Last summer was my first foray into the field for my dissertation research on the German recipe industry. I set out to study how recipe authors transform the fragrant, splatteringly sensorial experience of cooking into tidy prose, and I learned so much from my interviews and observation. The biggest surprise of the summer was the…
Tag: From the Field
Lessons from the Produce Department
This past summer, I worked in the Produce department of a large supermarket in Portland, Oregon. This work allowed me to peek into the intersection of food production and consumption at the most common point of exchange: in the grocery store. It changed the way I look at food on the shelf, the way I…
Brazilian Beach Barbecue
A beach day on the southeastern coast of Brazil requires many supplies beyond a towel and sunscreen. Your day trip from São Paulo is well provisioned and won’t be complete without chairs, tables, multiple barbecue grills, coolers, cups, and dishware, as well as a speaker blaring music. The food that best sustains an all-day beach…
Roadside Clean-Up
Last May, my family joined the Cotuit Civic Association in a roadside clean-up of our hometown. We walked up one side and back down the other of a well-traveled road, trash bags in hand, and picked up the litter that had accumulated over the course of the year. We couldn’t help but be astonished by…
Potato Chips + Class
You many not think about it as you crunch your way to the bottom of the bag, but potato chip packaging says a lot about social class. In this post, I’ll tell you about how the Boston University Gastronomy Program got community members thinking about chips + class, and then share a how-to guide for…
Ariana Gunderson 