as a restaurant waiter is attacked on a Sydney train and viciously beaten up, while repeatedly being called a <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/hindi/en/article/2017/10/11/how-racism-affected-australian-cricketer-who-was-called-f-ing-curry-muncher">“curry muncher”</a>. Like the story’s omniscient narrator/fellow-passenger/onlooker, I was genuinely puzzled as to why that term could or would exist: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I wondered how one could possibly munch curry? The way I understood it, curry, being a liquid, could be eaten with rice or one could even drink it as one did rasam and even sambhar. But there was no way one could munch curry as if it were a biscuit.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224829/original/file-20180626-19399-eb51lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224829/original/file-20180626-19399-eb51lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224829/original/file-20180626-19399-eb51lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224829/original/file-20180626-19399-eb51lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224829/original/file-20180626-19399-eb51lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224829/original/file-20180626-19399-eb51lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224829/original/file-20180626-19399-eb51lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224829/original/file-20180626-19399-eb51lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Singaporean curry purveyor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jonathan Ooi/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When “Curry Muncher” was published in Eureka Street in June 2009, in the wake of two years of intermittent protests by Indian international students and taxi-drivers against racially-motivated violence in Sydney and Melbourne, you could be forgiven for assuming that the narratorial voice was a thinly-disguised autobiographical riff. In fact, when I wanted to invite Gonsalves to participate at a university roundtable about the racist attacks, the organisers rescinded the invitation when I told them the short story was fictional - the author was not a “real life” victim of the violence. </p>
<p>Gonsalves has since steadfastly maintained the right of imagination to animate her fiction and has refused to inhabit the implied authentically-currified authorial body. But it seems that time and time again, stories and identities of the South Asian diaspora get emulsified in the deep pool of curry that Jayasinha too uses to flavour his circular stand-up act.</p>
<h2>An invention of the British Empire?</h2>
<p>Embedded in the slur <a href="http://australiafirstparty.net/curry-munchers-call/">curry muncher</a> is a long history of racialised stereotyping and name-calling that accrues to bodies presumed to be the primary ingesters of that great culinary equaliser, the curry. The aspersion is collectively cast upon inhabitants of, and diasporic populations tracing their genealogy to, the Indian subcontinent, alternatively known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Asia">South Asia</a>. </p>
<p>A close kin to the noun is the verb “to curry favour,” also related to “brown-nosing”, which refers to the orifice at the other end of the digestive canal that comes into contact with curry. In the hands of creatives like Gonsalves and Jayasinha, such terms are reclaimed and recuperated to make a political statement against hegemonic cultures and hate-groups that use them to essentialise, discriminate against, and terrorise subcontinental brown folk in white settler nations. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224823/original/file-20180626-19390-1wdc36o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224823/original/file-20180626-19390-1wdc36o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224823/original/file-20180626-19390-1wdc36o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224823/original/file-20180626-19390-1wdc36o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224823/original/file-20180626-19390-1wdc36o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224823/original/file-20180626-19390-1wdc36o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224823/original/file-20180626-19390-1wdc36o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Curry is not ‘munched’ like a biscuit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Beau Giles, flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Notwithstanding the fact that the prefix in question is one of those enduring inventions of the British Empire that no self-respecting subcontinental would own without a thousand caveats attached, “curry” seems to be the lowest-common denominator that unites these disparate peoples who have had their histories defined by European colonisation. </p>
<p>Christopher Columbus might have set the action in motion in 1492 when he sallied forth to find the shortest sea-route to the Indies in search of the famed spices that Europe coveted, but really, it is the Brits who can rightfully claim to be the progenitors of the ubiquitous dish called the “curry”.</p>
<p>The Wikipedia entry for it traces the word as far back as the 1390s to the French (“cury” from “cuire”, meaning to cook), thence to a mid-17th century Portuguese cookbook, with the “first” English curry recipe recorded in 1747. An entire body of academic scholarship on the subject interprets the meaning of curry as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3346803?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">domesticating imperialism</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Global-Asian-American-Popular-Cultures/dp/147981573X">codifying race</a> and <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520270121/curried-cultures">transnationalising identity</a>. </p>
<p>The eventual spread and sprawl of Anglophone colonisation took the now-popular creation to all corners of the world. Wherever the English went, taking with them slaves, soldiers, indentured labourers, bureaucrats, factotums, cooks, clerks, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/11/25/247166284/a-history-of-indentured-labor-gives-coolie-its-sting">coolies</a> and other cogs in the wheels of Empire, so did the curry. Curry might well say, like that T-shirt, “<a href="https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2017/1-december/comment/opinion/uncovering-our-forgotten-history">We are here because you were there</a>!”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224845/original/file-20180626-19385-u9272u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224845/original/file-20180626-19385-u9272u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224845/original/file-20180626-19385-u9272u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224845/original/file-20180626-19385-u9272u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224845/original/file-20180626-19385-u9272u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224845/original/file-20180626-19385-u9272u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224845/original/file-20180626-19385-u9272u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224845/original/file-20180626-19385-u9272u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An entire body of scholarship has interpreted the meaning of curry.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Thus in lands far away from the Indies, in the Caribbean, East and South Africa, Fiji, Guyana, the Maldives, Mauritius and Suriname, sprang up a cuisine created with local ingredients that was the closest approximation of loved and remembered foods from “back home”. </p>
<p>Curry then attaches both to the food and the identity of the people from which it is assumed to have originated, attaining the power of stereotype to achieve its full effect. Like the English language, the capaciousness of the culinary genre grants admission to variegated arrivants, even as the putative “custodians” of the recipes, the peoples from the Indies, are rendered unwelcome in Anglophone collectives. These migrated flocks are forever deemed to be speaking in accents, munching away at their curry, leading to that seemingly curious and innocuous, yet politically offensive and proprietorial, question: “Where are you <em>really</em> from?” </p>
<h2>A potent metaphor</h2>
<p>Still, it appears that these flotsam and jetsam of Empire’s enterprise are not content with the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jan/12/how-to-cook-the-perfect-mulligatawny">mulligatawny soups</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/feb/24/how-to-cook-perfect-kedgeree">kedgerees</a> that the British brought back home to ye olde England. Subcontinentals and South Asians stubbornly insist on their “own” versions of <a href="https://blog.ketchupp.in/rasam-health-potion-south-india/">rasams</a> and khichuris (<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/07/20/527945413/khichuri-an-ancient-indian-comfort-dish-with-a-global-influence">cousin to the Egyptian koshari</a>). Therefore, it follows they must possess the secret magic ingredient that will lead to a truly original curry. </p>
<p>Paradoxically, “foreign” innovations are treated with suspicion, by the descendants of both the colonisers and the colonised, leading to that dreaded quest for the authentic experience on all quarters. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224840/original/file-20180626-19390-1eyxdgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224840/original/file-20180626-19390-1eyxdgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224840/original/file-20180626-19390-1eyxdgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224840/original/file-20180626-19390-1eyxdgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224840/original/file-20180626-19390-1eyxdgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224840/original/file-20180626-19390-1eyxdgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224840/original/file-20180626-19390-1eyxdgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224840/original/file-20180626-19390-1eyxdgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Curry at the Wall Berlin serves currywurst: a pork sausage served with curry flavored ketchup.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Claudio Saavedra/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is this totalising affect and effect of curry that Naben Ruthnum, a Torontonian of Mauritian descent, cavils against in his recent book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34144408-curry">Curry: Eating, reading and race</a>. Ruthnum contends that in migrant-based, multicultural states and colonial-settler nations, subcontinental/South Asian minorities like him partake of the meaning of curry, in food and in literature, as “the defining elements” of their identity (albeit unwillingly and ambivalently). </p>
<p>Curry becomes a way of being contained and corralled by their own communities holding on to the fragile, frayed thread of belonging to that mythically-originary Indies, as well as creatively hybridising the changing face of a dish that has always absorbed influences. </p>
<p>Ruthnum is interested in the historically specific self-identifications of subcontinental diasporas. They devour, in equal amounts of delight, disbelief and disaffection, both the recipes and the curry-novels that narrativise migration journeys.</p>
<p>His book is divided into three sections: the executing and eating of; the reading and reflecting about, and the racialising and erasing of identity via the curry. In the first two sections, he makes a convincingly cheeky case against the insistence on the purity of curry-making and charges a polemic against the way curry-novels constantly transmute into conversations about “experience, alienation, authenticity, and belonging”.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224808/original/file-20180626-19416-19xfgjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224808/original/file-20180626-19416-19xfgjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224808/original/file-20180626-19416-19xfgjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224808/original/file-20180626-19416-19xfgjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224808/original/file-20180626-19416-19xfgjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224808/original/file-20180626-19416-19xfgjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224808/original/file-20180626-19416-19xfgjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224808/original/file-20180626-19416-19xfgjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Matters get really interesting in the third section, when Ruthnum delves deep into why curry continues to provide such a potent metaphor for South Asians, forcing a kind of subcontinental solidarity on brown bodies. Such idyllic camaraderie and commensality, however, is not borne out by the entrenched divisions of subcontinental caste, class, gender and arrival stories. </p>
<p>For those not-in-the-know of subcontinental stratarchies at your local curry house, it may not matter whether it is paneer, chicken, mutton, beef or fish that goes into your tikka-masala. But to the initiated and adept, it is the hermeneutics of différence unto death that determines their eating practices and politics. </p>
<p>Tracing his own ancestry to a V. Ruthnum who arrived in Mauritius in 1886, and having discussed his own contemporary alienation of trying to find comradeship in the “colonial gangbang” of a creolised island nation, Ruthnum concludes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Just as curry doesn’t exactly exist, neither does the diasporic South Asian. If we are attempting to build solidarity out of a shared history, it will never quite mesh, hold true, unless our great-grandparents happened to be from the same time and place… Members of Team Diaspora may have skin of the same general tone, but each has a family history that is likely completely distinct. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>What Exactly is a Curry? asks <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/apr/25/foodanddrink.restaurants">Camellia Punjabi</a> in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31573.50_Great_Curries_of_India?from_search=true">50 Great Curries of India</a> where the word might mean different things in different regional subcontinental contexts: “kari”, “kadhi”, “kaari”. <a href="https://www.cordonbleu.edu/news/chefmridula/en">Mridula Bajlekar</a>’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/764777.Curry?from_search=true">Curry: fire and spice</a> includes recipes from South East Asia in its remit, while <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/curry-a-biography-by-lizzie-collingham-305267.html">Lizzie Collingham</a>’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31570.Curry?from_search=true">Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerers</a> concludes that popular dishes now known as curries are the result of a prolonged history of invasion and fusion of food traditions from Persia to Portugal in the subcontinent.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding the indeterminacy and obduracy of the curry to resist definition, discussions around its “roots” continue unabated. From unflinching purists to unabashed adulterers, everyone has a position (missionary or otherwise) on the curry; the only constant being that each narrative is tied to identity and its (ab)uses. Even among proponents of <a href="http://www.rediff.com/getahead/report/the-un-curry-approach-to-indian-food/20170713.htm">un-curry</a>, the attempt to establish bona fide credentials remains an overwhelming ambition.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224841/original/file-20180626-19408-119nkq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224841/original/file-20180626-19408-119nkq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224841/original/file-20180626-19408-119nkq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224841/original/file-20180626-19408-119nkq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224841/original/file-20180626-19408-119nkq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224841/original/file-20180626-19408-119nkq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224841/original/file-20180626-19408-119nkq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224841/original/file-20180626-19408-119nkq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South African bunny chow.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In fact, the more specialised a curry is, the greater appears to be the need of practitioners and purveyors to pin down its ancestry. In the subcontinent, this might take the shape of venerating culinary traditions like the <a href="https://www.sahapedia.org/our-food-their-food-historical-overview-of-the-bengali-platter">Bengali</a>, the <a href="https://scroll.in/article/771614/kashmiri-cuisine-is-more-than-just-food-its-a-celebration-a-life">Kashmiri</a> or the <a href="https://riotofflavours.com/chitrapur-saraswat-brahmin-cuisine-an-introduction/">Saraswat</a>. Regional subcontinental particularities like the <a href="https://www.oyorooms.com/blog/presenting-lucknows-mouthwatering-awadhi-cuisine/">Awadhi</a>, the <a href="https://scroll.in/magazine/873268/why-keralas-mappila-cuisine-needs-evangelists-like-abida-rasheed">Mapila</a> and the <a href="https://www.thebetterindia.com/59341/parsi-cuisine-india/">Parsi</a> are but testament to the enormous trade and traffic in cultures and influences through the millennia. </p>
<p>Curries at a remove from the subcontinent have the constant burden placed on them to prove their authenticity, an expectation that sits piously and provocatively on migrant bodies that have swum valiantly onto unknown shores. The <a href="http://caribbeanpot.com/buss-up-shut-roti-made-easy/">buss up shut roti</a>, the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/02/01/511834972/bunny-chow-south-africas-sweet-sounding-dish-has-a-not-so-sweet-past">bunny chow</a>, the <a href="http://www.natgeotraveller.in/the-north-indian-snack-that-aamir-khan-and-m-s-dhoni-rave-about/">litti chokha</a> give any curry a run for its money, and triumphantly declare their independence against the republic of curry.</p>
<h2>Currying on…</h2>
<p>Landing in Sydney in 2008 after an 18-hour flight from Edmonton, where I had lived for a decade, I was taken aback by my alarming lack of diasporic angst as the plane almost touched the red-tiled roofs of St Peter’s. Perhaps I was also lulled into a familiar/familial tropical torpor by the scent of the freesias and frangipani that greeted me everywhere. </p>
<p>Nestled in a tiny apartment atop Kantipur Nepali grocery store in Marrickville, I was still half a decade away from its gentrification and burgeoning <a href="https://www.goodfood.com.au/eat-out/a-foodies-guide-to-marrickville-20140617-3ab5m">foodie scene</a>. Instead, my neighbours were a fruit shop run by two hierarchical but loquacious Greek brothers and an unbelievably clean butchery. I was charmed by the Australian language, which left nothing to the imagination as to what might transpire inside those premises: the butchery!</p>
<p>Nine months on, walking about in this not-yet-not-quite-hip inner-west neighbourhood, I would pass numerous verandahs where grizzled, old Greek men sat playing board games while a tiny, bearded goat munched on grass growing in the cracks between cemented front lawns. I hazarded the guess that, true to old country values, these were being fattened for Easter on the tenderest green tidbits. I also discovered that the butchery would sell you a full baby goat: I only had to convince three of my friends to go in for shares. </p>
<p>When I enjoined upon the laconic butcher to give each one of us a leg, the grim, unsmiling character said, without missing a beat on his cleaver: “Goat not have four legs. Cow have four legs.” Somehow that seemed wildly funny on that dazzling day as the four of us stood across from the Uniting Church and hugged our blood-soaked packages to take home and bestow the meat with our own unique benefaction.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224843/original/file-20180626-19390-voplba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224843/original/file-20180626-19390-voplba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224843/original/file-20180626-19390-voplba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224843/original/file-20180626-19390-voplba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224843/original/file-20180626-19390-voplba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224843/original/file-20180626-19390-voplba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224843/original/file-20180626-19390-voplba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224843/original/file-20180626-19390-voplba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Goat curry? Moi?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The deal was that we would invite each other to taste our culinary creations. Among all possible renditions, roast leg of goat, goat ragout, goat chops, goat cutlets, goat shashlik and goat dumplings, it fell to me of course to make the goat curry. <em>Moi</em>, who bristled indignantly whenever anyone asked me what the best place to “eat Indian” was in town: hell, I’d been here only less than a year! Moreover, in a city of such culinary finesse and fusion, where every Shazza, Dazza and Bazza had access to cuisine from Vietnam to Vanuatu, Bangladesh to Beirut, China to Cyprus, why on earth was it assumed that I, fresh off the flight, would know, or even want to know, the best place to “eat Indian”? </p>
<p>There was a promiscuity of palate and uppity <em>savoir faire</em> in Sydney that I have come to love, but somehow that would get eclipsed in the quotidian query that presumed that when South Asians went out, we would consume only our own, never the “other”, that our tongues were not urbane enough for the pronunciation of, or experimentation with, other “global” foods, and that the connoisseurship afforded to aficionados who could differentiate between which wines to pair with “Indian” was not available to us. </p>
<p>In this field of alimentary refinement, South Asians could only ever be native informants, never enlightened anthropologists or even pretentious gourmands.</p>
<p>Ten years on, the question never fails to arrive: the push and pull of authenticity laid square at my door to conjure the “most genuine” Indian food possible, a parallel to those other historically amnesiac questions encountered with unfailing regularity, with inimitable rising inflections: “You really speak good English?” and “Will you stay on in ’stralia?”</p>
<p>These connections between being called a smelly curry muncher and pigeonholed as the genuine article or authority on “curry” cut deep, but paradoxically they are also a reminder, as Ruthnum puts it, “that there are domestic, comforting aspects to exoticism”. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225046/original/file-20180627-112623-zl2fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225046/original/file-20180627-112623-zl2fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225046/original/file-20180627-112623-zl2fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225046/original/file-20180627-112623-zl2fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225046/original/file-20180627-112623-zl2fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225046/original/file-20180627-112623-zl2fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225046/original/file-20180627-112623-zl2fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225046/original/file-20180627-112623-zl2fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Curry t shirts, Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They are a frequent intimation of one’s provisional and privileged place in a settler nation, as well as an incantation that we might know something about that most adaptive, bastardised and chameleon-like dish of Empire, the curry, even as we wag our typhoid-yellow index fingers and wiggle our collective subcontinental heads and insist that it just does not exist.</p>
<p>So to go back to that day, when it came down to being objectified as a true blue, genuine cook of goat curry, I had no objections. These were my Australian friends, South Asian and non-South Asian, the ones who had taken me deep into their hearts and homes, and if curry was what they wanted, curry is what I would make them. I invoked my ancient culinary karma and sacred gastronomic inheritance to embark on the journey of the goat via my friend Iman’s Egyptian recipe that called for only onions, garlic and black peppercorns. No mustard oil, no cinnamon or cloves, no turmeric and chili, no cumin and coriander powder, or ginger and garam masala. </p>
<p>After all, she, no mean cook herself, had declared with supreme discernment once, when I had painstakingly made <a href="http://www.expressfoodie.com/main-course/food-memory-project-remembering-cairo-mumbai/">Egyptian mahshi</a> from a recipe, that they tasted absolutely Indian, that anything I made would taste Indian. It is a fact of life I have come to embrace as well, as I go about adding green chillies to my penne pasta and soy sauce to my cauliflower curries. A right royal subcontinental flip to the Descartian dualism: <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum">cogito, ergo sum</a></em> upturned into, “I am, therefore I curry!” </p>
<p>At 0.37 seconds in the trailer for the Netflix documentary series, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN_XItALHmM">Ugly Delicious</a>, David Chang, the renowned Momofuku chef leading a crusade against purity and piety in food, has a memorable line that all authenti-siasts should adopt as their motto: “It’s when you eat a dish that reminds you of a dish cooked by your mom.” </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pN_XItALHmM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>I may improvise, with the right pinch of remembrance and matricidal rejection thrown in, curry is an invention and an <a href="https://soundcloud.com/nicolas-holzheu/edward-said-on-gramsci-infinity-of-traces-without-an-inventory">inventory</a> of arrival that also asserts its adulthood against that long-lost mother country, tongue and palate.</p>
<p>Ruthnum would agree that authenticity talk is uniquely boring and absorbing: the more you try to establish provenance, the more pedantic it becomes, but the conversation around it can be endlessly entertaining. As Helen Rosner, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-gastronomy/david-chang-combats-culinary-purity-netflix-ugly-delicious">roving food correspondent at The New Yorker concludes</a>, “the great cooks, in Chang’s view, are those who don’t just deploy an ingredient or a technique but feel it, deeply, adopting the food and its history as a fundamental part of who they are.”</p>
<p>This then is ultimately what is at the heart of the insistence on curry: the owning and the disavowing of it at the same time, in all its racialized legacies and imperial flavours, in all the ways that it searches for a genesis story and all the wonderful wanton ways in which it leads you astray in the detours of history. </p>
<p>Curry as social bonding, curry as story telling, curry as sloganeering, curry as stand-up comedy, curry as the personal, curry as the politics, curry as imagined community — keep calm and long live the curry!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97457/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mridula Nath Chakraborty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Whether being called ‘curry munchers’ or pigeonholed as authorities on a dish largely invented by the British, diasporic South Asians are emulsified in a deep pool of curry.
