Food, Culture and Politics

SOCL 5023; 2 credits, Department of Sociology/ Social Anthropology

Professor: Daniel Monterescu
Fall 2018. Thursday, 13:30-15:10 N13/615
Office Hours: Zrinyi 14, room 408, Thursday 11:00-13:00 or by appointment

Aims and objectives

This class will explore the relationship between social, cultural, political, and ecological
determinants of taste and culinary heritage. Topics will range from the political economy of
food, the making of national and regional identities through food products and practices, to
historical and contemporary gastronomic philosophies. The emergence of novel cuisines such
as molecular gastronomy and New World wines will be discussed. We will follow how food and
wine are constructed as objects of desire, markers of national, religious or political identities,
moral codes and class distinction. We will explore the relationships between food cultures and
rituals, political regimes, historical memories, cultivation practices, geographic and ecological
conditions, nutrition and diet, certification standards, national policies, and processes of
globalization. We will pay particular attention to the politics of food and wine in the EU and
Hungary. We will also show various films or excerpts to complement the themes touched upon
in the readings. Throughout the course there will be a special emphasis on the significance of
the place of cultivation and the role of ecological factors under the various names of terroir,
geographic appellation, local knowledge, etc.

There will be three main assignments in the class. The assignments will encourage local
observation/experience of the local food, coffee and wine scene, as well as analysis of media
portrayals of food and wine. The third assignment consists of a food diary.

Personal Food Diary

In the first half of the course, you will put together a one week food journal. In it, you should
record your personal eating habits and experiences on a daily basis starting on September 26
and ending on October 3. Write down everything you eat, including drinks and between meal
snacks. Since it is difficult to recall what you ate even after 24 hours, you should try to sit down
at least once a day to do your entries. In your description of each meal or snack, try to answer
the following questions:

1.) What did you eat? How did you come by this food?

2.) Where did you eat it and how?

3.) How much time did you spend eating the meal/snack?

4.) Who did you eat with? Did you eat alone or with others? Why? What was the social

context?

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5.) Did you simply fill your stomach? Did you fulfill any other needs? Did you do anything else
while eating?

6.) How did you feel during this eating activity?

7.) How was the food prepared?

At the end of the week, write a 3 page reflection on your own dietary habits. What motivates you
to eat what you eat, and how do you feel about those motivations? Does your diet conform to an
idea of an ideal – or even to notions of a ‘good diet’? Why or why not, and what is your ‘good’
diet? Where do these ideas about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ food come from and how are they articulated
by our culture? What cultural elements contribute to your understanding about food behaviors
and patterns? Using the readings covered so far, our discussions in class and your food diaries,
discuss food as a part of a larger cultural system. Is there a particular reading or theory that seems
to describe theses connections best? Which and why?

Learning outcomes, educational activities, and planned hours

Learning outcome Activity Estimated hours

1. Understand the multiple Class discussions* 24

overlapping ways in which
people relate to their food, Class readings 20
and how this links to cultural,
ecological, and political
systems

2. Evaluate how various Media analysis paper 6 hours

media sources create
particular images and
discourses of food and wine
products

3. Observe how people relate Ethnographic paper 10 hours

to food and wine products,
and analyze the cultural,
ecological, and political
significance thereof

4. Food Diary Food Diary 4

Total 64 hours

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Assessment
1. Attendance and participation (30%)
The course will be taught as a seminar, and will require your active participation in discussions.
On certain days, you will be required to comment on the readings online and prepare discussion
questions to bring to class.

2. Personal Food Diary: Due: October 4

3. Media analysis (30%)

You will do a short analysis of a commercial, ad, or other media representation of a food or wine
product. This will involve discussing how the product is presented, what symbols are employed,
and what feelings it is meant to evoke in the viewer/ listener. Please relate it to some of the
themes discussed in class.

3. Ethnographic paper (40%) Due: January 3

Your final paper will be to conduct an ethnographic observation and/or interviews of a food
scene, for example markets, cafes, restaurants, food events, festivals, wine tastings, parties,
etc. Your task will be to conduct an analysis of how people relate to the food/ wine objects and
each other, the meanings surrounding food and or wine at this event, and relations to broader
cultural, ecological, or political themes discussed in class and class readings.

Recommended Films
● Mondovino
● Food Inc.
● We Feed the World
● Bottle Shock
● El-Bulli
● La Grande Bouffe
● Tampopo
● Ratatouille
● Film on butchers in Budapest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b6fdseeYo0&feature=plcp
● Ingredients
● Kings of Pastry
● Julie and Julia
● The Chef
● The Hundred Foot Journey
● Butter (US)
● Gleener and I
● I would die for Falafel
● Eat, Drink, Man Woman
● Giro Dreams of Sushi
● Midnight Diner [Japanese] (Shinya Shokudo),
● The Last Supper by Mats Bigert & Lars Bergström

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1. September 20
You Are What You Eat: Introduction to Food and Wine Studies
Anderson, E. N. 2005. Everyone Eats: Understanding Food and Culture. NYU Press.
Counihan, Carole, and Penny Van Esterik, eds. (Appendix, p. 235-244)
Dietler, Michael. 2006. “Alcohol: Anthropological/Archaeological Perspectives.” Annual Review
of Anthropology 35(1): 229–249.

