The Art of the Monger

How do cheesemongers extend the value of a dying commodity? Heather Paxson explores how mongers care for living cheese—and for the craft of their trade

Périls et promesses de l’abondance microbienne

Au cours des dernières années, la vie microbienne a été très présente dans l’actualité. Épidémies d’Escherichia coli, discussions sur les bienfaits des aliments crus et fermentés, recherches sur des formes de vie capables de vivre dans des environnements extrêmes : le modeste microbe est devenu une figure qui permet de penser les présents et les futurs possibles de la nature, au sens le plus large comme le plus étroit du terme. En partant du constat que les représentations dominantes de la vie microbienne sont passées du langage du péril à celui de la promesse, nous affirmons que les microbes – en particulier lorsqu’ils se multiplient sous la forme de communautés microbiennes – sont considérés comme des écosystèmes modèles au sens prescriptif du terme, c’est-à-dire des indices de ce que devraient ou pourraient être les rapports écologiques entre humains et autres organismes. Notre propos s’appuie sur deux études de cas : les politiques réglementaires sur les fromages au lait cru, et les recherches spéculatives de l’astrobiologie. Penser les communautés microbiennes comme écosystèmes modèles permettra peut-être de corriger les déterminismes à l’œuvre dans certains discours récents qui s’intéressent à la matérialité des objets scientifiques.Microbial life has been much in the news. From outbreaks of Escherichia coli to discussions of the benefits of raw and fermented foods to recent reports of life forms capable of living in extreme environments, the modest microbe has become a figure for thinking through the presents and possible futures of nature, writ large as well as small. Noting that dominant representations of microbial life have shifted from an idiom of peril to one of promise, we argue that microbes – especially when thriving as microbial communities – are being upheld as model ecosystems in a prescriptive sense, as tokens of how organisms and human ecological relations with them could, should, or might be. We do so in reference to two case studies: the regulatory politics of artisanal cheese and the speculative research of astrobiology. To think of and with microbial communities as model ecosystems offers a corrective to the scientific determinisms we detect in some recent calls to attend to the materiality of scientific objects

Introducing a Special Issue on the Reinvention of Food: Connections and Mediations

This introduction to a special issue forwards “the reinvention of food” as an analytical framework within which to make sense, together, of current projects valorizing “traditional” methods of food production as well as efforts to reimagine more sustainable or transparent food provisioning schemes

Thresholds of Foods and Bodies

Eating beside Ourselves examines eating as a site of transfer and transformation across bodies and selves. The contributors show that by turning organic substance into food, acts of eating create interconnected food webs organized by relative conditions of edibility through which eaters may in turn become eaten. In case studies ranging from nineteenth- and twentieth-century industrial animal husbandry in the United States, biodynamic winemaking in Aotearoa New Zealand, and reindeer herding in Arctic Norway to the creation of taste sensation in pet food and the entanglement of sugar and diabetes in the Caribbean, the contributors explore how food and eating create thresholds for human and nonhuman relations. These thresholds mediate different conditions and states of being: between living and dying, between the edible and the inedible, and the relationship between living organisms and their surrounding environment. In this way, acts of eating and the process of metabolism partake in the making and unmaking of multispecies ontologies, taxonomies, and ecologies. Contributors. Alex Blanchette, Deborah Heath, Hannah Landecker, Marianne Elisabeth Lien, Amy Moran-Thomas, Heather Paxson, Harris Solomon, Emily Yates-Doerr, Wim Van Daele</jats:p

Rethinking the Family, Sex, and Gender

Through investigating cross-cultural case studies, this course introduces students to the anthropological study of the social institutions and symbolic meanings of family, household, gender, and sexuality. We will explore the myriad forms that families and households take and evaluate their social, emotional, and economic dynamics

La vita americana del formaggio: la negoziazione dei valori di un prodotto artigianale in una società industriale

