Emergence and repetition: teaching food and culture using a foods lab

For almost a decade, a small group of teachers and hundreds of students at the University of Vermont have been involved in building an innovative pedagogy that combines learning about food (and associated issues) with learning how to cook. ‘Innovative’ might sound presumptuous, given the history of home economics courses in primary, secondary and post‐secondary American education since the early 20th century. However, our pedagogy, developed in a former home economics kitchen/classroom, integrates more recent theories as to the merits of experiential education, thus moving beyond the didactic instruction typical of home economics courses over the past fifty years. We have created a learning environment in the kitchen/classroom that more easily fits into a continuum between service learning, study abroad, and the newer ‘maker spaces’ now popular in business and engineering programs. The pedagogy for this Food and Culture course involves the clear, constant, and consistent integration of thematic concepts (most consistently from anthropology, environmental studies, and food science) with a set of skills that enables students to develop a ‘trained practice,’ or an embodied form of knowledge. This pedagogy allows for an enactment of a complete experience that is often difficult to sustain in the traditional organization of higher education. One important consequence of integrating the learning, cooking, and eating of food lies in the creation of a community through shared practices and commensality. Making and eating food together enhances learning, certainly by allowing a more complete engagement but also by creating or recreating familial spaces that are often missing in students’ everyday lives. After teaching Food and Culture for many years and instructing hundreds of students, the time has come to figure out just what is so unique and important about what happens in foods lab. Why is the transformation of a student into a cook so pedagogically powerful? Why do we, as teachers, have such a sense of satisfaction at the end of each course, with strong student engagement, excellent assessments and clear group cohesion? Finally, is there a larger potential for this approach, beyond The University of Vermont, involving courses other than Food and Culture? We explore these questions, individually and as a group, in this essay

Produits du terroir: Similarities and Differences Between France, Québec and Vermont

Terroir is a word that carries powerful cultural and sensory associations in France. Although roughly translated a “taste of place,” terroir is more difficult to translate as a cultural concept. Terroir in France represents sensory qualities of food that capture a dynamic engagement between people, place and taste. This engagement can be seen in the decisions made by individual food producers to craft a product characteristic of their region. In France this engagement also extends to a conversation between those producing food and the regulators and researchers charged with monitoring and promoting specific products understood to have an exceptional relationship to place. This cooperation between multiple partners helps maintain an authentic sense of terroir within the modern, global food system. In both Québec and Vermont the provincial or state governments have developed a keen interest in the European investment in Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and Geographic Indications (GI). To what extent could Vermont and Québec lead the way in developing and protecting the first New World produits du terroir with designations parallel to those found in Europe? This essay compares the different levels of engagement between product, practice and place found in France, Québec and Vermont

Operationalizing Embeddedness for Sustainability in Local and Regional Food Systems

Agricultural systems are deeply embedded in social processes and the institutions that govern them. Measuring these processes and understanding the extent of that embeddedness is critical to crafting policy for sustainable agricultural systems. The bulk of measurement in sustainability research, however, focuses on economic and environmental indicators such as farm profitability and water quality. Since policy is most often aimed at what is measured, it tends to focus on issues like price, production, and market access. And while those are important, policies aimed at social issues such as community reciprocity are often outside the scope of policy design. The gap between social measurement and policy is not for lack of care; the importance of social dynamics is well known. Yet due to the difficulty of measuring complex social systems— How does one measure values?—more straightforward economic and environmental measures dominate research and policy. When social systems are measured, as, for example, with the social capital or sustainable livelihoods frameworks, they often do so using economic methodologies and indicators. Such economic-based social indicators are important but focus heavily on outcomes such as poverty or profitability. Accordingly, the complex social processes that lead to such outcomes such as culture, heritage, tradition or generational dynamics are often overlooked. These policy and methodological difficulties present a problem: measurements import the theoretical framing of their intellectual development. Economic methodologies are largely rooted in an atomistic theory of human behavior in which individuals are selfishly motivated by economic gains. While individuals do seek economic success, they are also motivated by social connection, reciprocity, values, and culture. The institutions governing these social processes and the degree to which individuals and businesses are embedded in society are incredibly important, yet poorly understood and measured. This paper outlines a theoretical framing for understanding these complex social processes and develops a methodology for measuring social embeddedness in local and regional agricultural systems. Coined by sociologist Karl Polanyi, embeddedness is the extent to which economic systems like markets are governed by non-economic systems such as culture and social cohesion. While markets and their price and output components are well understood and widely measured, the non-economic institutions like culture and values that support and govern markets have tended to be seen as non-measurable. This has important policy implications for rural agriculture. Accordingly, this paper develops a tool for measuring the social embeddedness of producers and consumers in ten agricultural sectors in Vermont that can be replicated across New England. The tool uses a Likert scale survey designed to understand the degree to which producers and consumers are motivated by self-interest—what we call Instrumentalism—and the extent to which they are market-oriented—what we call Marketness. Survey responses are analyzed using a Factor Analysis to generate Instrumentalism and Marketness scores for each survey respondent on a scale of -1 to 1. The Embeddedness Type Matrix consists of a vertical Instrumentalism axis and a horizontal Marketness axis that together create four quadrants that represent different types of embeddedness: embedded, underembedded, disembedded, and overembedded. Individual consumers and producers are plotted on the matrix based upon their respective Instrumentalism and Marketness scores and yield an embeddedness type given their quadrant. Plotting all producers and consumers of a particular industry on the Embeddedness Type Matrix provides an understanding of the motivations, values, actions, and interactions of the individuals in that industry. This paper provides researchers and policy makers in Vermont and New England with a tool to understand and measure the social aspect of agricultural sustainability in multiple industries. This approach allows for the design of policy aimed at aspects of the food system outside of price, production, and market access alone