Mridula Nath Chakraborty, Deputy Director, Monash Asia Institute, Monash University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/86293
2017-11-20T02:25:41Z
2017-11-20T02:25:41Z
A backlash against ‘mixed’ foods led to the demise of a classic American dish
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195227/original/file-20171117-19313-pzbofh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A drawing from the original edition of Lydia Maria Child's 'Flowers for Children,' which includes her famous Thanksgiving poem.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://archive.org/details/flowersforchildr00chil">Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At the end of “Over the River and Through the Wood” – Lydia Maria Child’s <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/thanksgiving-day">classic Thanksgiving poem</a> – the narrator finally gets to his grandfather’s house for Thanksgiving dinner and settles down to eat. </p>
<p>“Hurrah for the fun!” the small boy exclaims. “Is the pudding done? Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!”</p>
<p>Pumpkin pie sounds familiar, but pudding? It seems like an odd choice to headline a description of a Thanksgiving dinner. Why was pudding the first dish on the boy’s mind, and not turkey or stuffing? </p>
<p>When Americans today think about pudding, most of us think of a sweet dessert, heavy on milk and eggs: rice pudding, bread pudding, chocolate pudding. Or we might associate it with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2ufnVD0hvI">Jell-O pudding mixes</a>. (When I was a child in the 1980s, I loved making pudding by shaking Jell-O instant pudding powder with milk in a plastic jug.) </p>
<p>For the most part, though, Americans today don’t think much about pudding at all. It’s become a small and rather forgettable subcategory. </p>
<p>That’s a dramatic change from the mid-19th century, the period when Child wrote “Over the River and Through the Wood” and when <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lincoln-proclaims-official-thanksgiving-holiday">Thanksgiving became a national holiday</a> under President Lincoln. Back then, virtually every American cookbook had a chapter devoted to puddings (sometimes two or three). </p>
<p>Pudding was important in Child’s poem because, when she wrote it, pudding was such an important part of American cuisine. </p>
<h2>From small budgets to banquets</h2>
<p>It’s not clear what kind of pudding Lydia Maria Child had in mind for her Thanksgiving poem because it was a remarkably elastic category. Pudding was such an umbrella term, in fact, it can be hard to define it at all.</p>
<p>Americans ate dessert puddings we would recognize today. But they also ate main course puddings like steak and kidney pudding, pigeon pudding or mutton pudding, where stewed meats were often surrounded by a flour or potato crust. Other puddings had no crust at all. Some, like Yorkshire pudding, were a kind of cooked batter. There were also green bean puddings, carrot puddings and dozens of other vegetable varieties. Puddings could be baked or steamed or boiled in a floured cloth. </p>
<p>Then there were other dishes called puddings that didn’t bear any resemblance whatsoever to what we mean by that word today. For example, apple pudding could be nothing more than a baked apple stuffed with leftover rice. Hasty pudding was essentially cornmeal mush. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195066/original/file-20171116-15448-1suum39.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195066/original/file-20171116-15448-1suum39.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195066/original/file-20171116-15448-1suum39.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=224&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195066/original/file-20171116-15448-1suum39.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=224&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195066/original/file-20171116-15448-1suum39.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=224&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195066/original/file-20171116-15448-1suum39.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195066/original/file-20171116-15448-1suum39.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195066/original/file-20171116-15448-1suum39.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A recipe for hasty pudding from ‘Smiley’s Cook Book and Universal Household Guide’ (1895).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://archive.org/stream/smileyscookbooku00smil/smileyscookbooku00smil#page/289/mode/1up/search/pudding">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Puddings were also hard to define because they were consumed in so many different ways. They could be sumptuous dishes, dense with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suet">suet</a> and eggs, studded with candied fruits and drenched in brandy. Or they could be rich, meaty stews encased in golden pastry. In these forms, puddings appeared on banquet tables and as the centerpieces of feasts. </p>
<p>But puddings could also be much humbler. Cooks with small budgets valued them because, like soups, puddings could be made of almost anything and could accommodate all kinds of kitchen scraps. They were especially useful as vehicles for stale bread and leftover starches, and 19th-century Americans ate a wide variety made not just with bread and rice but with cornmeal, oatmeal, crackers and potatoes. Recipes with names like “poor man’s pudding,” “poverty pudding” and “economical pudding” reflect pudding’s role as a cheap, filling meal. </p>
<h2>Food ‘experts’ exert their influence</h2>
<p>So what happened to pudding? Why did this broad culinary category, a defining part of American cuisine for more than a century, largely disappear? </p>
<p>One reason was food reform. By the early 20th century, new knowledge about nutrition science, combined with an obsessive (but misinformed) interest in digestion, fueled widespread “expert” condemnation of dishes featuring a range of ingredients mixed together. This was due, in large part, to xenophobia; by then, many white Americans <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=BAXs3gWkEcQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=modern+food,+moral+food&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjHhrraqMbXAhWc0YMKHfwRAckQ6AEIJjAA#v=snippet&q=mixed%20foods&f=false">had come to associate mixed foods with immigrants</a>.</p>
<p>Instead, reformers insisted with great confidence (but scant evidence) that it was healthier to eat simple foods with few ingredients: meals where meats and plain vegetables were clearly separated. People started to view savory puddings as both unhealthy and old-fashioned.</p>
<p>The unique prevalence and zeal of American food reformers in the early 20th century helps to explain why so many puddings disappeared in the United States, while they continue to be an important part of <a href="http://www.greatbritishpuddings.com/">British cuisine</a>.</p>
<p>By the mid-20th century, claims about the digestive dangers of mixed foods had been debunked. But a new kind of dish had since emerged – the casserole – which largely usurped the role formerly played by puddings. An elastic category in their own right, casseroles could also be made from almost anything and could accommodate all sorts of odds and ends. There were hamburger casseroles, green bean casseroles and potato casseroles.</p>
<p>At the same time, the food industry had reimagined pudding as a cloyingly sweet convenience food. Puddings made from supermarket mixes of modified food starch and artificial flavors became the only kind many Americans ever ate.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Xk4_hFE5E6I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Most Americans today think of pudding as a cheap, sugary dessert.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The classic versions haven’t completely disappeared, however. On Thanksgiving, Americans are still more likely to eat 19th-century-style puddings than at any other time of the year. On some American tables, Indian pudding, sweet potato pudding or corn pudding make an annual appearance. Thanksgiving dinner isn’t the time capsule some people imagine, and most Thanksgiving menus today <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-first-thanksgiving-dinner-actually-looked-like-85714">have hardly anything in common</a> with the 17th-century Plymouth Colony meal they commemorate. But there are some culinary echoes from the 19th century, when the American national holiday officially began.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86293/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Zoe Veit does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In the 19th century, puddings were as popular and widespread as pasta dishes are today.
Helen Zoe Veit, Associate Professor of History, Michigan State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/87052
2017-11-15T21:44:05Z
2017-11-15T21:44:05Z
No, turkey doesn’t make you sleepy – but it may bring more trust to your Thanksgiving table
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194876/original/file-20171115-19799-1kdyhqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Don't blame the turkey for those snores coming from the living room!</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/slicing-turkey-522962479">Shannon Jordan/Shutterstock.com </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>‘Tis the season for giblets, wattles and snoods – oh my. On Thanksgiving and Christmas, Americans consume about 68 million turkeys – one for about every five of us. In fact, <a href="http://extension.illinois.edu/turkey/turkey_facts.cfm">29 percent of all turkeys</a> gobbled down in the U.S. are consumed during the holidays.</p>
<p>And where turkey is being eaten, there is inevitably talk of tryptophan – a naturally occurring chemical found in turkey and other foods. This building block of protein often takes the blame for eaters feeling sleepy soon after the Thanksgiving meal.</p>
<p><a href="http://extension.illinois.edu/turkey/turkey_faqs.cfm">Science has cleared tryptophan</a>, though – it’s <a href="http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/77/1/128.abstract">not the culprit</a> when it comes to drowsiness after the feast. There are far more important factors leading to those post-turkey comas, not least of which is my Uncle Clarence’s story about parking at the airport. Add that to free-flowing booze combined with a <a href="http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/47/3/433.abstract">load of carbohydrates</a> followed by plenty more booze and you have a foolproof recipe for <a href="http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/85/2/426.full">dozing off on the couch</a>. Turkey, chicken, lamb and beef all <a href="https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/nutrients/report?nutrient1=501&nutrient2=&nutrient3=&fg=13&fg=17&fg=5&max=25&subset=1&offset=0&sort=f&totCount=112&measureby=g">contain roughly the same amount of tryptophan</a> – ranging from 0.13-0.39 grams per 100 grams of food – yet the sleepiness myth has never surrounded those other foods.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194877/original/file-20171115-19789-x4zpvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194877/original/file-20171115-19789-x4zpvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194877/original/file-20171115-19789-x4zpvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194877/original/file-20171115-19789-x4zpvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194877/original/file-20171115-19789-x4zpvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194877/original/file-20171115-19789-x4zpvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194877/original/file-20171115-19789-x4zpvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194877/original/file-20171115-19789-x4zpvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Overeating and drinking are more likely at the root of your post-feast nap.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/homemade-turkey-thanksgiving-dinner-mashed-potatoes-157931939">Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So tryptophan is off the snooze-inducing hook. But researchers in the Netherlands suggest it does have a different psychological effect: They’ve discovered that doses of <a href="https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/L-tryptophan#section=Top">tryptophan</a> (chemically known as L-tryptophan and abbreviated TRP) can promote interpersonal trust – that feeling you get when you look somebody in the eye, shake her hand and think, “I can cooperate with this person and she would reciprocate.” </p>
<p>In a study <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613500795">published in the journal Psychological Science,</a> pairs of volunteers were each given an oral dose of 0.8g of TRP or a placebo. For comparison, a <a href="http://extension.illinois.edu/turkey/nutrition.cfm">100g standard serving of turkey</a> about the thickness of a deck of playing cards contains <a href="http://www.dietandfitnesstoday.com/tryptophan-in-turkey-breast.php">about 0.31g of tryptophan</a>.</p>
<p>Each duo then sat in separate cubicles and played a game where one person (the truster) was given US$7 and had to decide how much to transfer to the other person. The transferred money was then multiplied by three and the trustee could give back part of the tripled money.</p>
<p>The more money you’re willing to give away in the first place, the greater your return in the end – but you have to trust the other person to cooperate. A very simple and profitable game if played right.</p>
<p>The researchers found that the TRP group gave $4.81 on average and the placebo group offered only $3.38. This is a sizable 42 percent increase in transferred money between the two groups.</p>
<p>So what’s going on? Here’s the brain science behind how the tryptophan-trust connection works. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ars.usda.gov/northeast-area/beltsville-md/beltsville-human-nutrition-research-center/nutrient-data-laboratory/">TRP is an essential amino acid found in many foods</a> including eggs, soybeans, chocolate, cheeses, fish, nuts and, of course, turkey. The brain region associated with interpersonal trust – known as the medial prefrontal cortex – is powered by the neurotransmitter serotonin. Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers found throughout the body that transmit signals from one nerve cell to another.</p>
<p>Our bodies synthesize many neurotransmitters from simple amino acids which are readily available in our food and can be quickly converted in a small number of biosynthetic steps. The neurotransmitter <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.174.4013.1023">serotonin is controlled in part by the release of TRP</a>. This means that as you increase levels of TRP you’re able to release serotonin in the brain region specially designed to process trust. Think of a flashing neon sign that reads “trust this person, trust this person.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194880/original/file-20171115-19782-1guxkf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194880/original/file-20171115-19782-1guxkf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194880/original/file-20171115-19782-1guxkf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194880/original/file-20171115-19782-1guxkf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194880/original/file-20171115-19782-1guxkf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194880/original/file-20171115-19782-1guxkf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194880/original/file-20171115-19782-1guxkf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194880/original/file-20171115-19782-1guxkf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A plate of turkey won’t convince you to buy into Cousin Gerald’s pyramid scheme.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/people-celebrating-thanksgiving-holiday-tradition-concept-497011660">Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Keep in mind, however, that our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.256">decisions to trust or not</a> to trust do not rely solely on ingesting TRP. In the real world we take into account personality factors, how well we know someone, previous cooperation with that person, tone of voice, eye contact, body language <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02312.x">and so on</a>. These all have a hand in shaping the conscious and unconscious rules that govern our pro-social behavior and trust preferences.</p>
<p>So this holiday season, eat your turkey (or salmon or cashews or cottage cheese or chocolate) and remember that few things are more pleasurable than the joy that comes from sharing a holiday meal with loved ones. Science shows us that tryptophan can promote social bonding, but there still is no substitute for giving thanks. Trust me.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87052/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Bennett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Remember that story about the molecule found in turkey that makes you drowsy? Research shows it’s a myth – tryptophan doesn’t cause you to nod off, but it may be connected to cooperation.