Dove si colloca l’artigianato in un sistema alimentare completamente industrializzato come quello americano? Nel rispondere a questo interrogativo, l’articolo esamina contenuti e significati del formaggio artigianale americano. Partendo dalla mia lunga ricerca etnografica sui casari americani, espongo l’idea che la produzione casearia artigianale americana possa efficacemente intendersi come un “prodotto non finito”, dal valore commerciale e sociale indeterminato e suscettibile di dibattito. Se da un lato i produttori artigiani americani ricavano una soddisfazione personale dal proprio lavoro, dall’altro temono che a lungo andare non trovino ritorno economico. Oltre a cercare di migliorare la pratica produttiva, i casari cercano di comunicare ai consumatori il valore del lavoro nel realizzare un prodotto di “qualità” per il quale vale la pena pagare un prezzo elevato rispetto a quello corrisposto per un prodotto da supermercato. Il valore del formaggio artigianale americano rimane oggetto di negoziazione

Food and Culture

Explores connections between what we eat and who we are through cross-cultural study of how personal identities and social groups are formed via food production, preparation, and consumption. Organized around critical discussion of what makes &quot;good&quot; food good (healthy, authentic, ethical, etc.). Uses anthropological and literary classics as well as recent writing and films on the politics of food and agriculture

Placing the Taste of Vermont Cheese

This essay considers two ways in which farmstead cheesemakers in Vermont are translating the term “terroir” in order to convey the instrumental as well as gustatory values of their artisanal products. In the first, familiar from European systems of geographical indication, terroir calls attention to the material qualities of a locale that may carry through to the taste of a handmade cheese. But in the second, terroir talk offers a more prescriptive reading of the “taste of place” to encourage rural economic revitalization through artisan cheese production. What coalesces in Vermont farmstead cheese as the taste of place reflects, above all, cheesemakers’ entrepreneurial creativity and commitment to making a living by working the land.Cet article analyse deux mises en application du concept de terroir par les fromagers fermiers du Vermont qui y ont recours afin de transmettre les valeurs pratiques ainsi que gustatives de leurs produits artisanaux. Dans le premier cas, similaire aux systèmes européens d’indication géographique, le terroir attire l’attention sur les qualités matérielles d’un lieu qui peuvent influer sur le goût d’un fromage fait à la main. Mais, dans le second cas, le discours sur le terroir offre une interprétation plus prescriptive du « goût du lieu » afin d’encourager la revitalisation économique des régions rurales à travers la production de fromage. Le goût du lieu présent dans le fromage fermier du Vermont est, avant tout, le résultat d’un savant mélange entre la créativité entrepreneuriale des fromagers et leur engagement à gagner leurs vies en travaillant la terre

Identity and Difference

How can the individual be at once cause and consequence of society, a unique agent of social action and also a social product? This course explores how identities, whether of individuals or groups, based on single behaviors or institutional practices, are produced, maintained, and transformed. Students will be introduced to various theoretical perspectives that are used to make sense of identity formation, including essentialism, constructivism, stigma, deviance, discourse, and performance. We will explore the utility of these terms in discussing issues of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, etc

No Access Cheese Cultures: Transforming American Tastes and Traditions

Although the history of cheesemaking in the United States tells largely a tale of industrialization, there is a submerged yet continuous history of small-batch, hands-on, artisan cheese manufacture. This tradition, carried on in artisan cheese factories across the country, although concentrated in Wisconsin, is often overlooked by a new generation of artisan cheesemakers. Continuities in fabrication methods shared by preindustrial and post-industrial artisan creameries have been obscured by changes in the organization and significance of artisan production over the last one hundred years. Making cheese by hand has morphed from chore to occupation to vocation; from economic trade to expressive endeavor; from a craft to an art. American artisan cheesemaking tradition was invented and reinvented as a tradition of innovation. Indeed, ideological commitment to innovation as modern, progressive, American—and thus a marketable value—further obscures continuities between past and present, artisan factories, and new farmstead production. The social disconnect between the current artisan movement and American's enduring cheesemaking tradition reproduces class hierarchies even as it reflects growing equity in gendered occupational opportunities