Recommended:
Mintz, S. W., & Du Bois, C. M. 2002. “The Anthropology of Food and Eating.” Annual Review of
Anthropology, 99-119.

Film: Taboo, National Geographic (“Food”)

2. September 27
Anthropology of Food, Theories of Taste
Levi Strauss, Claude. 1966. “The Culinary Triangle” in Food and Culture Reader pp. 28-36.
Douglas, Mary. 1972. “Deciphering a Meal” Daedalus, Vol. 101, No. 1, Myth, Symbol, and
Culture, pp. 61-81
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social critique of the judgement of taste. Harvard
University Press. (Chapter 3, mainly on Food Space).

Recommended:
Jack Goody. 1982. Cooking, cuisine, and class: a study in comparative sociology (Chapter 1
and 2).
Stanley Brandes & Thor Anderson (2011): Ratatouille: An Animated Account of Cooking, Taste,
and Human Evolution, Ethnos, 76:3, 277-299

3. October 4
Political Economy of Food and Taste
Mintz, S. [1985] 2008. “Time, Sugar, Sweetness.....” in Counihan, C. and Van Esterik, P.
Food and Culture, second edition. New York and London, Routledge. p. 91-104.
Freidberg, S. 2005. “French Beans for the Masses: A Modern Historical Geography of
Food in Burkina Faso,” in Watson, J. and Caldwell, M. The Cultural Politics of Food and
Eating, Malden and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. p. 21-42.

Recommended:
Wilk, R. 2006. “Bottled Water: The pure commodity in the age of branding.” Journal of
Consumer Culture, 6(3), 303-325.

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4. October 11
From Philosophical Gastronomy to Molecular Gastronomy

Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme. 1825. The physiology of taste: or meditations on transcendental

gastronomy. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/brillat/savarin/b85p/complete.html (Read
Meditations I, II, III, IX, XI, XIV, XXVII)
This, Hervé. 2008. Molecular gastronomy : exploring the science of flavor Columbia UP pp. 1-
31.

Fim: El Buli

5. October 18
Fast Food and Slow Food
Watson, J. L. 2000. “China's big mac attack.” Foreign Affairs, 120-134.
Leitch, A. 2003. “Slow Food and the Politics of Pork Fat: Italian Food and European Identity,”
Ethnos, 68 (4): 437–462.
Foster, R. J. 2005. Commodity futures: Labour, love and value. Anthropology Today, 21(4), 8-
12.

Recommended:
Peace, A. 2008. “Terra Madre 2006: Political Theater and Ritual Rhetoric in the Slow Food
Movement, Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, 8 (2): 31-39.
Roseberry, William. "The rise of yuppie coffees and the reimagination of class in the United
States." American Anthropologist 98.4 (1996): 762-775.
Foster, R. J. 2007. The work of the new economy: Consumers, brands, and value creation.
Cultural Anthropology, 22(4), 707-731.

6. October 25
Place-based Authenticity
Pratt, J. 2007. “Food Values: The Local and the Authentic.” Critique of Anthropology, 27(3), 285-
300.
Laudan, R. 2001. “A Plea for Culinary Modernism: Why We Should Love New, Fast, Processed
Food,” Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 36-44.

Recommended:
Giovanni Ceccarelli, Alberto Grandi, Stefano Magagnoli. 2010. The “Taste” of Typicality Food &
History, vol. 8, n° 2, pp. 45-76
Atkinson, John. 1999. "Meaningless brands from meaningful differentiation." Journal of Wine
Research 10(3): 229-233.
Holtzman, Jon D. 2006. “Food and Memory” Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 35, pp. 361-
378.
Fonte, Maria. 2008. “Knowledge, Food and Place: A Way of Producing, a Way of Knowing.”
Sociologia ruralis, 48 (3): 200-222.

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Bowen, S. and De Master, K. 2011. “New rural livelihoods or museums of production? Quality
food initiatives in practice,” Journal of Rural Studies, 27 (1): 73-82.

7. November 8 (no class on November 1 All Saints’ Day)

Food as National Icons
Choose two articles from different regions and consider common themes or crucial differences
that you can identify between them. Be ready to discuss both articles in class.

Latin America:
Lind, D., & Barham, E. 2004. “The social life of the tortilla: Food, cultural politics, and contested
commodification.” Agriculture and Human Values, 21(1), 47-60.

Russia/ post-socialist region:

Ries, Nancy. 2009. "Potato ontology: surviving postsocialism in Russia." Cultural Anthropology
24(2): 181-212.