Kevin Bennett, Full Teaching Professor of Psychology, Penn State
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/59351
2017-11-14T02:48:18Z
2017-11-14T02:48:18Z
The story of America, as told through diet books
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194210/original/file-20171110-29345-10a635u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">John Fekner's art warned others of toxins poisoning the planet. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:John_Fekner#/media/File:Jftoxicleft.jpg">Fekner at English Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“The South Beach Diet” sold <a href="http://newsroom.nutrisystem.com/nutrisystem-inc-acquires-south-beach-diet-brand-from-sbd-holdings-group-corp/">23 million</a> diet books. Dr. Atkins sold another <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/18/nyregion/dr-robert-c-atkins-author-controversial-but-best-selling-diet-books-dead-72.html">15 million</a>. Even lesser-known diet books like Christian best-sellers “The Maker’s Diet” regularly sell millions of copies. </p>
<p>This isn’t a new trend. The 1918 diet book “Diet and Health: With Key to the Calories” sold two million copies by 1940 and was published in more than 55 editions. Combined, just these few series could fill every shelf in the Library of Congress and still have a copy left over for every American public library. </p>
<p>Why do we find the stories told by diet books so persuasive? What is it about this near-impossible quest that’s seduced reader after reader over the last century? </p>
<p>Diet books provide the narrative key – not only to our 20th century Western obsession with weight loss, but our culture as a whole. If culture, as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Clifford-Geertz">anthropologist Clifford Geertz</a> once put it, is made up of the “stories we tell ourselves about ourselves,” then diet books are troves of these stories, at once wildly democratic and deeply intimate. </p>
<p>I’ve spent the last five years reading hundreds of diet books. As I explain in my upcoming book, <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/diet-and-the-disease-of-civilization/9780813589640">“Diet and the Disease of Civilization</a>,” diet books and nutritional advice offer needed insights into the philosophical debate in America about who we are and how we should live.</p>
<h2>The disease of civilization</h2>
<p>In an echo of Genesis, diet books recount an earlier, Edenic paradise of health. They narrate our fall from grace, then exhort dieters to reform their lifestyles and return to that earlier ideal. They pathologize the relationship between human health and modernity by insisting that we should return to a more “natural” lifestyle. </p>
<p>Take the <a href="http://thepaleodiet.com/">paleo diet</a>. This diet holds up an original Paleolithic paradise as an ideal world, characterized by social equality, effortless health and natural beauty. Today’s world looks grim by comparison.</p>
<p>The paleo diet implies that agriculture brought about mankind’s fall from grace, ripping Paleolithic peoples from their state of nature and introducing civil society and all of its many problems. It promises its <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/12/27/257669972/was-2013-really-the-year-of-the-paleo-diet">three million American followers</a> a chance to recover some of that <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/579270/pdf">original world</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185512/original/file-20170911-1373-u7fb97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185512/original/file-20170911-1373-u7fb97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185512/original/file-20170911-1373-u7fb97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185512/original/file-20170911-1373-u7fb97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185512/original/file-20170911-1373-u7fb97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185512/original/file-20170911-1373-u7fb97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185512/original/file-20170911-1373-u7fb97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Expulsion from the Garden of Eden’ by Thomas Cole depicts the edge between Paradise and a hostile world ravaged by civilization.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts in Boston</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520242401">Devotional diets</a> offer the most obvious example of a fallen society. Christian weight loss plans like <a href="http://theedendiet.com/">the Eden Diet</a> fold the spirit into the larger claim of the diet genre on the whole: namely, that Americans today are fat, sick and sad because our world is out of whack. These books suggest that Western civilization denies human nature and that disease is the inevitable cost of modern life. </p>
<p>All of these stories combine to create a <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/06/want-to-lose-weight-put-down-the-diet-book.html">powerful critique of modernity</a>. Our Puritan forefathers decried Americans for failures of spirit. Our diet gurus today rage that our bodies are ill and our willpower weak. Both insist that only individual reform – of spirit or of body – would rescue the health of the body politic. </p>
<h2>The ‘toxins’ of modern life</h2>
<p>In an elegant story of a pure, preindustrial world, detox diets push for a cleaner body and a cleaner environment. </p>
<p>Published since the 1980s, detox diets blame pollution, contamination and the general toxicity of modern life for the rise of obesity and other noncommunicable diseases. These diets include food addiction in the broader drug and alcohol addiction framework. </p>
<p>Detox diets helped introduced <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/25474358">“toxicity”</a> as a metaphor in public discussions about food, addiction and obesity in the U.S. Today, obesity prevention researchers and alternative food activists blame a <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-causes/food-environment-and-obesity/">“toxic food environment”</a> for food addiction and rising obesity rates. </p>
<p>This concept mediates between <a href="http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199857081.001.0001/acprof-9780199857081">conservative arguments for personal responsibility</a> and liberal beliefs in government intervention. Toxicity is the middleman in the relationship between environment and citizen. </p>
<p>Few detox diets pinpoint actual toxic substances like mercury in tuna or specific preservatives in processed foods. Instead, toxic foods or a toxic society are easy scapegoats in a world so tragically saturated with <a href="https://archive.org/stream/fp_Silent_Spring-Rachel_Carson-1962/Silent_Spring-Rachel_Carson-1962_djvu.txt">material toxins like DDT</a>. For dieters, “toxins” are nearly always vague shorthand for all that is wrong with American culture, politics and people. </p>
<p><a href="http://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2016/01/13/pr-diet-lit-johnson-011316/">1984’s “Detox”</a> opened with a sentence typical of the genre: “It is now a fact that harmful substances are everywhere: in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the fresh vegetables we eat, and the clothes we wear. The environment, once so familiar and trustworthy, is becoming a stranger as toxic chemicals permeate our atmosphere, lakes, oceans, and soil.” The book advised Americans to detoxify their diets and protect themselves from pollution with masks and filters.</p>
<h2>Purify your body… and clean up the world</h2>
<p>Many diet books straddle the political line between diet and manifesto. Rather than accept environmental damage as irrevocable, these books often urge dieters to vote for environmentalist candidates, support organizations like the Sierra Club or, at the very least, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Great-American-Detox-Diet-Cleaning/dp/1594864845">practice consumer activism.</a> </p>
<p>In 1971, food activist Frances Lappé’s best-selling <a href="http://smallplanet.org/books/diet-small-planet">“Diet for a Small Planet”</a> was at once a political blueprint for a better world and a meal-by-meal diet. Lappé championed environmental vegetarianism and railed against industrial agriculture in the path-breaking book, which has since sold <a href="https://www.smallplanet.org/frances-moore-lappe">three million copies</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138312/original/image-20160919-11134-1wu1fo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138312/original/image-20160919-11134-1wu1fo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138312/original/image-20160919-11134-1wu1fo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138312/original/image-20160919-11134-1wu1fo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138312/original/image-20160919-11134-1wu1fo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138312/original/image-20160919-11134-1wu1fo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138312/original/image-20160919-11134-1wu1fo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Life in a Peaceful New World’ illustrates the religious idea of returning to a holy world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">pamphlet, Adrienne Rose Johnson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a way, detox diets use selfishness as a springboard. They rally self-concerned readers not simply to improve their own lives, but to save the world. By <a href="http://pollan.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/voting-with-your-fork/?_r=0">“voting with your fork,”</a> alternative food activists use consumer dollars to promote a vision of whole foods, real small-scale farms and a diverse bounty of unprocessed produce.</p>
<p>This naive, wistful vision has the power to create activists from cynics: Think of the continued relevance of the 1984 “Detox” promise that “By the year 2000, we should all be breathing cleaner air, eating unprocessed and uncontaminated foods, and drinking water that is fit to drink.” </p>
<h2>A vision for the future</h2>
<p>Many diets today respond to anxiety over the coldness of modern life by romanticizing a <a href="https://archive.org/details/lettersonagricul00wash">pioneer past</a>, built on the concept of the agrarian democracy advocated by Thomas Jefferson. This kind of Jeffersonian republicanism advocated for a nation of independent yeoman farmers insulated from city corruption, deeply invested in American soil and, in turn, the American endeavor. </p>
<p>But they also relay more radical food politics into an easy-to-understand set of food philosophies that issue a call to action. They call on us to detoxify our bodies and our nation, curing the sickness of both body and body politic. </p>
<p>These books tell the story of a people who – despite the sometimes unending tragedies of modern life – reject the world-weariness that plagues our cynics and depresses our idealists. Dieters plod along: They are optimists who recognize the hungry, difficult work of everyday life, but still plan to recapture a lost world, perhaps even better than it was before.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59351/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrienne Rose Bitar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Diet books aren’t just fluff. They offer a powerful insight into who Americans are – and how we wish the world could be.
Adrienne Rose Bitar, Postdoctoral associate, Cornell University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/86035
2017-11-13T01:01:57Z
2017-11-13T01:01:57Z
The strange story of turkey tails speaks volumes about our globalized food system
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193827/original/file-20171108-14182-18ak4eh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Headed for export?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/aH4bfM">Ryan McDonough</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Intensive livestock farming is a huge global industry that serves up millions of tons of beef, pork and poultry every year. When I asked one producer recently to name something his industry thinks about that consumers don’t, he replied, “Beaks and butts.” This was his shorthand for animal parts that consumers – especially in wealthy nations – don’t choose to eat.</p>
<p>On Thanksgiving, turkeys will adorn close to <a href="http://extension.illinois.edu/turkey/turkey_facts.cfm">90 percent</a> of U.S. dinner tables. But one part of the bird never makes it to the groaning board, or even to the giblet bag: the tail. The fate of this fatty chunk of meat shows us the bizarre inner workings of our global food system, where eating more of one food produces less-desirable cuts and parts. This then creates demand elsewhere – so successfully in some instances that the foreign part becomes, over time, a national delicacy.</p>
<h2>Spare parts</h2>
<p>Industrial-scale livestock production evolved <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0158e/a0158e02.htm">after World War II</a>, supported by scientific advances such as antibiotics, growth hormones and, in the case of the turkey, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/11/the-supersized-american-turkey/281843/">artificial insemination</a>. (The bigger the tom, the harder it is for him to do what he’s supposed to do: procreate.) </p>
<p>U.S. commercial turkey production <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/livestock-meat-domestic-data/">increased</a> from 16 million pounds in January 1960 to 500 million pounds in January 2017. </p>
<p>That includes a quarter-billion turkey tails, also known as the parson’s nose, pope’s nose or sultan’s nose. The tail is actually a gland that attaches the turkey’s feathers to its body. It is filled with oil that the bird uses to preen itself, so about 75 percent of its calories come from fat.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193832/original/file-20171108-14215-9vse2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193832/original/file-20171108-14215-9vse2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193832/original/file-20171108-14215-9vse2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193832/original/file-20171108-14215-9vse2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193832/original/file-20171108-14215-9vse2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193832/original/file-20171108-14215-9vse2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193832/original/file-20171108-14215-9vse2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193832/original/file-20171108-14215-9vse2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ready to eat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/dBeeHr">Mark Turnauckas</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s not clear why turkeys arrive at U.S. stores tailless. Industry insiders have suggested to me that it may simply have been an economic decision. Turkey consumption was a novelty for most consumers before World War II, so few developed a taste for the tail, although the curious can find <a href="http://www.soulfoodandsoutherncooking.com/how-to-cook-turkey-tail.html">recipes online</a>. Turkeys have become larger, <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/11/turkey-bigger-thanksgiving-butterball-antibiotics/">averaging around 30 pounds today compared to 13 pounds in the 1930s</a>. We’ve also been breeding for breast size, due to the American love affair with white meat: One prized early big-breasted variety was called <a href="https://modernfarmer.com/2014/11/turkeys-got-broad-white-breasts/">Bronze Mae West</a>. Yet the tail remains. </p>
<h2>Savored in Samoa</h2>
<p>Rather than letting turkey tails go to waste, the poultry industry saw a business opportunity. The target: Pacific Island communities, where animal protein was scarce. In the 1950s U.S. poultry firms began dumping turkey tails, along with chicken backs, into markets in Samoa. (Not to be outdone, New Zealand and Australia exported “mutton flaps,” also known as sheep bellies, to the Pacific Islands.) With this strategy, the turkey industry turned waste into gold. </p>
<p>By 2007 the average Samoan was consuming more than 44 pounds of turkey tails every year – a food that had been unknown there less than a century earlier. That’s <a href="http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/statistics/per-capita-consumption-of-poultry-and-livestock-1965-to-estimated-2012-in-pounds/">nearly triple</a> Americans’ annual per capita turkey consumption. </p>
<p>When I interviewed Samoans for my book <a href="https://islandpress.org/books/no-one-eats-alone">“No One Eats Alone: Food as a Social Enterprise</a>,” it was immediately clear that some considered this once-foreign food part of their island’s national cuisine. When I asked them to list popular “Samoan foods,” multiple people mentioned turkey tails – frequently washed down with a cold Budweiser.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193838/original/file-20171108-14205-17phee6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193838/original/file-20171108-14205-17phee6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193838/original/file-20171108-14205-17phee6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193838/original/file-20171108-14205-17phee6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193838/original/file-20171108-14205-17phee6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193838/original/file-20171108-14205-17phee6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193838/original/file-20171108-14205-17phee6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193838/original/file-20171108-14205-17phee6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">American Samoa is a U.S. territory covering seven islands in the South Pacific.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NPS_american-samoa-regional-map.jpg">National Park Service</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How did imported turkey tails become a favorite among Samoa’s working class? Here lies a lesson for health educators: The tastes of iconic foods cannot be separated from the environments in which they are eaten. The more convivial the atmosphere, the more likely people will be to have positive associations with the food. </p>
<p>Food companies have known this for generations. It’s why Coca-Cola has been ubiquitous in baseball parks for more than a century, and why many McDonald’s have PlayPlaces. It also explains our attachment to turkey and other classics at Thanksgiving. The holidays can be stressful, but they also are a lot of fun. </p>
<p>As Julia, a 20-something Samoan, explained to me, “You have to understand that we eat turkey tails at home with family. It’s a social food, not something you’ll eat when you’re alone.”</p>
<p>Turkey tails also come up in discussions of the health epidemic gripping these islands. American Samoa has an obesity rate of <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/battling-american-samoas-75-percent-obesity-rate/">75 percent</a>. Samoan officials grew so concerned that they <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/05/14/182568333/samoans-await-the-return-of-the-tasty-turkey-tail">banned turkey tail imports</a> in 2007.</p>
<p>But asking Samoans to abandon this cherished food overlooked its deep social attachments. Moreover, under World Trade Organization rules, countries and territories generally cannot unilaterally ban the import of commodities unless there are proven public health reasons for doing so. Samoa was forced to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-20/an-samoa-lifts-ban-on-high-fat-turkey-tails/4699506">lift its ban</a> in 2013 as a condition of joining the WTO, notwithstanding its health worries.</p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/242318480" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Author Michael Carolan cooks turkey tails for the first time.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Embracing the whole animal</h2>
<p>If Americans were more interested in eating turkey tails, some of our supply might stay at home. Can we bring back so called <a href="http://www.restaurant.org/Manage-My-Restaurant/Food-Nutrition/Cost-Management/Serving-up-the-whole-animal-Nose-to-tail-cooking">nose-to-tail</a> animal consumption? This trend has gaining some ground in the United States, but mainly in a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/24/iowa-pig-tail-trend/1862573/">narrow foodie niche</a>.</p>
<p>Beyond Americans’ <a href="http://modernnotion.com/the-world-war-ii-campaign-to-get-americans-to-eat-organ-meat/">general squeamishness</a> toward offal and tails, we have a knowledge problem. Who even knows how to carve a turkey anymore? Challenging diners to select, prepare and eat whole animals is a pretty big ask.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193839/original/file-20171108-14221-sh1zwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193839/original/file-20171108-14221-sh1zwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193839/original/file-20171108-14221-sh1zwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193839/original/file-20171108-14221-sh1zwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193839/original/file-20171108-14221-sh1zwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193839/original/file-20171108-14221-sh1zwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193839/original/file-20171108-14221-sh1zwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193839/original/file-20171108-14221-sh1zwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Oxtails were a popular Depression-era meat cut in the United States, but now are found more frequently in Asian cuisine; shown here, oxtail soup at a Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/oEfLU4">T. Tseng</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Google’s digitization of old cookbooks shows us that it wasn’t always so. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=j3MEAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+American+Home+Cookbook&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiaqtfUzZHXAhWH14MKHfneDy4Q6AEIKzAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">“The American Home Cook Book</a>,” published in 1864, instructs readers when choosing lamb to “observe the neck vein in the fore quarter, which should be of an azure-blue to denote quality and sweetness.” Or when selecting venison, “pass a knife along the bones of the haunches of the shoulders; if it smell [sic] sweet, the meat is new and good; if tainted, the fleshy parts of the side will look discolored, and the darker in proportion to its staleness.” Clearly, our ancestors knew food very differently than we do today.</p>
<p>It is not that we don’t know how to judge quality anymore. But the yardstick we use is calibrated – intentionally, <a href="https://islandpress.org/books/no-one-eats-alone">as I’ve learned</a> – against a different standard. The modern industrial food system has trained consumers to prioritize quantity and convenience, and to judge freshness based on sell-by-date stickers. Food that is processed and sold in convenient portions takes a lot of the thinking process out of eating. </p>
<p>If this picture is bothersome, think about taking steps to recalibrate that yardstick. Maybe add a few <a href="https://sustainablefoodcenter.org/latest/gardening/heirlooms-for-thanksgiving-dinner">heirloom ingredients</a> to beloved holiday dishes and talk about what makes them special, perhaps while showing the kids how to judge a fruit or vegetable’s ripeness. Or even <a href="https://www.chowhound.com/post/turkey-tails-819469">roast some turkey tails</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86035/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Carolan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The fate of turkey tails shows how Americans have shifted from eating whole animals to focusing on choice cuts – and the surprising places where unwanted parts end up.
