Cuisine in Context
Food System Alienation: Reconceptualizing Struggles with Eating and Embodiment View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Zephyr Schott
This session emphasizes a multispecies examination of the interactions between food systems, bodies, power, and ecosystems. It reframes and depathologizes what we refer to as eating disorders and other forms of struggle and disconnection relating to food and embodiment through a framework called “food system alienation.” Food system alienation is the systemically enforced conceptual and structural distancing of people from their sources of food. The study explores how processes such as domestication, the formation of civilization, colonization, male supremacy, white supremacy, classism, speciesism, heteronormativity, fatphobia, and ableism have all shaped lived experiences of food and embodiment. It also addresses how these histories and systems impact social perceptions of people's difficulties with eating based on their perceived identities. Using extensive literature review and some elements of autoethnography, this research draws from psychology, anthropology, ethology, critical animal studies, critical race theory, history, and dietetics. The research addresses and interrogate how anthropogenic food systems create patterns that can be seen across the bodies of humans, other animals, and plants. The ubiquity of diet culture, fatphobia, and fraught or deviant alimentary consumption allude to and support the idea that enough people experience difficulties and disconnection in relation to food and food systems that these experiences could be viewed as heavily cultivated social phenomena instead of as individual illnesses.
Local Commensality: An Appalachian Community Meal Inspired by the Collaboration of an Artist, a Physicist, and a Restaurant Owner View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Carla Ramsdell, Tina Houston, Lisa Stinson
Through the lens of an artist, a physicist, and a restaurant owner, our project attempts to discover a deeper understanding of how the simple act of a shared meal can be transformative and sustainable both mentally and physically. The artist, Lisa Stinson, instructed the course “Community: Objects for the Table” at Appalachian State University. The course explored the interactive space and the culture of ‘the table’ through commensality and the handmade object. Students learned new skills and processes and worked across mediums in an immersive design, making, and interactive installation experience. Each group developed prototypes, learned new production techniques to create one-of-a-kind handmade objects. These functional objects provide an interactive way to connect the user to the maker. The physicist, Professor Carla Ramsdell, introduced students to the life-cycle analysis of the food choices for the meal, explicitly identifying the equivalent kilograms of carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions in the various food choices. The restaurant owner, Tina Houston, provided the structure and groundwork to create and deliver a host site for a five-course meal. The collaboration culminated with two vibrant community meals for sixty people. We discovered that small acts could have a ripple effect to empower people and impact wider, more meaningful change that improves human and environmental health and wellbeing. The hope is to continue this collaboration that crosses university silos and creates a public-private partnership to find new and effective ways to use the community table as an entry point for education and activism about sustainable food communities.
Trends in Ethical Eating in Top Restaurants in Peru View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mario Marcello Pasco-Dalla-Porta
In the gastronomy industry, concern about structural problems related to environmental pollution, animal exploitation, workers’ mistreatment and unfair supply chains has given rise to the ethical eating approach. This perspective aims to transform the industry so as to reduce these negative outcomes and to foment more sustainable practices. This approach has been adopted in a much slower way in developing countries, considering additional barriers related to the scarce interest of restaurateurs, regulatory weaknesses and limited social pressure. In Peru, the recent gastronomy boom has led to an expansion in the number of restaurants, but this growth has not been accompanied by structural changes in the industry. Despite this, there is a group of leading entrepreneurs and chefs that have struggled to improve their ethical standards. The purpose of this research is to examine the main trends of ethical eating in top restaurants in Peru. The mixed approach included structured observations of websites and social media of the top 50 restaurants and in-depth interviews with key sectoral actors. The cluster analysis allowed to differentiate three groups of restaurants characterized by their high commitment, contradictory approach and indifferent stance on the subject. In turn, the qualitative analysis helped to deepen the contrasts and to understand the rationale of this grouping. On this basis, this study contributes to understand and differentiate the level of adoption of the ethical eating approach in the country. This information may also be useful for the design of public/private policies aimed at promoting these practices in the sector.
Reimagining Food in National Parks: Future Ecologies View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kathleen LeBesco
The food scene in US national parks today is dominated by highly industrialized concessions operated by large corporations. This configuration presents challenges to the livelihood of Indigenous people and to environmental sustainability. In this paper, I explore several creative projects and initiatives aimed at countering the imperilment of the land and the original locals, including conservancy-managed farms on national park lands and National Park Service-sponsored educational events about Indigenous foodways. I discuss how these projects and experiences align with cosmopolitan traveler preferences for experience-based culinary tourism, and I conclude by evaluating the impact of these projects and initiatives toward a palatable future ecology within the parks.