Asia:
Bestor, T. 2001. “Supply Side Sushi: Commodity, Market, and the Global City.”
American Anthropologist Vol. 103, No. 1:76-95.

Mediterranean/ Middle East/Israel

Hirsch, Dafna. 2011. “Hummus is best when it is fresh and made by Arabs”: The gourmetization
of hummus in Israel and the return of the repressed Arab." American Ethnologist 38.4:
617-630.
Facebook Debate at Harvard U. on Israeli and Arab food.

Jewish Diaspora:
Gaye Tuchman and Harry G. Levine. 1992. "Safe Treyf": New York Jews and Chinese Food
Contemporary Ethnography. Vol 22 No 3. pp. 382-407.

Italy:
Jonathan Morris. 2010. “Making Italian Espresso, Making Espresso Italian” 8(2): 155-184.

Film: How to be An Arab? (Youtube)

Recommended:
Klumbytė, Neringa. 2010, "The Soviet sausage renaissance." American Anthropologist 112(1):
22-37.
Chan, S. C. 2010. “Food, Memories, and Identities in Hong Kong, Identities, 17:2-3, 204-227.
Meneley, Anne. 2007. "Like an extra virgin." American Anthropologist 109(4): 678-687.
David Gentilcore, 2009. “Taste and the tomato in Italy: a transatlantic history” Food and History
7(1):125-140.

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8. November 22 (no class on Nov 15 due to American Anthropology Conference)
Impact of Regulations, Certifications (organic, fair trade, etc.), Denomination of Origin,
Wine, Place-making, and Terroir

Monterescu, Daniel 2017. Terroir Across Contested Territory, Gastronomia.

Gille, The Tale of the Toxic Paprika. The Hungarian Taste of Euro-Globalization in Food and
Everyday Life in the Postsocialist World, ed. Melissa L. Caldwell, et al.
Barham, Elizabeth. 2003. "Translating terroir: the global challenge of French AOC labeling."
Journal of Rural Studies 19(1): 127-138.
Trubek, Amy , Guy, Kolleen M. and Bowen, Sarah. 2010 “Terroir: A French Conversation with a
Transnational Future', Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, 14: 2, 139 — 148
Tim Unwin, 2012. “Terroir: At the Heart of Geography” In Percy H. Dougherty (Ed.) The
Geography of Wine Regions, Terroir and Techniques. Springer. pp. 37-48.

Recommended:
Dunn, Elizabeth C. 2003. "Trojan pig: paradoxes of food safety regulation." Environment and
Planning A 35.8: 1493-1511.
Monterescu, D. 2011. “Terroir and Territory on the Colonial Frontier: Making New World Wine in
the Holy Land,” Unpublished manuscript.
Grahm, Randall. 2008. “The Soul of Wine: Digging for Meaning” In Wine and Philosophy Edited
by Fritz Allhoff. pp. 219-224.
Kramer, Matt. 2008. “The Notion of Terroir” In Wine and Philosophy Edited by Fritz Allhoff. pp.
225-235.

10. November 29

Nutrition, Science, Environment, and Bodies

Paxson, H. 2008. “Post-Pasteurian Cultures: the Microbiopolitics of Raw Milk Cheese in the
United States.” Cultural Anthropology 23 (1): 15-47.
Sarah Drue Phillips. 2002. “Half-Lives and Healthy Bodies: Discourses on ‘Contaminated’ Food
and Healing in Post-Chernobyl Ukraine.” Food and Foodways 10: 27-53.
Monterescu Daniel. Indigenous Wines in Israel and Palestine

Recommended:
Nestle, M. 2002. “Selling the Ultimate Techno-Food: Olestra,” In Food Politics, University of
California Press. p. 338-358
Heath, Deborah. 2012. Science and mysticism in biodynamic wine-making. EASA
paper, Paris.

11. November – Make up class – date to be determined

Hungarian Food and Wine

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Guest Speaker and Wine tasting

Carolyn Banfalvi Food Wine Budapest (chapter 1 and 2).

Fischer, L. 2010. “Turkey Backbones and Chicken Gizzards: Women's Food Roles in Post-
Socialist Hungary,” Food and Foodways, 18:4, 233-260.
Dombos, T. 2008. “Longing for the west”: the geo-symbolics of the ethical consumption
discourse in Hungary. Research in Economic Anthropology, 28, 123-141.

Browse http://www.chew.hu/

Recommended:
Hann, Chris. 2004. 'Wine, Sand and Socialism: Some Enduring Effects of Hungary's "Flexible"
Model of Collectivization In The Role of Agriculture in Central and Eastern European
Rural Development: Engine of Change or Social Buffer? Edited by Martin Petrick and
Peter Weingarten, IAMO.

12. December 6
Discuss student ethnographic projects
Must have done ethnographic observations by this date; workshop with 2-3 other students to
share ideas for analysis; end with whole-class discussion.