Michael Carolan, Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean for Research & Graduate Affairs, College of Liberal Arts, Colorado State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/82294
2017-11-07T03:29:56Z
2017-11-07T03:29:56Z
The long, strange history of dieting fads
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184784/original/file-20170905-32174-ly2c4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Another day, another diet.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/diet-woman-measuring-body-weight-on-650125099?src=Xp1V1Ltm0rHhW45CXDWTKQ-1-6">Yuriy Maksymiv/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Of all the parasites that affect humanity I do not know of, nor can I imagine, any more distressing than that of Obesity.” </p>
<p>So started <a href="https://archive.org/details/letteroncorpulen00bant">William Banting</a>’s “Letter on Corpulence,” likely the first diet book ever published. Banting, an overweight undertaker, published the book in 1864 to espouse his success after replacing an excessive intake of bread, sugar and potatoes with mostly meat, fish and vegetables. </p>
<p>Since then, fad diets have appeared in many forms. To what length will people go to achieve their desired figure? As a professor of nutrition and eating behaviors, my sense is the history of dieting shows vanity outweighs common sense. </p>
<h2>Liquid-based diets</h2>
<p>Let’s jump back to 1028, the year <a href="http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-william-the-conqueror">William the Conqueror</a> was born. Healthy most of his life, he became so overweight in later years that he went on a liquid diet consisting of almost nothing but alcohol. He lost enough weight to resume riding his cherished horse, but a riding accident soon led to his untimely death. </p>
<p>We do know of one case in which consuming more alcohol than food allegedly led to longevity. In 1558, Italian nobleman <a href="http://hipporeads.com/the_immortality_diet_how_diet_and_age_intersect/">Luigi Cornaro</a> restricted himself daily to 12 ounces of food and 14 ounces of wine. Rumor has it he lived to a ripe 102 years of age, earning his approach the nickname The Immortality Diet.</p>
<p>Another alcohol-focused plan, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/2004/04/21/cz_af_0421feat.html">The Drinking Man’s Diet</a>, was introduced in the 1960s. This included so-called “manly” foods like steak and fish, along with as much alcohol as desired.</p>
<p>Poet <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16351761">Lord Byron</a> credited his thin, pale look to vinegar and water. This practice reemerged in the 1950s as the popular <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811634,00.html?iid=chix-sphere">Apple Cider Vinegar Diet</a>, which instructs people to drink a mixture of equal parts honey and vinegar. The latest version, although not scientifically supported, claims that three teaspoons of apple cider vinegar before each meal will curb cravings and cut fat.</p>
<h2>Cleanses</h2>
<p>“Cleaner” liquid diets, cleanses and detoxes are designed to supposedly rid the body of toxins, despite our natural ability to do so.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184781/original/file-20170905-32174-1pn0llp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184781/original/file-20170905-32174-1pn0llp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184781/original/file-20170905-32174-1pn0llp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184781/original/file-20170905-32174-1pn0llp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184781/original/file-20170905-32174-1pn0llp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184781/original/file-20170905-32174-1pn0llp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184781/original/file-20170905-32174-1pn0llp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1950 ad for ‘vitamin candy.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nesster/7988128448">nesster/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1941, alternative health enthusiast Stanley Burroughs created the Master Cleanse, or <a href="http://themastercleanse.com/master-cleanse/lemonade-diet/">Lemonade Diet</a>, to eliminate cravings for junk food, alcohol, tobacco and drugs. All you had to do was consume a mixture of lemon or lime juice, maple syrup, water and cayenne pepper six times a day for at least 10 days. Beyoncé <a href="http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/The-Stars-of-Dreamgirls/6">made this popular again</a> in 2006, saying she lost 20 pounds in two weeks. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.doctoroz.com/article/dr-ozs-5-day-summer-cleanse">TV physician Dr. Oz</a> and others have since promoted their own versions, varying in length and foods allowed. Most include a daily laxative and copious amounts of water.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/clip/861235/prolinn_diet/">Last Chance Diet</a>, published in 1976, consisted of drinking a very low-calorie liquid a few times per day. The main ingredient was a blend of predigested animal byproducts – think hide, horns and tendons. This “meat smoothie” was taken off the market after several followers died. </p>
<p>More recently, the Green Juice plan became popular. Many were captivated by the promise of a deep cleanse or quick weight loss, while others saw it as an easy way to consume more fruits and vegetables. One of the original recipes called for apples, celery, cucumber, kale, lemon and ginger. </p>
<h2>Celebrity diets</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.faena.com/aleph/articles/andy-warhols-foolproof-new-york-diet/">Andy Warhol</a> had a different approach to maintaining his physique. He reportedly ordered foods he disliked when out at restaurants, asking for a to-go box upon leaving. He would then give this to a homeless person. </p>
<p>Sleeping was another possibility. Elvis Presley was rumored to be an advocate of the Sleeping Beauty Diet. Its long pill-induced sleeping bouts were said to inhibit eating. </p>
<p>A more recent effort to mimic celebrities, the <a href="https://www.diet.com/g/hollywood-diet">Hollywood 48 Hour Miracle Diet</a> was joined by the Hollywood 24 Hour Miracle Diet, the Hollywood Daily Miracle Diet Drink Mix Meal Replacement and various dietary supplements. </p>
<h2>Get slim quick</h2>
<p>In the early 1900s, overweight businessman Horace Fletcher slimmed down and made dieting a pop culture phenomenon with his <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9693596">Chewing Diet</a>. He recommended chewing food until it became liquid to prevent overeating. </p>
<p>Another method rumored to be popular in the early 1900s was the <a href="http://www.snopes.com/horrors/vanities/tapeworm.asp">Tapeworm Diet</a>. Theoretically, one would swallow a tapeworm or tapeworm pills. The worm would then live in your stomach and consume some of your food. While vintage advertisements have been found, there is no evidence that tapeworms were actually sold.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184782/original/file-20170905-24230-1f5yzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184782/original/file-20170905-24230-1f5yzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184782/original/file-20170905-24230-1f5yzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184782/original/file-20170905-24230-1f5yzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184782/original/file-20170905-24230-1f5yzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184782/original/file-20170905-24230-1f5yzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184782/original/file-20170905-24230-1f5yzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184782/original/file-20170905-24230-1f5yzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tapeworm, anyone?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/39736050@N02/8212182572">fdaphotos/flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other diets have allured fans over the years with the promise of easy weight loss through a single miraculous food. There’s the Grapefruit Diet, which recommends half a grapefruit before every meal; The Peanut Butter Diet and the Ice Cream Diet, both promising as much of said food daily as desired; and the Shangri-La Diet in 2006, which claimed you could beat hunger by drinking olive oil about an hour before each meal.</p>
<p>One standout example was the <a href="https://www.diet.com/g/cabbage-soup-diet">Cabbage Soup Diet</a>, first popularized by celebrities in the 1950s. This diet involved consuming nothing but soup for seven days. The original recipe called for cabbage, vegetables, water and dry onion soup mix, but other renditions added ingredients like fruit, skim milk and beef. It became trendy again every ten years or so, with the internet making it easier to share. </p>
<h2>Alternative ideas</h2>
<p>Some diets and their supporting theories went beyond food. </p>
<p>In 1727, writer Thomas Short observed that overweight people lived near swamps. His <a href="http://www.active.com/nutrition/articles/11-weirdest-diets-in-history">Avoiding Swamps Diet</a> thus recommended moving away from swamps. </p>
<p>Instead of moving away from swamps, <a href="http://www.snopes.com/breatharians/">Breatharianism</a> recommends not eating. Followers in a 2017 interview claimed food and water are unnecessary, saying they subsist on spirituality and sunlight alone. The prolonged fasting would eventually lead to starvation, but devotees have been spotted eating and drinking. </p>
<p>The more dangerous <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/dangerous-diet-trend-cotton-ball-diet/story?id=20942888">Cotton Ball Diet</a> surfaced in 2013. Dieters reported consuming up to five cotton balls at a time, saying they felt full and lost weight. With its unfortunate side effect of intestinal obstruction, this diet faded away. </p>
<p>But not all unusual ideas are bad. The Seven Day Color Diet, published in 2003, suggested eating foods of only one color each day. For example, red day would include tomatoes, apples and cranberries. This actually emphasizes healthful foods to include, rather than crazy concoctions or restrictions. </p>
<p>While intriguing, fad diets are usually short-term quick fixes. They may produce initial rapid weight loss, but this is more likely due to their lower calorie intake than the follower’s usual diet, and often consists of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2016-2385">water loss</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, we should remember that there’s no simple secret to losing weight. Achieving sustained weight loss and maintenance requires reducing your calorie intake and increasing your activity levels – with or without grapefruit and cabbage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82294/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melissa Wdowik does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
For centuries, people have been trying to lose weight in all sorts of ways – including drinking vinegar, avoiding swamps and stocking up on grapefruit.
Melissa Wdowik, Assistant Professor of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Colorado State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/86649
2017-11-02T17:27:06Z
2017-11-02T17:27:06Z
In America’s sandwiches, the story of a nation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193075/original/file-20171102-26483-ais8mr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/roast-beef-sandwich-on-plate-pickles-675902929?src=dhOfZe0q8WbQgSGvfCnEXw-1-41">Anna_Pustynnikova</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Everyone has a favorite sandwich, often prepared to an exacting degree of specification: Turkey or ham? Grilled or toasted? Mayo or mustard? White or whole wheat?</em> </p>
<p><em>We reached out to five food historians and asked them to tell the story of a sandwich of their choosing. The responses included staples like peanut butter and jelly, as well as regional fare like New England’s chow mein sandwich.</em> </p>
<p><em>Together, they show how the sandwiches we eat (or used to eat) do more than fill us up during our lunch breaks. In their stories are themes of immigration and globalization, of class and gender, and of resourcefulness and creativity.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>A taste of home for working women</h2>
<p><strong>Megan Elias, Boston University</strong></p>
<p>The tuna salad sandwich originated from an impulse to conserve, only to become a symbol of excess. </p>
<p>In the 19th century – before the era of supermarkets and cheap groceries – most Americans avoided wasting food. Scraps of chicken, ham or fish from supper would be mixed with mayonnaise and served on lettuce for lunch. Leftovers of celery, pickles and olives – served as supper “relishes” – would also be folded into the mix. </p>
<p>The versions of these salads that incorporated fish tended to use salmon, white fish or trout. Most Americans didn’t cook (or even know of) tuna. </p>
<p>Around the end of the 19th century, middle-class women <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/98859/land-of-desire-by-william-r-leach/9780679754114/">began to spend more time in public</a>, patronizing department stores, lectures and museums. Since social conventions kept these women out of the saloons where men ate, lunch restaurants opened up to cater to this new clientele. They offered women exactly the kind of foods they had served each other at home: salads. While salads made at home often were composed of leftovers, those at lunch restaurants were made from scratch. Fish and shellfish salads were typical fare. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1949 ad in Ladies’ Home Journal announces a ‘Revolution in Tuna.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/The_Ladies%27_home_journal_%281948%29_%2814766583732%29.jpg">Internet Archive Book Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When further social and economic changes <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/out-to-work-9780195157093?cc=us&lang=en&">brought women into the public as office and department store workers</a>, they found fish salads waiting for them at the affordable lunch counters patronized by busy urban workers. Unlike the ladies’ lunch, the office lunch hour had time limits. So lunch counters came up with the idea of offering the salads between two pieces of bread, which sped up table turnover and encouraged patrons to get lunch to go. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520261846">When canned tuna was introduced in the early 20th century</a>, lunch counters and home cooks could skip the step of cooking a fish and go straight to the salad. But there was downside: The immense popularity of canned tuna led to the growth of a global industry that has severely depleted stocks and led to the unintended <a href="https://swfsc.noaa.gov/textblock.aspx?Division=PRD&ParentMenuId=228&id=1408">slaughter of millions of dolphins</a>. A clever way to use dinner scraps has become a global crisis of conscience and capitalism. </p>
<p>I like mine on toasted rye.</p>
<hr>
<h2>East meets West in Fall River, Massachusetts</h2>
<p><strong>Imogene Lim, Vancouver Island University</strong></p>
<p>“Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein,” Warren Zevon <a href="https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tzmgsphpess3y2zc3oglxr4aira?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics&u=0#">sings</a> in his 1978 hit “Werewolves of London,” a nod to the popular Chinese stir-fried noodle dish. </p>
<p>During that same decade, <a href="https://folklife.si.edu/talkstory/2015/songs-for-ourselves-an-asian-american-music-playlist">Alika and the Happy Samoans</a>, the house band for a Chinese restaurant in Fall River, Massachusetts, also paid tribute to chow mein with a song titled “<a href="https://soundcloud.com/moyamoya4201/alika-and-the-happy-samoans">Chow Mein Sandwich</a>.”</p>
<p>Chow mein in a sandwich? Is that a real thing?</p>
<p>I was first introduced to the chow mein sandwich while completing my doctorate at Brown University. Even as the child of a Chinatown restaurateur from Vancouver, I viewed the sandwich as something of a mystery. It led to a post-doctoral fellowship and <a href="http://wordpress.viu.ca/limi/files/2012/07/ChowMeinSandwiches1994o.pdf">a paper</a> about Chinese entrepreneurship in New England. </p>
<p>The chow mein sandwich is the quintessential “East meets West” food, and it’s largely associated with New England’s Chinese restaurants – specifically, those of Fall River, a city crowded with textile mills near the Rhode Island border. </p>
<p>The sandwich became popular in the 1920s because it was filling and cheap: Workers munched on them in factory canteens, while their kids ate them for lunch in the parish schools, especially on meatless Fridays. It would go on to be available at some “five and dime” lunch counters, like <a href="http://www.enterprisenews.com/news/20160407/lunch-counter-memories-at-kresges-department-store-in-brockton">Kresge’s</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/18/business/woolworth-gives-up-on-the-five-and-dime.html">Woolworth</a> – and even at <a href="http://photobucket.com/gallery/http://s143.photobucket.com/user/genalof/media/BLOG/09BLOG-6.jpg.html">Nathan’s</a> in Coney Island.</p>
<p>It’s exactly what it sounds like: a sandwich filled with chow mein (deep-fried, flat noodles, topped with a ladle of brown gravy, onions, celery and bean sprouts). If you want to make your own authentic sandwich at home, I recommend using <a href="https://www.famousfoods.com/newengland-chow.html">Hoo Mee Chow Mein Mix</a>, which is still made in Fall River. It can be served in a bun (à la sloppy joe) or between sliced white bread, much like a hot turkey sandwich with gravy. The classic meal includes the sandwich, french fries and orange soda.</p>
<p>For those who grew up in the Fall River area, the chow mein sandwich is a reminder of home. Just ask famous chef (and Fall River native) Emeril Lagasse, who came up with his own “Fall River chow mein” <a href="https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/fall-river-chow-mein">recipe</a>. </p>
<p>And at one time, Fall River expats living in Los Angeles would hold a “Fall River Day.” </p>
<p>On the menu? Chow mein sandwiches, of course. </p>
<hr>
<h2>A snack for the elites</h2>
<p><strong>Paul Freedman, Yale University</strong></p>
<p>Unlike many American food trends of the 1890s, such as the Waldorf salad and <a href="http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O93019/chafing-dish-cover-benson-william-arthur/">chafing dishes</a>, the club sandwich has endured, immune to obsolescence. </p>
<p>The sandwich originated in the country’s stuffy gentlemen’s clubs, which are known – to this day – for a conservatism that includes loyalty to outdated cuisine. (The Wilmington Club in Delaware continues to serve <a href="https://www.saveur.com/history-of-turtle-soup-hunting">terrapin</a>, while the Philadelphia Club’s specialties include veal and ham pie.) So the club sandwich’s spread to the rest of the population, along with its lasting popularity, is a testament to its inventiveness and appeal. </p>
<p>A two-layer affair, the club sandwich calls for three pieces of toasted bread spread with mayonnaise and filled with chicken or turkey, bacon, lettuce and tomato. Usually the sandwich is cut into two triangles and held together with a toothpick stuck in each half. </p>
<p>Some believe it should be eaten with a fork and knife, and its blend of elegance and blandness make the club sandwich a permanent feature of country and city club cuisine.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The club sandwich: A perfect blend of elegance and blandness.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/club-sandwich-on-rustic-wooden-background-188159096">Alena Haurylik</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2015/11/the-evolution-of-club-sandwich.html">As far back as 1889</a>, there are references to a Union Club sandwich of turkey or ham on toast. The Saratoga Club-House offered a club sandwich on its menu beginning in 1894. </p>
<p>Interestingly, until the 1920s, sandwiches were identified with ladies’ lunch places that served “dainty” food. The first club sandwich recipe comes from an 1899 book of “salads, sandwiches and chafing-dish dainties,” and <a href="http://www.cntraveller.com/news/2012/january/in-praise-of-the-club-sandwich">its most famous proponent</a> was Wallis Simpson, the American woman whom Edward VIII abdicated the throne of Great Britain <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2016/11/edward-viii-wallis-simpson-wedding-photos-auction">to marry</a>. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, an 1889 article from the New York Sun entitled “An Appetizing Sandwich: A Dainty Treat That Has Made a New York Chef Popular” describes the Union Club sandwich as appropriate for a post-theater supper, or something light to be eaten before a nightcap. This was one type of sandwich that men could indulge in, the article seemed to be saying – as long as it wasn’t eaten for lunch.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New York City’s Union Club served an early version of the club sandwich that was a hit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Union_Club_NYC_003.JPG">Gryffindor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<h2>‘The combination is delicious and original’</h2>
<p><strong>Ken Albala, University of the Pacific</strong></p>
<p>While the peanut butter and jelly sandwich eventually became a staple of elementary school cafeterias, it actually has upper-crust origins.</p>
<p>In the late-19th century, at elegant ladies’ luncheons, a popular snack was small, crustless tea sandwiches with butter and cucumber, cold cuts or cheese. Around this time, health food advocates like John Harvey Kellogg <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=4UkSAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA140&dq=peanut+butter+inauthor:John+inauthor:Harvey+inauthor:Kellogg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiiuKHl953XAhUT5GMKHQe7A3MQ6AEIMzAC#v=onepage&q=peanut%20butter%20inauthor%3AJohn%20inauthor%3AHarvey%20inauthor%3AKellogg&f=false">started promoting</a> peanut products as a replacement for animal-based foods (butter included). So for a vegetarian option at these luncheons, peanut butter simply replaced regular butter.</p>
<p>One of the earliest known recipes that suggested including jelly with peanut butter appeared in a 1901 issue of the Boston Cooking School Magazine. </p>
<p>“For variety,” author Julia Davis Chandler <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=diUjAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22some%20day%20try%20making%20little%20sandwiches%2C%20or%20bread%20fingers%2C%20of%20three%20very%20thin%20layers%20of%20bread%20and%20two%20of%20filling%2C%20one%20of%20peanut%20paste&pg=RA1-PA188#v=onepage&q&f=false">wrote</a>, “some day try making little sandwiches, or bread fingers, of three very thin layers of bread and two of filling, one of peanut paste, whatever brand you prefer, and currant or crabapple jelly for the other. The combination is delicious, and so far as I know original.”</p>
<p>The sandwich moved from garden parties to lunchboxes in the 1920s, when peanut butter started to be mass produced with hydrogenated vegetable oil and sugar. Marketers of the Skippy brand targeted children as a potential new audience, and thus the association with school lunches was forged. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IPDH87kq-6M?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A Skippy peanut butter television ad from 1986.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The classic version of the sandwich is made with soft, sliced white bread, creamy or chunky peanut butter and jelly. Outside of the United States, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/09/peanut-butter_n_5105203.html">is rare </a> – much of the world views the combination as repulsive. </p>
<p>These days, many try to avoid <a href="https://www.salon.com/2012/03/03/the_rise_and_fall_of_white_bread/">white bread</a> and <a href="http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-rise-and-fall-of-trans-fat-20131107-story.html">hydrogenated fats</a>. Nonetheless, the sandwich has a nostalgic appeal for many Americans, and recipes for <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/food-sqirl-recipe-peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich-jam">high-end versions</a> – with freshly ground peanuts, artisanal bread or unusual jams – <a href="http://www.thecheapgourmet.com/2007/08/gourmet-peanut-.html">now circulate on the web</a>. </p>
<hr>
<h2>The Daughters of the Confederacy get creative</h2>
<p><strong>Andrew P. Haley, University of Southern Mississippi</strong></p>
<p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_woodcock">Scotch woodcock</a> is probably not Scottish. It’s arguably not even a sandwich. A favorite of Oxford students and members of Parliament until the mid-20th century, the dish is generally prepared by layering anchovy paste and eggs on toast.</p>
<p>Like its cheesier cousin, the Welsh rabbit (better known as rarebit), its name is fanciful. Perhaps there was something about the name, if not the ingredients, that sparked the imagination of Miss Frances Lusk of Jackson, Mississippi.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The United Daughters of the Confederacy cookbook features a take on the Scotch woodcock.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://digilib.usm.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/missana/id/1279/show/1254">McCain Library and Archives, The University of Southern Mississippi</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Inspired to add a little British sophistication to her entertaining, she crafted <a href="http://digilib.usm.edu/cdm/ref/collection/missana/id/1268">her own version</a> of the Scotch woodcock for a 1911 United Daughters of the Confederacy fundraising cookbook. Miss Lusk’s woodcock sandwich mixed strained tomatoes and melted cheese, added raw eggs, and slathered the paste between layers of bread (or biscuits). </p>
<p>As food historian Bee Wilson argues in her <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ydR5na_9fnYC&lpg=PP1&dq=bee%20wilson%20sandwich&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">history of the sandwich</a>, American sandwiches distinguished themselves from their British counterparts by the scale of their ambition. Imitating the rising skylines of American cities, many were towering affairs that celebrated abundance. </p>
<p>But those sandwiches were the sandwiches of <a href="https://restaurant-ingthroughhistory.com/2014/01/19/early-chains-baltimore-dairy-lunch/">urban lunchrooms</a> and, later, diners. In the homes of southern clubwomen, the sandwich was a way to marry British sophistication to American creativity.</p>
<p>For example, the United Daughters of the Confederacy cookbook included “sweetbread sandwiches,” made by heating canned <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/offal">offal</a> (animal trimmings) and slathering the mashed mixture between two pieces of toast. There’s also a “green pepper sandwich,” crafted from “very thin” slices of bread and “very thin” slices of green pepper. </p>
<p>Such creative combinations weren’t limited to the elites of Mississippi’s capital city. In the plantation homes of the Mississippi Delta, members of the Coahoma Woman’s Club served sandwiches of English walnuts, black walnuts and stuffed olives ground into a colorful paste. They also assembled “Friendship Sandwiches” from grated cucumbers, onions, celery and green peppers mixed with cottage cheese and mayonnaise. Meanwhile, the industrial elite of Laurel, Mississippi, served <a href="http://digilib.usm.edu/cdm/ref/collection/missana/id/1351">mashed bacon and eggs sandwiches</a> and <a href="http://digilib.usm.edu/cdm/ref/collection/missana/id/1351">creamed sardine sandwiches</a>.</p>
<p>Not all of these amalgamations were capped by a slice of bread, so purists might balk at calling them sandwiches. But these ladies did – and they proudly tied up their original creations with ribbons.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86649/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Five food experts peer under the bread to plumb the histories of the country’s unique sandwiches, from favorites like tuna fish to lesser-known fare like the woodcock.
Paul Freedman, Chester D. Tripp Professor of History, Yale University
Andrew P. Haley, Associate Professor of American Cultural History, The University of Southern Mississippi
Imogene L. Lim, Professor of Anthropology, Vancouver Island University
Ken Albala, Professor of History, University of the Pacific
Megan Elias, Associate Professor of the Practice of Gastronomy, Boston University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/81061
2017-07-17T23:10:08Z
2017-07-17T23:10:08Z
How changing your diet could save animals from extinction
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178513/original/file-20170717-6069-118ptx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C3329%2C2562&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nearly one-third of tropical animal species face extinction if humans do not curb our growing appetites for beef, pork and other land-intensive meats. The Panamanian golden frog bred by the Vancouver Aquarium in this 2014 file photo may be extinct in its natural habitat.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.cpimages.com/fotoweb/cpimages_details.pop.fwx?position=4&archiveType=ImageFolder&sorting=ModifiedTimeAsc&search=golden%20and%20frog&fileId=7ED4E565C8CEED275AEAE4A023E6F0DBFE75CC55B6586039AFA3A4A9FE951D3F22B34ACC50499F0099000C676EF56B79FD8133928F397B4233BD2F0B4AD858FA1638DDC87EBA9DB8E94B0839D79C227DF75A92B14A2B5F1A1225BCBD55DF59F06EB5BD7C5D2616EF6A9A1C79CADDD85732C9D97DC19FAC898908539CF52E943D">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Transforming large swaths of the tropics into farmland could render almost one-third of wildlife there extinct, new research suggests. </p>
<p>From the Amazon rain forests to the Zambezi floodplains, intensive <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0234-3.epdf?author_access_token=b6E1O0fG6Z2pt7i17O5LcdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Pk8s5ohTQBT5s50rsawiGLYGm5dBnXDBv1BU9t-BbojU0HQHmSIi7-KmQMAcQb1FgkSHgkdZLVFDTFxUt1byLe-6By_qDh-GymAFfpKHOMSA%3D%3D">monoculture farming could have a severe adverse impact on wildlife</a> around the world. </p>
<p>Wildlife would disappear most dramatically in the remaining forests and grasslands of Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. The greatest species loss would occur in the Peruvian Amazon basin where as many as 317 species could vanish as a result of agricultural development. </p>
<p>As a doctoral researcher at Humboldt University Berlin, I studied human food consumption, land use and how they affect wildlife. Our research was published July 17 in Nature Ecology and Evolution.</p>
<p>While human population has doubled since 1970, the number of <a href="http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/lpr_2016/">birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians have dropped by more than half</a>. At its root, this widespread environmental destruction is a result of our growth as a species and increasing food consumption to sustain ourselves.</p>
<p>Although climate change casts a shadow over future conservation efforts, farming is the <a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v546/n7656/full/nature22900.html">No. 1 threat to wildlife</a>. We have already <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/070062/abstract">altered some 75 per cent of the ice-free land</a> on this planet. If we continue along our current course, <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/108/50/20260">we will need to double our crop production</a> to feed a growing world population that demands more resource-intensive foods such as meat and dairy.</p>
<h2>Africa at risk</h2>
<p>Our research shows that Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly at risk of harmful agricultural development. This region is at the crossroads of economic, demographic and agricultural growth, and minimizing potential effects of agricultural change there is an urgent challenge.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178522/original/file-20170717-6046-18tdj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178522/original/file-20170717-6046-18tdj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178522/original/file-20170717-6046-18tdj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=181&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178522/original/file-20170717-6046-18tdj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=181&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178522/original/file-20170717-6046-18tdj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=181&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178522/original/file-20170717-6046-18tdj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178522/original/file-20170717-6046-18tdj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178522/original/file-20170717-6046-18tdj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The potential biodiversity loss due to agricultural expansion and intensification worldwide could be as high as 317 species in some locales (left), reaching 31 per cent of known vertebrate animals (right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Laura Kehoe)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This becomes more worrying when considering the percentage of land that is currently at risk (i.e. natural but arable) and not protected against future development. Four-fifths of the regions we identify at risk of farmland expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa are unprotected. This is less than half of the 43 per cent protected in Latin America.</p>
<p>Some may mistakenly believe that protecting land from farming is about preserving wildlife habitat while local people go hungry. But it’s not a binary choice. Instead, the goal is to ensure an ample supply of nutritious food while at the same time conserving the most biodiverse and unique places on Earth. This is possible if we try. Knowing in advance what areas are most at risk allows us to better plan for a more sustainable future.</p>
<p>Aside from protecting land, food can be grown at little to no cost to biodiversity. For example, small-holder agro-ecological farming, which uses diverse cropping techniques along with fewer chemical fertilizers and pesticides, can produce <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320712000821">large quantities of nutritious food at little to no cost</a> to wildlife. </p>
<p>We need to increase awareness of agro-ecological farming methods and secure local people’s land-holder rights — a crucial step to preventing large foreign corporations from buying up land for monoculture farming. </p>
<p>Communities adopting agro-ecological techniques is a win-win solution that goes a long way towards sustainably feeding the world without pushing wildlife towards extinction.</p>
<h2>What can policy makers do?</h2>
<p>Current large-scale <a href="http://www.conservation.org/How/Pages/Hotspots.aspx">conservation schemes</a> are based on factors that include past habitat loss and the threatened status of species, but none include the potential for future land-use change. We need to do a better job of predicting future pressures on wildlife habitat, especially because timely conservation action is cheaper and more effective than trying to fix the damage caused by farming. Our research takes a step in this direction.</p>
<p>We also show which countries could do with more support for conservation initiatives to protect land and find ways to sustainably grow food. Suriname, Guyana and the Republic of the Congo are just a few examples, as well as a number of countries in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa that are at the centre of high agricultural growth, low conservation investment and very high numbers of species that could be lost due to agricultural development. </p>
<p>Since most agricultural demand comes from richer nations, those countries should provide education and support for sustainable farming methods and locally led conservation efforts. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178526/original/file-20170717-27512-dd5mjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178526/original/file-20170717-27512-dd5mjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178526/original/file-20170717-27512-dd5mjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178526/original/file-20170717-27512-dd5mjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178526/original/file-20170717-27512-dd5mjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178526/original/file-20170717-27512-dd5mjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178526/original/file-20170717-27512-dd5mjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178526/original/file-20170717-27512-dd5mjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Map shows countries at risk of high species loss from agricultural development (yellow, bear icon), rapid agricultural growth 2009 to 2013 (orange, tractor symbol), and differing levels of conservation spending. Red represents low spending, high growth, and high species loss. Purple shows high spending, high growth, and low species loss. Green is high spending, low growth, and high species loss. Low values for all three factors are in grey. White represents no data. Dollar figures per square kilometre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laura Kehoe</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What can you do?</h2>
<p>All of this raises the question: How can we eat well without harming wildlife? One simple step we can all take right now that would have a far greater impact than any other (aside from having fewer children): Cut out the grain-fed beef. </p>
<p>The inefficiency of feeding livestock grain to turn them into meals for humans makes a <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969715303697">diet heavy in animals particularly harsh on the Earth’s</a> resources. For example, in the United States, it takes <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Should_We_Eat_Meat_Evolution_and_Consequ.html">25 kilograms of grain to produce one kilogram of beef</a>. Pigs have a grain-to-meat-ratio of 9:1, and chickens are 3:1. </p>
<p>Imagine throwing away 25 plates of perfectly good food to get one plate of beef — the idea is absurd and would likely be news if done en masse. But that is precisely what we are all unknowingly doing by eating resource-intensive meat. Articles on food waste seem half-baked when keeping in mind the bizarre grain-to-meat ratio of many of our most popular meats. </p>
<p>There are ways in which farmers can raise livestock with little to no environmental damage, particularly when land is not overgrazed and trees remain on the landscape. Indeed, in some remote areas grazing cattle are a crucial source of food and nourishment. Unfortunately, the industrialized feedlot model that relies heavily on grain makes up the overwhelming majority of the meat in your supermarket. That is the kind of farming that our research investigates.</p>
<h2>Livestock and deforestation</h2>
<p>To make matters worse, the grain we feed animals is the leading driver of deforestation in the tropics. And it’s a hungry beast: our <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v478/n7369/full/nature10452.html">cows, pigs, and poultry devour over one-third of all crops</a> we grow. Indeed, the grain we feed to animals in the U.S. alone <a href="http://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat">could feed an additional 800 million people</a> if it were eaten by us directly — more than the number of <a href="http://www.worldhunger.org/2015-world-hunger-and-poverty-facts-and-statistics/">people currently living in hunger</a>. </p>
<p>Livestock quietly causes <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/stop-deforestation/whats-driving-deforestation#.WSsT8e1tnIU">10 times more deforestation</a> than the palm oil industry but seems to get about 10 times less media attention. While it’s certainly true that avoiding unsustainable palm oil is a good idea, avoiding eating animals that were raised on grain is an even more effective conservation tactic.</p>
<p>Feeding the world without damaging nature is one of the greatest challenges humanity faces. But with a little foresight, better land governance and some simple meal changes, many of the solutions are at arm’s length. </p>
<p>For wildlife’s sake, go forth and enjoy your veggie burgers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81061/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Kehoe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
As much as one-third of animal species in the tropics could be eradicated if their habitats continue to be converted for monoculture farming. We can all do something to make a difference.
Laura Kehoe, Researcher in Conservation Decision Science and Land Use, University of Victoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/69254
2016-11-24T12:45:12Z
2016-11-24T12:45:12Z
Sweet potatoes, Donald Trump – and the Special Relationship
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147363/original/image-20161124-15348-9naota.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Two Hungry Dudes</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two days after the US presidential election, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/president-donald-trump-theresa-may-special-relationship-world-leaders-call-downing-street-a7409301.html">The Independent reported</a> that “Donald Trump has spoken with nine world leaders but has yet to call Theresa May, throwing her claim of a ‘special relationship’ into tatters.” </p>
<p>Eventually, the phone call was made. “Concerns over ‘special relationship’ allayed as Trump calls May,” read the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/10/concerns-over-special-relationship-allayed-as-may-speaks-to-trump">headline in The Guardian</a> a few days later. Time magazine <a href="http://time.com/4566395/donald-trump-theresa-may-special-relationship/">reassured US readers</a> that “Donald Trump and Britain’s Theresa May Affirm ‘Special Relationship’.” </p>
<p>It seems especially apt, as people in the US gather to celebrate Thanksgiving, to ponder the nature of the relationship between the two countries. After all, Thanksgiving forms part of an origin myth about how English settlers began the slow process of transforming themselves into Americans. The holiday commemorates the <a href="https://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/homework-help/thanksgiving/thanksgiving-history">1621 celebrations</a> held at the Puritan settlement in Plymouth, which included, apparently, a large meal, some parading and a short religious service. </p>
<p>Scholars (<a href="https://medium.com/the-nib/you-dont-want-your-thanksgiving-to-go-like-this-48b966892d7b#.ozsztw17j">and cartoonists</a>) have deconstructed the holiday comprehensively, noting the <a href="http://mysite.du.edu/%7Elavita/anth-3135-feasting-13f/_docs/siskind-thanksgiving_new.pdf">invented nature of many of its core elements</a>, its <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-6443.00182/epdf">sporadic celebration before the 20th century</a>, its erasure of <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/american-thanksgiving-a-pure-glorification-of-racist-barbarity/5359622">European violence towards Native Americans</a> and many other aspects. Overall, it’s clear that this holiday, like all national holidays, is an invented tradition based not only on collective remembering but also collective forgetting.</p>
<p>At the same time, while Thanksgiving masks a range of troubling and enduring aspects of US history, one feature merits some serious celebration: the sweet potato. Sweet potatoes in some form or another are now a structural element in the canonical Thanksgiving menu. </p>
<p>The authoritative <a href="http://cooking.nytimes.com/tag/sweet%20potato">New York Times cookery section</a> recommends 14 different sweet potato side dishes, from classic maple-candied sweet potatoes to less traditional takes such as roasted sweet potatoes with horseradish butter. And that’s not even starting on sweet potato pies and puddings. This year, I plan to bake <a href="http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/6235-paul-prudhommes-sweet-potato-pecan-pie">Paul Prudhomme’s sweet potato pecan pie</a>. (After that, I will hibernate for an entire year while my digestive system processes the 4m calories it has ingested.)</p>
<h2>A tart that is courage</h2>
<p>The sweet potato is in fact part of a transatlantic food alliance that predates the original Thanksgiving feast. Sweet potatoes originated in the Americas, and formed a staple of the diets of Caribbean islanders. Columbus had <a href="http://www.sweetsp.com/sweet-potato-looking-back-to-the.html">never seen anything like them</a> when he landed in the Bahamas in 1492. He compared them to African yams; others thought they tasted like turnips or chestnuts. </p>
<p>Once introduced into Europe, however, sweet potatoes quickly spread. By the late 16th century, they were grown on a commercial scale in the area around Malaga, Spain, and were considered “a good thing to eat” – in the words of one <a href="https://archive.org/details/naturalmoralhist61acosrich">Spanish Jesuit</a>.</p>
<p>But when did the sweet potato reach the British Isles? The English herbalist John Gerard included an illustration in his <a href="http://blog.hrp.org.uk/gardeners/history-of-sweet-potato/">1597 Herball</a>. “Howsoever they bee dressed, they comfort, nourish, and strengthen the body”, he reported enthusiastically. Sweet potatoes quickly became popular in England, and many of the earliest recipes for “potatoes” may in fact refer to sweet potatoes. They were even grown at Hampton Court, for the delectation of Henry VIII, who reportedly learned to enjoy their honeyed delights from the ill-fated Catherine of Aragon. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147354/original/image-20161124-15348-7bams1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147354/original/image-20161124-15348-7bams1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147354/original/image-20161124-15348-7bams1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147354/original/image-20161124-15348-7bams1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147354/original/image-20161124-15348-7bams1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147354/original/image-20161124-15348-7bams1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147354/original/image-20161124-15348-7bams1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sweet potatoes: ‘they comfort, nourish, and strengthen the body’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Gerard's 'Herball' (1596)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After their marriage disintegrated, Henry had to rely on home-grown sweet potatoes, rather than Spanish imports. Gardeners at Hampton Court have recently demonstrated that sweet potatoes <a href="http://blog.hrp.org.uk/gardeners/history-of-sweet-potato/">grow perfectly well</a> in our scarcely tropical climate. The first printed recipe containing sweet potato is probably the description of how to make “a tart that is a courage to a man or woman”, which appeared in the <a href="http://www.medievalcookery.com/notes/ghj1596.txt">Good Huswife’s Jewell</a>, a cookbook published in London in 1596.</p>
<h2>Before NATO … the sweet potato</h2>
<p>Ironically, while Henry VIII enjoyed sweet potatoes in Tudor England, pilgrims in 1621 New England almost certainly did not feast on maple-candied sweet potatoes, or any sweet potatoes at all. Early records of the settlement make no mention of them and they were not native to the chilly shores of the north Atlantic. The oldest documents in the US that refer to sweet potatoes are actually from England. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.folger.edu/">Washington’s Folger Library</a>, which holds a major collection of Shakespeariana, has recently unearthed an <a href="http://shakespeareandbeyond.folger.edu/2016/11/15/archive-oven-sweet-potato-pudding/">early recipe for sweet potato pudding</a> from … Warwickshire! The pudding calls for potatoes (sweet or ordinary), eggs, sugar and a good dose of sherry. So new world sweet potatoes have been criss-crossing the Atlantic since the 16th century, forming a special relationship of eaters and growers that long predates NATO.</p>
<p>But what about Donald Trump? Does he have anything to do with this long history? Not really, although the internet is replete with images of sweet potatoes that resemble the president-elect and critics have called him a “<a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/12/11/xenophobic_sweet_potato_donald_trump_the_ultimate_supercut_of_the_best_trump_insults/">xenophobic sweet potato</a>”. Will Trump tuck into a traditional sweet potato pie or candied sweet potatoes for his Thanksgiving dinner? I don’t know and I certainly don’t care. But the sweet potato, unlike Trump, is unquestionably one of the new world’s gifts to Britain – and the world.</p>
<p><strong>A recipe for sweet potato tart from Charles Carter, The Complete Practical Cook (London, 1730)</strong>.</p>
<p><em>POTATOE TORT.<br>
TAKE a Pound and half Spanish Potatoes [sweet potatoes]; boil them and blanch them, and cut them in Slices, not thin; sheet a Dish with Puff-paste, lay some Citron in the Bottom, lay over your Potatoes, and season them with Ginger, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, and Sugar; then take the Marrow of two Bones, cut it into Pieces as big as Walnuts, roll it in Yolks of Eggs, and season it as the Potatoes; lay it on them, and between the Lumps of Marrow lay Citron and Dates slic’d, and Eringoe Roots [I’d use candied angelica], sprinkle over some Sack and Orange-flower Water; then draw up a Quart of Cream boil’d with the Yolks of ten Eggs, and pour all over, bake it, and stick over some Citron, and serve it.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69254/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Earle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Henry VIII’s Spanish queen, Catherine, introduced him to them and he is said to have eaten 20 at one sitting. Food for thought this Thanksgiving.
Rebecca Earle, Professor of HIstory, University of Warwick
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/59565
2016-05-17T16:11:23Z
2016-05-17T16:11:23Z
BBC gets out of the kitchen as government turns up the heat
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122896/original/image-20160517-9464-1eul4b3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More than 11,000 recipes will go in the bin as the BBC drops it's much-loved Food site.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I suppose it says a lot about our current national obsession with all matters gastronomic that the focal point of media attention concerning the BBC’s decision to “redefine” its online presence centres around the decision to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36308976">take down its food website</a>.</p>
<p>But it also says a lot for the power of social media that, within hours of the announcement, BBC management <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/17/bbc-climbdown-over-online-recipes-after-public-outcry?CMP=share_btn_tw">went back on its plan</a> to bin more than 11,000 recipes, announcing that the bulk of them would instead be moved to its commercial <a href="http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/">BBC Good Food</a> website which will remain open for business. What really appears to have angered the 120,000 or so people who signed a <a href="https://www.change.org/p/bbc-save-the-bbc-s-recipe-archive">change.org petition</a> calling for the decision to be reversed is the unnecessary attack on such an altruistic, beneficial and tangible example of public service provision.</p>
<p>According to Lloyd Shepherd, who was instrumental in <a href="https://medium.com/@lloydshep/recipe-for-disaster-24acde3f273a#.xvhrs5euz">conceptualising and creating the original food site</a>, public service responsibilities were uppermost in the minds of those at the forefront of development. As he writes, the recipes posted had already been paid for by the licence fee payer and could be used for very little further cost. Added to this the fact that nutrition has become a public health issue and there is a role to play in the BBC publicising and helping to combat obesity issues.</p>
<p>As the text from the change petition states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When the government is trying to promote healthy eating, surely it is madness to remove such a comprehensive archive which has taken years to create … This is a much loved and used website and a precious resource for people across the country providing easy, free and importantly independent information on a vast range of foods and recipe options. The database provides inspiration for those with a few ingredients to come up with meal ideas and cook from scratch.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Could this be, as many journalists <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/louise-ridley/bbc-recipes-website-cut_b_9869872.html">have already pointed out</a>, the catalyst which rouses from slumber into open revolt those members of the public previously indifferent the future of the corporation? </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"732473545343700992"}"></div></p>
<p>If the <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/bbc-to-shut-down-recipes-website-2016-5?r=US&IR=T">reaction on Twitter</a> is anything to go by the BBC realised that if, come June, middle-class cooks up and down the country searching for BBC recipes collectively received the 404 Not Found Error message there would be a spectacular and simultaneous combustion which would not have been a pretty sight.</p>
<h2>Slicing and dicing</h2>
<p>Flippancy aside, this is clearly about much more than recipes. As part of the plan to implement cuts and address government concern that the BBC is “<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/bbc-confirms-online-closures-in-bid-to-save-15-million-a7033566.html">unfairly competing with commercial online publishers</a>”, the head of BBC news and current affairs James Harding announced that, subject to approval and in order to save around £15m, Radio 1’s Newsbeat, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iwonder">iWonder service</a>, the travel website and the local news indexes for more than 40 geographical areas around the UK will all close. BBC online news also announced, separately, that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36308976">plans are afoot</a> to merge the News Channel with the BBC’s international 24-hour television news service.</p>
<p>These measures must of course be seen in the context of the recent government <a href="https://theconversation.com/bbc-white-paper-the-worst-has-not-come-to-pass-but-the-leash-is-tightening-59282">White Paper on the future of the BBC</a> where the culture secretary, John Whittingdale, spoke of the BBC’s plans to reduce magazine-style content in online services. The focus should be, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/12/bbc-white-paper-key-points-john-whittingdale">said Whittingdale</a>, on “rigorous, impartial analysis of important news events and current affairs”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"732588046814679040"}"></div></p>
<p>Whittingdale was quick to distance himself from the gathering storm. Within hours of the announcement, he told a conference of the radio industry body RadioCentre’s that it is not his job to tell the BBC whether or not to put recipes up on its websites. Instead he alluded to the fact that the BBC had reacted to vigorous pressure from <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/sep/02/bbc-digital-news-operation-must-be-curbed-say-newspaper-publishers">certain sections of the press</a> calling for action on the BBC’s expansion into online “lifestyle content”. </p>
<h2>Pressure cooker</h2>
<p>Well, “vigorous pressure” from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/bad-news-week-for-bbc-as-murdoch-press-sharpens-claws-44621">government and press combined</a> has been a feature of the BBC’s history and its certainly true that in September 2015 the New Media Association, the trade body of the UK press, pleaded that the BBC’s burgeoning digital presence was damaging the business interests of commercial operators. As <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/sep/02/bbc-digital-news-operation-must-be-curbed-say-newspaper-publishers">reported in the Guardian</a>, in its submission to the BBC’s Charter review, the association recommended specific controls on BBC online and fundamentally disagreed with the BBC’s ambitions to expand its online provision. For those that see the hand of Murdoch in these things it will come as no surprise to learn that the association’s chair is Mike Darcey, who is also a former <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jun/12/news-uk-mike-darcey-departure-rebekah-brooks-return-speculation">chief executive of The Sun and Times publisher, News UK</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"732525237292654592"}"></div></p>
<p>BBC bashing is of course the perennial sport of The Sun and Times and some, including singer and activist Billy Bragg, see the furore over recipes as a significant moment in the “battle against Murdoch” and by extension against the government’s sustained attacks on the ethos and existence of the BBC.</p>
<p>For News UK it is business as usual. As the news of the closures was breaking <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/content/29-bbc-journalists-alleged-be-earning-more-pms-%C2%A3150k-salary-named">Press Gazette reported</a> that the News Corp-owned website Heat Street had revealed the names of 41 BBC stars it believes are paid more than the prime minister’s £150,000 salary. </p>
<p>A number of food and recipe websites are waiting in the wings to launch. Two of them – as one <a href="https://tompride.wordpress.com/2016/05/17/who-benefits-from-the-tory-decision-to-axe-bbc-recipes/">blogger has already noted</a>, Taste and Bestrecipe, have the same names as websites in Australia owned by – you guessed it – the Murdochs. But that’s just coincidence, obviously.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59565/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The national broadcaster’s decision to close its food website is a direct result of political pressure.
John Jewell, Director of Undergraduate Studies, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/53742
2016-05-16T19:55:49Z
2016-05-16T19:55:49Z
Can we be Australian without eating indigenous food?
<p>American food historian <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/119999.Food_by_Waverley_Root">Waverley Root</a> once wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>food is a function of the soil, for which reason every country has the food naturally fit for it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Every country, that is, except Australia.</p>
<p>By Australian food we mean the plants, fruits and animals that have grown here and sustained the indigenous people of the land for over 50,000 years. If we eat only the food brought by the first settlers and all those who followed, can we call ourselves Australian?</p>
<p>The British who colonised – or <a href="https://theconversation.com/of-course-australia-was-invaded-massacres-happened-here-less-than-90-years-ago-55377">invaded</a> – Australia arrived with an intact culture, which included their cusine. They brought with them the fruit, vegetables and livestock from their home. From the outset, they imposed that food and food culture on their new land and, <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-can-close-the-indigenous-nutrition-gap-heres-how-54529">to their detriment</a>, its original inhabitants. </p>
<p>They ignored the intricate environmental management of indigenous peoples, a management that heavily informed their world view. Historian Bill Gammage <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2011/december/1322699456/james-boyce/biggest-estate-earth-how-aborigines-made-australia-bill-g">argued in The Biggest Estate on Earth</a> (2011) that for the original inhabitants “theology is fused with ecology”. The colonists overlaid an alien system of agriculture which began the process of ecological imbalance in which the continent now finds itself and began exporting back to Europe the European foodstuffs they planted and raised. And, for around 150 years, we adhered to the diet of the first settlers.</p>
<p>In short, European Australians lived on, not in, this continent. This culinary determinism is the most material evidence of the disjunction between where we are, and what we eat.</p>
<p>The successive waves of migrant arrivals since 1945 also bought their cultures and foods with them. And what did Anglo Australia do? Ate them up. Embraced the food of migrants more than just about any country in the world.</p>
<p>The result is that Australia is not just multicultural, it’s multiculinary. Australians will go to a Thai restaurant – any kind of restaurant – and have no fear. They’ll happily eat boat noodle soup with beef blood stirred through it or stinking tofu: but not witchetty grubs or quandongs or akudjura (bush tomatoes). As the television scientist Julius Sumner Miller would have asked, “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/whyisitso/">why is it so?</a>” </p>
<p>To answer that question we must first acknowledge that food is far more than a material substance that is ingested and excreted. It distinguishes and defines us to ourselves and to our fellows. </p>
<p>It can be a primary cultural marker of our clan, tribe, religion, region, province, personal sensibilities and country of origin. Based on that understanding of the complexity of food, we’d like to suggest three interlocked answers to this question.</p>
<p>Firstly, cultural determinism, which basically means you stick with what you grew up with. It made sense for the First Fleet to bring its own food to this distant and unknown land. But not, perhaps, to ignore the local foods for almost 250 years.</p>
<p>Secondly, neophilia, <a href="https://sites.sas.upenn.edu/rozin/files/choicefoodxcultappetite2006.pdf">the fear of new foods</a>, a concept introduced by psychologist Paul Rozin. And new they were. Giant marsupials that bounded across the landscape; limes shaped like fingers; flour – nardoo – made from a fern. Large white tree grubs. Strange grub indeed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122624/original/image-20160516-10697-1ux3q36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122624/original/image-20160516-10697-1ux3q36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122624/original/image-20160516-10697-1ux3q36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122624/original/image-20160516-10697-1ux3q36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122624/original/image-20160516-10697-1ux3q36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122624/original/image-20160516-10697-1ux3q36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122624/original/image-20160516-10697-1ux3q36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122624/original/image-20160516-10697-1ux3q36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nardoo spores are roasted, then ground to make flour.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">eyeweed</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>(As an aside, misunderstanding the food of the land really can be deadly. Burke and Wills may have <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2007/03/08/2041341.htm">starved to death from eating too much nardoo</a>, which is full of an enzyme that’s lethal in high quantities. If they’d asked the local Indigenous people how to prepare the nardoo spores, they would have survived.)</p>
<p>Finally, the dark, underlying reasons for the long rejection of our native foods. What we – and others – have called “food racism”. The association of these foods with the original inhabitants. </p>
<p>This is a very hard charge to prove, but in writing about this topic, over time, I (John Newton) have recorded several examples of anecdotal evidence. Perhaps the most powerful example comes from Raymond Kersh, chef at the Edna’s Table series of restaurants.</p>
<p>When he began using Australian native produce ingredients in his dishes at the first Edna’s Table, Kersh didn’t list them on the menu. But when the restaurant moved in 1993, he began listing the native ingredients used in the dishes on the menu. </p>
<p>A good customer who had eaten Kersh’s food in the first Edna’s Table came to the new restaurant, read the menu and asked the chef: “What are you using this Abo shit for?” This was not an isolated instance. It certainly reinforces the power of food beyond its ability to satisfy hunger.</p>
<p>What can we do about this reluctance to eat the foods native to this country without which, we contend, we cannot truly call ourselves Australians?</p>
<p>Perhaps Australia Day should be celebrated with a meal of Australian and introduced food, shared by all Australians. The meal would give thanks to the Indigenous inhabitants for caring for country for over 50,000 years, and – admittedly belatedly – showing us the foods of the land. </p>
<p>It would be an act of culinary reconciliation. We might even agree to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-day-i-dont-feel-australian-that-would-be-australia-day-36352">change the name</a>. At the end of his book, Bill Gammage writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have a continent to learn. If we are to survive, let alone feel at home, we must begin to understand our country. If we succeed, one day we might become Australian. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>One way of achieving this may well be to sit down as brothers and sisters and share a meal of native foods.</p>
<p><br></p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is the second article in our new series “Tastes of a nation,” which looks at our food crazy culture. In the first instalment John Gage asked: <a href="https://theconversation.com/macho-kitchens-sludge-eating-techies-and-miracle-diets-how-did-food-get-so-tricky-54332">when did everyone get an opinion about your diet?</a></em></p>
<p><em>Do you have a story idea for this series? If so, please contact <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/team">Madeleine De Gabriele</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53742/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Newton is a member of The Greens NSW</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Ashton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Australians will happily eat boat noodle soup with beef blood stirred through it or stinking tofu – but not quandongs or akudjura. Yet overcoming ‘food racism’ and eating native produce could be a powerful act of culinary reconciliation.
John Newton, Author, The Oldest Foods on Earth, University of Technology Sydney
Paul Ashton, Professor of Public History, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/54332
2016-05-15T19:46:58Z
2016-05-15T19:46:58Z
Macho kitchens, sludge eating techies and ‘miracle’ diets: how did food get so tricky?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122431/original/image-20160513-27205-1q5g9pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Food is being deconstructed, politicised, scrutinised and replaced altogether.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Our new series “Tastes of a nation” looks at our food crazy culture: from the politics of “Dude Food” to the moralising that now accompanies our eating choices.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Why is food such a big deal these days? Both inside and outside academia, it has become a veritable cultural and political obsession. Pop culture was there first: since at least the late 1970s, a vibrant array of media devoted to home cooking and fine dining has existed. </p>
<p>(The first chef’s hat to celebrate outstanding Australian restaurants was awarded in 1977; the 1980s witnessed the explosion of American half-hour cooking shows like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0282298/">The Frugal Gourmet</a> (1983-1995)). </p>
<p>One could certainly make a case for wide food obsessions in earlier decades, too. Still, our appetites seem more insatiable than ever: magazines, blogs, television shows, apps, social media, and a dazzling array of global festivals reveal how food has become a platform for selling a panoply of aspirational lifestyles.</p>
<p>Academics, by contrast, have come relatively late to the party. Anthropologists – always sensitively attuned to lifestyles, so to speak – led the pack in taking food as a compelling topic of study (the French structuralist <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Claude-Levi-Strauss">Claude Lévi-Strauss</a> may jump to your mind). </p>
<p>But only a handful of historians considered food a genuine subject of research until the mid-1970s, and even then their research frequently met with puzzlement. Other fields similarly hesitated to recognise food as a valid area of study. </p>
<p>Was it because food and cooking – like fashion – struck conservative male scholars as women’s stuff? Or was it because food studies seemed low on the list of important subjects for feminist scholars? If so, both sides have changed perspectives in recent decades.</p>
<p>Even the most old-fashioned scholars now recognise the deep research of enterprising social historians and feminist academics, who have shown food was always embedded in complex networks of labour and consumption for both men and women. The late Sidney Mintz’s 1985 book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/167457.Sweetness_and_Power">Sweetness and Power</a> – an historical anthropology of sugar – remains fundamental as a project that extended food studies into the realm of urgently topical scholarship.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122430/original/image-20160513-27188-1s9j4ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122430/original/image-20160513-27188-1s9j4ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122430/original/image-20160513-27188-1s9j4ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122430/original/image-20160513-27188-1s9j4ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122430/original/image-20160513-27188-1s9j4ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122430/original/image-20160513-27188-1s9j4ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122430/original/image-20160513-27188-1s9j4ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122430/original/image-20160513-27188-1s9j4ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stéphanie Kilgast/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Women are cooks, men are chefs</h2>
<p>Many of food culture’s stories of power, it turns out, are embedded in long histories in which women’s cooking has been classed as domestic and men’s cooking as professional. </p>
<p>Even for celebrity chefs, home cooking still generally conjures a world of women (Maggie, Delia, Julia), but restaurant cooking makes us think of dudes (Heston, Yotam, René). </p>
<p>This phenomenon haunts us even today: the uproar that followed the publication of <a href="http://www.eater.com/2013/11/7/6334005/time-editor-howard-chua-eoan-explains-why-no-female-chefs-are-gods-of">Time Magazine’s 2013 issue devoted to “The Gods of Food”</a> (100 chefs, all men) is just one index of an ongoing conversation about the way that food preparation articulates relations of power in families and businesses alike.</p>
<p>We also might wonder whether the celebration of the hard-driving macho culture of the kitchen (represented by military-style command structures coupled with tattooed counterculturalism, and flamboyant technologically-driven techniques) can help further to explain the popularisation of food culture in the last fifteen years.</p>
<p>Men’s ongoing embrace of the kitchen has made it a new leisure space and imaginative realm for them. Anthony Bourdain, Gordon Ramsay, and the <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/10/24/white-vegan-couple-cooks-controversy-thug-kitchen-cookbook">controversial Thug Kitchen duo</a> imagine cooking as a profane, often hard-living sport.</p>
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<p>But it’s a complex evolution: international phenoms like Jamie Oliver appear to straddle simple divides between home and professional kitchen, pointing to ethical concerns about eating (one of Oliver’s main platforms) over gendered ones.</p>
<h2>The contested science of food</h2>
<p>Scholarship is catching up now. An explosion of new research in dozens of fields has at last begun to grapple with the ways that food is fundamental to studies of capitalism, race, migration, nationalism, history, environment, demography, ethics, technology, leisure, justice, health, and art, just to name a few.</p>
<p>Food studies have permitted the flourishing of an interdisciplinary conversation that brings together unlikely interlocutors in the interest of finding important intersections between fields.</p>
<p>One of the most vexed of these intersections is the question of food science: both the science of food, and nutritional science. </p>
<p>“Molecular gastronomy” is a phrase we often use generically to talk about high-tech cuisine, but scholars originally coined it to point to a startling lack of knowledge: what actually happens (in terms of chemistry and physics) when we cook?</p>
<p>Only in the past thirty years have specialists begun to investigate those questions, and we can see some of the popularised fruits of that research in the new book by J. Kenji López-Alt, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24861842-the-food-lab">The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science</a> (2015), an enormous compendium of explanations and techniques based upon kitchen-laboratory research. </p>
<p>While the “science of cooking” might strike some as a strategy to appeal to men, new research suggests that young Australian women are embracing science education and careers vigorously. That shift suggests a generational change that could itself bring new perspectives into ‘food science.’</p>
<p>Advances in knowledge of food preparation, however, do not equate to knowledge of nutrition. One of the great research challenges of the last generation has been to find appropriate ways to study food in terms of public health. </p>
<p>Critics claim that fundamentally flawed research presuppositions about populations – especially in terms of class – have diverted much nutritional science into dubious territory. (See Julie Guthman’s 2011 book, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10998528-weighing-in">Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism</a>.) </p>
<p>Calorie-counting, nutritional graphs, fat-carbohydrate-protein ratios have all become contentious topics. Foods that the last generation ate virtuously we now denigrate as carcinogenic or toxic (meat, sugar), and former no-nos now receive scientific endorsement (certain kinds of fat). But not if you’re on the paleo regime. The somersaults are dizzying.</p>
<p>Stimulated by these arguments over ideal diets, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have gone so far as to scrap the very notion food. A food replacement named <a href="https://www.soylent.com/">Soylent</a>, a nutritionally-sufficient pancake-batter sludge, replaces food for young techies too busy to eat. </p>
<p>In this climate, one of the jobs of academic research into food is to unpack the core assumptions that drive production, consumption, and valuation of what we eat. We’ll be exploring some of these assumptions over the course of our new series, Tastes of a Nation. </p>
<p>If our research can propose better avenues, more compelling pasts and futures, or smarter ideas than the current working models, then we will have earned our just deserts … and, if the nutritionists permit us, possible even desserts.</p>
<p><br></p>
<hr>
<p><em>Look out for the next instalment in Tastes of a Nation: Can we call ourselves Australian if we don’t eat native food?</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54332/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Gagne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
When did food become such a big deal to academics, politicians and pop culture alike? From paleo evangelicals to taxes on sugar, everyone’s got an opinion about what’s on your fork.
John Gagne, Lecturer in History, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/37045
2015-02-09T03:42:25Z
2015-02-09T03:42:25Z
Health Check: how to get kids to eat healthy food
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71411/original/image-20150208-28605-jlaxzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C73%2C1000%2C752&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children will learn to like vegetables if they're regularly exposed to them from a young age.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-248588893/stock-photo-girl-eats-soup-plates.html?src=IFZOK9AYJUn-Br2wrwZ6Ig-2-83&ws=1">Zadorozhnyi Viktor/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hippocrates said circa 400BC that “food should be our medicine and medicine should be our food”. He would probably turn in his grave if he saw the amount of highly processed, sugary food and drinks marketed to children today. This food can be <a href="http://www.scripps.edu/news/press/2010/20100329.html">as addictive</a> as cocaine or heroin. And it’s difficult for parents to counteract its appeal.</p>
<p>One in four Australian children and 63% of adults are <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/33C64022ABB5ECD5CA257B8200179437?opendocument">overweight or obese</a>. This is <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)62089-3/abstract">contributing to</a> unprecedented levels of <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp068177">preventable obesity-related disease</a> such as diabetes, heart disease, and liver and kidney failure.</p>
<p>Unhealthy diets also contribute to <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890856713004498">poor mental health</a> and <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-012-9715-5">lower IQ</a> in children. Just like our body, our brain needs <a href="http://www.bourre.fr/pdf/publications_scientifiques/259.pdf">essential nutrients</a> and a healthy environment free from inflammation, oxidation and excess glucose to work properly. </p>
<h2>What can we do?</h2>
<p>Public health groups are <a href="http://www.phaa.net.au/documents/130201_Food%20Nutrition%20and%20Health%20Policy%20FINAL.pdf">tackling</a> junk food marketing with a multifaceted approach akin to the painfully gradual change that reduced tobacco advertising and smoking. In the meantime, parents can have a very important influence on their child’s health and eating choices. </p>
<p>A healthy diet at any age is <a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g4490,http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/286515.php">high in plant foods</a> such as fruit, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds and wholegrains as well as fish and healthy oils such as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/health/mediterranean-diet-can-cut-heart-disease-study-finds.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&">extra virgin olive oil</a>. And it’s <a href="http://www.nutritionj.com/content/14/1/8/abstract">low in processed</a>, high-fat, high-sugar foods and red meat. </p>
<p>It’s important to enjoy a <a href="https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/guidelines/australian-guide-healthy-eating">variety of foods</a> from each of the core food groups in order to get a broad range of essential nutrients. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71373/original/image-20150207-28573-bx7ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71373/original/image-20150207-28573-bx7ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71373/original/image-20150207-28573-bx7ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71373/original/image-20150207-28573-bx7ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71373/original/image-20150207-28573-bx7ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71373/original/image-20150207-28573-bx7ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71373/original/image-20150207-28573-bx7ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A variety of foods will give children a broad range of nutrients.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/avlxyz/6714657851">Alpha/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>So, for starters, breastfeeding for 12 months gives children a healthy immunity and has <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dmcn.12282/full">multiple benefits</a> for their health and for their cognitive development. It can also <a href="http://journals.lww.com/co-clinicalnutrition/Abstract/2008/05000/Development_of_taste_and_food_preferences_in.20.aspx">impact on their taste preferences</a> by exposing them to multidimensional flavours – and they can develop taste preferences for foods that mum eats too (healthy or otherwise). </p>
<p>The best time to gradually start introducing solids is <a href="https://theconversation.com/start-solids-at-around-six-months-new-infant-feeding-guidelines-12270">around six months</a> of age, when children are developmentally ready and start needing extra calories and some extra nutrients such as iron. But even the most well-meaning parents can struggle to get toddlers and children to eat healthy food, especially vegetables. </p>
<h2>Convincing toddlers</h2>
<p>Children will learn to like healthy food such as vegetables if they are regularly exposed to them from a young age. Where you can, cook baby foods yourself from fresh ingredients, and avoid adding sugars and salt. </p>
<p>Children’s taste preferences are established in early life. It is best to keep it simple – introduce new vegetables and fruit one at a time so they can learn to appreciate the individual flavours.</p>
<p>Young children naturally tend to develop neophobia, fear of unknown food, at around the age of two. Therefore, continued exposure to healthy foods, rather than pandering to fussiness, will help to mitigate this and their willingness to try novel foods will naturally increase over time. </p>
<p>Research shows it <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-277X.2007.00804.x/full">can take</a> ten to 14 exposures to a previously unliked vegetable for children to like it and choose to eat it. So don’t give up. It’s important for this exposure to be neutral, without any pressure, rewards or bribes. Make it a positive family occasion free from distractions such as TV, other media and toys.</p>
<p>Research has shown that even exposing children to vegetables in story books from a young age can <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666311004727">further strengthen</a> the likelihood that they will eat vegetables. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71372/original/image-20150207-28578-1j71yud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71372/original/image-20150207-28578-1j71yud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71372/original/image-20150207-28578-1j71yud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71372/original/image-20150207-28578-1j71yud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71372/original/image-20150207-28578-1j71yud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71372/original/image-20150207-28578-1j71yud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71372/original/image-20150207-28578-1j71yud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Let kids explore the textures and flavours.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/aznongbri/1572295316">Nongbri Family Pix/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Most importantly, <a href="http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-17196/why-you-should-let-your-kids-play-with-their-food.html">make it fun</a> and let children play with their food to explore all of the colours, flavours and textures. </p>
<p>The “parent provide, child decide” model can make this process a little easier. This is where parents provide healthy options within firm boundaries and allow the child to decide what, and how much to eat. Keep the unhealthy options out of the house. </p>
<p>Forcing children to eat vegetables does not work – you might win the battle but will lose the war. Avoid negative associations with healthy food, as these can put them off. </p>
<p>Nor does using bribes or rewards work, as children will learn to prefer the reward and not learn to enjoy healthy food for its own intrinsic taste. </p>
<p>Children will eat when they are hungry; their appetite will vary so don’t panic if they don’t want to eat. Let them learn to listen to their bodies and their innate hunger cues.</p>
<p>They will also copy you. So if you want healthy children, you need to be a <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=1701532&fileId=s0007114508892471">good role model</a> and eat well too. </p>
<h2>Encouraging older children</h2>
<p>As children get older, other children, parties and school can influence their eating behaviours. However, the family food environment still plays an important role in influencing healthy eating – in particular, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1038/oby.2007.553/full">the mother’s</a> role modelling behaviour and the food that is available in the home.</p>
<p>Other things that parents can do is involve children in shopping, cooking, gardening. School projects <a href="http://www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au/uploads/02%20ABOUT%20THE%20PROGRAM/pdf/kgevaluation_full_report.pdf">have shown</a> that if children are involved in growing, picking and cooking vegetables they are more likely to eat them.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71368/original/image-20150207-28608-wcq16n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71368/original/image-20150207-28608-wcq16n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71368/original/image-20150207-28608-wcq16n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71368/original/image-20150207-28608-wcq16n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71368/original/image-20150207-28608-wcq16n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71368/original/image-20150207-28608-wcq16n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71368/original/image-20150207-28608-wcq16n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Involve children in shopping, cooking and gardening.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/evilpeacock/14752401714">Eric Peacock/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Children of all ages whose families eat together at home – free from distractions such as television – <a href="http://triggered.edina.clockss.org/ServeContent?rft_id=info:doi/10.1001/archfami.9.3.235">have been shown</a> to have healthier diets. So make it a priority to eat together. This is also a great time for conversation and bonding.</p>
<p>And don’t despair if you or your child is struggling. The good news is that food addictions and taste preferences <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/health-28982126">can be changed</a>. There are infinite <a href="http:helfimed.org/recipes">healthy, tasty recipes</a> that are simple and affordable to make.</p>
<p>In sum, create a warm, positive, healthy food and meal environment free from distractions when eating, and be a good role model. Children will learn to enjoy good food as it is meant to be enjoyed, and flourish in the process.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37045/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Parletta is supported by National Health and Medical Research Council Program Grant funding (# 320860 and 631947) and has previously received research funding from the Australian Research Council as well as food and nutritional supplements for research purposes from industry partners.</span></em></p>
Hippocrates said circa 400BC that “food should be our medicine and medicine should be our food”. He would probably turn in his grave if he saw the amount of highly processed, sugary food and drinks marketed…
Natalie Parletta, Senior Research Fellow in nutrition, mental and physical health and children's diets, University of South Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/35889
2015-01-20T11:04:08Z
2015-01-20T11:04:08Z
What’s behind racial differences in restaurant tipping?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68726/original/image-20150112-23792-1q3gupx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Racial disparities in tip size can't be explained by discriminatory service.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&search_tracking_id=tn8o7hv9PfUgTvGpgfLMnQ&searchterm=restaurant%20tip&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=15630616">Brian A Jackson/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Within the US restaurant industry, blacks are generally considered comparatively poor tippers. <a href="http://tippingresearch.com/other_tipping_links.html">One recent survey</a> of roughly 1,000 restaurant servers from across the nation found that 34% thought blacks were “very bad” tippers. Another 36% thought they were “below average” tippers. In contrast, 98% of those surveyed believed whites were “average” or “above average” tippers. </p>
<p>This widespread negative perception of blacks’ tipping practices cannot be attributed solely to racism because it is consistent with a substantial body of empirical evidence. A number of <a href="http://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/articles/38/">different studies</a> that use different methodologies and different geographic samples have all found that, on average, blacks <em>do</em> indeed tip less than whites in US restaurants. </p>
<p>Some readers may assume that such differences in tipping simply reflect <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/21/news/economy/black-white-inequality/">widely documented differences</a> in disposable income across the two groups. Given that tips are purported to reflect the quality of service that customers receive, others may argue that black patrons tend to tip less than their white counterparts because they are, on average, given comparatively inferior service. </p>
<p>However, <a href="http://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/articles/97/">studies</a> have consistently observed a reliable black-white tipping difference even after controlling for consumers’ socioeconomic status, including income and education, and after controlling for perceptions of service quality. This race difference in tipping is also observed regardless of whether the server is <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/soin.12056/abstract">white or black</a>.</p>
<p>How, then, do we account for this difference in tipping? Why do blacks tip, on average, less than whites? </p>
<p>The answer to this question would satisfy more than simple intellectual curiosity. Racial differences in tipping create numerous problems for all the parties involved. Most notably, the observed black-white tipping difference has been linked to the delivery of <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278431912000825">relatively inferior service</a> to <a href="http://jbs.sagepub.com/content/43/4/359">black customers</a>. In fact, in the previously cited national survey of restaurant servers, over half of the respondents admitted that they don’t always give their best effort when waiting on blacks. </p>
<p>While black diners’ perceptions of service quality – and the tips they leave – may not be sensitive to such discrimination, they’re still not receiving the same level of service as they otherwise would (and should) in the absence of this interracial tipping difference. </p>
<p>Race-based service discrimination not only compromises blacks’ typical dining experiences, but also renders restaurants vulnerable to <a href="http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1994-12-16/news/1994350042_1_denny-restaurant-flagstar-discrimination">costly litigations</a> and undermines their bottom line by discouraging black patronage. </p>
<p>Additionally, employers’ ability to attract and retain waitstaff is largely predicated on the amount of tipped income that can be earned in their establishments. Therefore, restaurants with a large black clientele may have a difficult time attracting and retaining wait staff, which increases costs, lowers profits, and ultimately makes black communities less attractive places to locate full-service restaurants. Understanding why blacks tip less, on average, than whites would help solve these problems, and could inform efforts to reduce the racial differences in tipping.</p>
<p><a href="http://cqx.sagepub.com/content/56/1/68.full.pdf+html">Our research</a> indicates that blacks tip less because they believe servers expect lower tips, and they underestimate the tip amounts that others leave. Whereas roughly 70% of whites identify the customary or expected restaurant tip to fall within 15-20% of the bill, only about 35% of blacks do. In addition, blacks, on average, believe that the typical restaurant customer tips about 13.4% of the bill, while whites believe that the typical restaurant customer tips about 14.5%. Together, these differences in perceptions of “what is expected and typical” explain about half of the black-white difference in tipping. </p>
<p>These findings are important: they suggest that black-white differences in tipping could be sizably reduced by publicly promoting social expectations regarding how much consumers should and typically do tip their servers in restaurants (typically 15-20% of the bill). </p>
<p>As important as public awareness campaigns about the restaurant tipping norm are, they are likely to only reduce the black-white difference in tipping by one-half. The complete elimination of this tipping difference requires a more complete understanding of its causes. </p>
<p>To date, these additional causes remain elusive. Nevertheless, what we do know is that this interracial tipping difference exists – as do the negative, downstream effects of such differences: server prejudices and discriminatory behaviors. Failing to acknowledge and openly discuss this issue will only perpetuate a status quo that harms businesses and consumers alike.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35889/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Within the US restaurant industry, blacks are generally considered comparatively poor tippers. One recent survey of roughly 1,000 restaurant servers from across the nation found that 34% thought blacks…
Michael Lynn, Professor of Food and Beverage Management, Cornell University
Zachary Brewster, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Wayne State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/35932
2015-01-06T22:59:09Z
2015-01-06T22:59:09Z
Cornish pasties from Colorado? What an EU-US trade deal could mean for regional delicacies
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68289/original/image-20150106-18604-1ot31ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Splendid isolation?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/fatboydon/3099191502/in/photolist-5HSaEf-azgGQw-qfHdt5-nnacGu-7Nw6gu-egedzR-4Voet4-bRqs2-7DSepz-oS5Udb-78pWxW-fmw523-fwtmbz-6bE57m-fQ7Kir-dfyK5c-kot2kG-knih9q-9x9gPf-mb2Toe-bQuzQT-2YBeaV-9j2rk3-R76xZ-6RXUDB-fqXicz-daYNWQ-bPSkX-chfFky-b39s6-71xXs4-oifyU2-fyuaZp-cmJsif-aZHMKF-6GrnGP-4L3Ehc-fb5czU-JHGr3-4zfMfC-7vChtG-bKqq9-5Add1E-6WBK65-5j7Dsg-66o2GA-dF4Ncz-h6d6wK-JsMNx-efa55x">Don Swanson</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Food labelling is a contentious topic that has been going through the mincer for decades. Many of the issues have been designed to aid the consumer, such as the traffic light system, and clearer displays of calorie content. </p>
<p>There are still many problematic issues particularly around areas such as self-regulation of food labelling and the NHS’s involvement in our food consumption. The latter being controversial not least because of the presence in many hospitals of well-known coffee chains stocking highly-calorific muffins.</p>
<p>Another food labelling issue that periodically hits the headlines is the matter of EU geographical protections for items such as Cornish pasties, Parma ham, and Champagne applied to protect authenticity and provenance. However, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/11326494/Cornish-pasty-threatened-by-EU-US-trade-deal.html">we now hear</a> that these protections may be removed as EU free trade negotiations with the US – <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/ttip">often labelled TTIP</a> – approach a possible deal.</p>
<p>Christian Schmidt, the German agriculture minister, said that protections for regional specialities might have to be sacrificed to to the greater good.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If we want to take advantage of the opportunities of free trade with the huge American market, we can no longer have every type of sausage and cheese each protected as a speciality.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Cheese Strings attached</h2>
<p>While cheddar cheese manufacturers may be aghast at the prospect of their product being made in New York City, German food producers seem to be even more concerned, with <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/ttip-freihandelsabkommen-warum-der-wuerstchen-streit-ueberfluessig-ist-a-1011396.html">Bild newspaper asking</a> whether Black Forest ham will soon be imported from America – apparently such a product is already made there. </p>
<p>Putting aside the rather casual way these protections – enshrined in EU law as they are – can be thrown overboard, is any of this important to the consumer? Presumably it matters hugely to some who would want a clear message about provenance so they don’t have to flip a pasty over every time to check it hasn’t got a Made in China sticker on it? But as a principle, after decades of following the rule that consumers should be fully informed about what they are buying, shouldn’t clear and informative labelling continue to be paramount?</p>
<p>Another issue to consider is implementation. That ubiquitous British invention, hyphenating the word “style” after everything, will probably not be sufficient; you’d be rubbing your eyes after seeing “Cornish pasty-style Cornish pasty”. Subtle renaming clues such as Kornish pasties or Shampagne from the US would not be enforceable on the manufacturers. “Made in the USA” stickers might not apply if the pasties were in fact made by a US manufacturer’s subsidiary in Dublin’s tax free zone. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68290/original/image-20150106-18613-xpsllb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68290/original/image-20150106-18613-xpsllb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68290/original/image-20150106-18613-xpsllb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68290/original/image-20150106-18613-xpsllb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68290/original/image-20150106-18613-xpsllb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68290/original/image-20150106-18613-xpsllb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68290/original/image-20150106-18613-xpsllb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68290/original/image-20150106-18613-xpsllb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A toast to TTIP?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cmbellman/3188260349/in/photolist-5RJEJ2-3oQrqx-86pUPD-5vVG9e-w47BM-2fBqnH-81Znnt-5vHLtp-8WYwjn-ekG7fA-8ixGJZ-7DijSV-nWG2XG-gALsF-pNoBe-fiDYRV-w3aMm-6JQhdU-zE65m-WCkW-oGhpr4-oEuR8m-b2pMw-5vN6AC-denvm-uxPQG-5ip4mr-fi94C4-6FSSP8-5jnfuc-7FV1UV-8SpFV-6ANfuf-bGbf9X-cdDydq-8XbZoS-5My2BF-mQSMH9-bGMrPF-ntskPu-bGbfkX-w3zfd-euBuj2-Qy3Wp-8gS5s8-eTFp5M-e6696q-7repzm-oEfW7X-6A6ya3">Anders Adermark</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Could a feasible approach be segregation? We could put all geographically protected brands together on one shelf, like they do with organic, or gluten-free products? But this would only lead to both sides claiming it adversely affected their products. </p>
<p>Perhaps a solution would be to invent a new sticker that all protected brands would add to their produce, saying something like “The one and only” or “Beware of imitations” or if something more formal is sought, “Protected by EU Regulation No 1151/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 November 2012 on quality schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs, though ignored by powerful markets”. Joking aside, it may be more important than ever for consumers for who this matters to check where their Cornish pasty or cheddar cheese has actually been made. </p>
<p>Above all this current issue illustrates just how awkward, <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/quality/schemes/index_en.htm">protected designation of origin (PDO)</a>, protected geographical indication (PGI), and traditional specialities guaranteed (TSG) are in practice. These forms of words have been enforced within the EU and have gradually expanded internationally via bilateral agreements between the EU and non-EU countries, so what will happen in those countries that have already agreed? </p>
<p>It all starts to get very messy, but then that’s what can happen if you start tampering with a Cornish pasty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35932/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Food labelling is a contentious topic that has been going through the mincer for decades. Many of the issues have been designed to aid the consumer, such as the traffic light system, and clearer displays…
Isabelle Szmigin, Professor of Marketing, University of Birmingham
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/35613
2014-12-23T20:07:18Z
2014-12-23T20:07:18Z
Fowl play: why A Christmas Carol meant our goose was cooked
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67566/original/image-20141217-31021-7kndyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The new consumerism of Victorian England was going to change the old ways – for better and for worse.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kevin Dooley</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In much of the English-speaking world Christmas dinner involves the consumption of turkey – but that was not always the case. The origins of this ritual can be <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Lives-Times-Ebenezer-Scrooge/dp/0300046642">traced back</a> to the generous act of one Ebenezer Scrooge, the reformed miser who on Christmas Day gave a grand turkey to his overworked clerk, Cratchit, in Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5326.A_Christmas_Carol">A Christmas Carol</a>. </p>
<h2>The power of Dickens</h2>
<p>From its initial publication, and ever since, the Carol has been popular. Even today, 170 years later, the infamous Ebenezer Scrooge continues to pleasantly haunt our homes through the medium of television. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67564/original/image-20141217-31034-1n16np3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67564/original/image-20141217-31034-1n16np3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67564/original/image-20141217-31034-1n16np3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67564/original/image-20141217-31034-1n16np3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67564/original/image-20141217-31034-1n16np3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67564/original/image-20141217-31034-1n16np3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67564/original/image-20141217-31034-1n16np3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67564/original/image-20141217-31034-1n16np3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Uncle Scrooge #21 cover. Art by Carl Barks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scrooge has been played by some of the greatest Hollywood Stars, including <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096061/">Bill Murray</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104940/">Michael Caine</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1067106/">Jim Carrey</a>. The Carol informed the Disney production of the popular comic <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Scrooge">Uncle $crooge</a> with its idiosyncratic character Scrooge McDuck. </p>
<p>It has been claimed that the Carol is the most adapted story of the English language, each successive generation finding new meanings within the text. The common thread amongst these many adaptations is that Scrooge is the miser. Indeed the word “Scrooge” has entered the modern lexicon becoming synonymous with the idea of miserliness.</p>
<p>At times it’s been alleged that Dickens invented Christmas. Though this idea is clearly an exaggeration, it does provide an insight into the extent of Dickens’ power to conjure culture. </p>
<p>Christmas as the English-speaking world knows it, its ethos, rituals, values and traditions - including the presence of the turkey at the Christmas table, was largely codified by Dickens. </p>
<h2>Scrooge’s gift</h2>
<p>In its original form the Carol revolves around the moral transformation of Scrooge, a miserly man who famously humbugs anything that relates to faith, hope and love. He has a particular dislike for Christmas. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67567/original/image-20141217-31021-1si5u4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67567/original/image-20141217-31021-1si5u4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67567/original/image-20141217-31021-1si5u4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67567/original/image-20141217-31021-1si5u4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67567/original/image-20141217-31021-1si5u4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67567/original/image-20141217-31021-1si5u4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67567/original/image-20141217-31021-1si5u4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67567/original/image-20141217-31021-1si5u4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Marley’s Ghost’, original illustration by John Leech from A Christmas Carol (1843).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On Christmas Eve, the story goes, Scrooge is haunted by a series of spirits who reveal to him, his past, present and future. Through this supernatural awakening he becomes increasingly concerned about the plight of his fellow human beings. Scrooge awakens on Christmas morning miraculously transformed into a virtuous man who playfully embraces the joy of social living and in particular the celebration of Christmas.</p>
<p>The first social act of this newly reformed Scrooge is to purchase and then gift a giant prize turkey to the family of his underpaid and overworked clerk, Cratchit. </p>
<p>Few things raise the eyebrows of social-anthropologists more than the practice of “gifting” because, as the French sociologist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Mauss">Marcel Mauss</a> realised, gifting practices provide a window into the functioning of society. </p>
<p>Scrooge’s act of gifting this prize turkey to Cratchit is not only of interest because it relates to the origin of the practice of serving the Christmas turkey; it is also of interest because it represents a grand symbolic act. </p>
<p>Scrooge’s gifting of this turkey represents a radical transformation in the ethos of Victorian culture - a change in which Dickens, as one of the great conjurers of the modern world, played no small part.</p>
<h2>Consuming Christmas</h2>
<p>In Victorian London, when Dickens wrote the Carol, Christmas day was commonly celebrated by consuming, not a grand turkey, but rather a humble goose. At that time, the turkey was an exotic bird, too expensive for the common person to purchase. </p>
<p>The act of Scrooge sending a gigantic prize turkey to the Cratchits represented a radical change in not only Scrooge’s character, from the cynical miser to the generous spendthrift, but also personified a radical socioeconomic transformation. </p>
<p>A transformation from a more puritan capitalism focused on the accumulation of money to a more hedonistic consumerism focusing on maximising consumption.</p>
<p>One of the striking things about Scrooge’s act of gifting the Cratchits a giant prize turkey was that for Scrooge this gesture was the grandest of jokes – so much of a joke that Scrooge “chuckled till he cried”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67575/original/image-20141218-31049-g5tiuc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67575/original/image-20141218-31049-g5tiuc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67575/original/image-20141218-31049-g5tiuc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67575/original/image-20141218-31049-g5tiuc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67575/original/image-20141218-31049-g5tiuc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67575/original/image-20141218-31049-g5tiuc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67575/original/image-20141218-31049-g5tiuc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67575/original/image-20141218-31049-g5tiuc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scrooge, Tiny Tim and Bob Cratchit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Portland Center Stage</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scrooge’s gift of a turkey is especially interesting when we know that, with the help of the Ghost of Christmas Present, he witnessed the Cratchits celebrating Christmas and banqueting on not a turkey but a goose of “universal admiration”. </p>
<p>Scrooge also becomes aware that everyone in this household “had had enough” to eat. One might read the act of Scrooge gifting the grander turkey as the “humbugging” of this family’s private and traditional celebration of Christmas.</p>
<p>Should we suspect Scrooge of “fowl play”? </p>
<p>A wider reading of the Carol suggests not, that Scrooge had indeed transformed into a virtuous person. Dickens is, rather, warning us that this new consumerism is going to change the old ways – for better and for worse. </p>
<p>This warning becomes even more apparent in an earlier part of the Carol which, un-coincidentally, involves another less palatable turkey. </p>
<p>The Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge to witness the household of Belle (Scrooge’s ex-fiancée) and sees her family joyfully celebrating Christmas. He lost her due to his pursuit of a “golden idol”. </p>
<p>As the Christmas gifts are being handed to the children this idyllic scene is disrupted when the family come to the urgent suspicion that their baby has swallowed, of all things, the gift of a “fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter”.</p>
<p>Dickens has alerted us to the ghost of his idea - that though it is necessary to embody the spirit of this new consumerist ethic it may well go on to haunt our houses unpleasantly. </p>
<p>Perhaps it would be wiser to settle for the more humble goose, or at least – a smaller mouthful of turkey this Christmas.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35613/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Gannon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In much of the English-speaking world Christmas dinner involves the consumption of turkey – but that was not always the case. The origins of this ritual can be traced back to the generous act of one Ebenezer…
John Gannon, PhD candidate, Anthropology, La Trobe University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.