Maple Syrup: Differences between Vermont and Quebec

This short essay explores the differences between the maple syrups of Vermont and Quebec in terms of production, processing, and quality control.Cet article analyse les différences entre la production, la transformation et la régulation de la qualité du sirop d’érable cultivé à Vermont et à Québec

Introduction

This set of articles, based in recent ethnographic fieldwork by a new generation of anthropologists, taken together, make a compelling case that terroir continues to have a certain explanatory power; terroir, or the taste of place, reflects and indexes certain phenomena that materially and existentially matter right now. And these authors do not slavishly accept a definition of terroir but rather they argue for new interpretations of this term, ones that accept (contrary to many earlier and c..

The empire of the senses: French haute cuisine and the rise of the modern culinary profession, 1870-1910

This dissertation considers the cultural and historical implications of the long-held power of French haute cuisine in the public sphere. French culinary rule is understood to have a complex genealogy stretching back into modern European history where place, status, consumption practices and practices of consumption emerge entangled with meanings that outlast their time and place of birth. The argument focuses on the conjunction of a set of historical processes during the period 1870-1910, processes that explain the genesis and persistence of such a reign: the existence of French haute cuisine as a discourse and a commodity, the rise of the public sphere in Europe, and the development of the culinary profession. The emergence of France as the ruler in the realm of the haute occurred among a transnational community of producers and consumers of haute cuisine located in France and England. An analysis of French haute cuisine\u27s dominance in the public sphere perforce opens larger intellectual issues concerning definitions of culture, processes of class formation, notions about standards of taste, and the discourses of art and artistry. Although the bulk of this project concerns the circumstances and contexts for the historical development of a culinary profession and a culinary discourse, the importance of culture, class and knowledge does not lie solely with the genesis of the profession. Concerns about the power of France, the need to elevate the profession, and the emphasis on technical mastery continue in the contemporary milieu. Thus, though the primary emphasis of this dissertation considers the historical events involved in the founding of the modern profession, this project is also an anthropological excavation, a genealogy of the present

The empire of the senses: French haute cuisine and the rise of the modern culinary profession, 1870-1910

This dissertation considers the cultural and historical implications of the long-held power of French haute cuisine in the public sphere. French culinary rule is understood to have a complex genealogy stretching back into modern European history where place, status, consumption practices and practices of consumption emerge entangled with meanings that outlast their time and place of birth. The argument focuses on the conjunction of a set of historical processes during the period 1870-1910, processes that explain the genesis and persistence of such a reign: the existence of French haute cuisine as a discourse and a commodity, the rise of the public sphere in Europe, and the development of the culinary profession. The emergence of France as the ruler in the realm of the haute occurred among a transnational community of producers and consumers of haute cuisine located in France and England. An analysis of French haute cuisine\u27s dominance in the public sphere perforce opens larger intellectual issues concerning definitions of culture, processes of class formation, notions about standards of taste, and the discourses of art and artistry. Although the bulk of this project concerns the circumstances and contexts for the historical development of a culinary profession and a culinary discourse, the importance of culture, class and knowledge does not lie solely with the genesis of the profession. Concerns about the power of France, the need to elevate the profession, and the emphasis on technical mastery continue in the contemporary milieu. Thus, though the primary emphasis of this dissertation considers the historical events involved in the founding of the modern profession, this project is also an anthropological excavation, a genealogy of the present

Cheese Stories: Cheesemongers, Vermont Artisan Cheese and the Value of Telling Stories

Vermont artisan cheese increasingly travels long distances to consumers. In these elongated supply chains highly specialized retail professionals known as cheesemongers occupy a pivotal position between consumers and producers. Ethnographic research among cheesemongers in different professional settings reveals the importance of shortening the distance between producer and consumer. We found that cheesemongers’ practice of telling specialized narratives called cheese stories creates social proximity, such that consumers are able to better understand the values and intentions of Vermont artisan cheesemakers and, potentially, feel a connection to them. While cheese retail professionals appear to agree that a certain level of intrinsic quality makes a difference to them and their customers, many also see the importance of, and derive pleasure from, knowing and conveying the story, and perceive this to be an important part of their professional role and identity.Les fromages du Vermont sont exportés à grande échelle. En raison des distances à parcourir pour livrer ces produits tant convoités, les marchands de fromage (cheesemongers) jouent un rôle important : celui d’assurer le relais entre les consommateurs et les producteurs. D’après une analyse ethnographique, on conclut que le marchand aide à réduire le sentiment de « distance » entre le producteur et le consommateur. Les marchands content des récits, ou des « histoires de fromage » afin de créer un sentiment de proximité. Grâce à ces récits, les consommateurs peuvent mieux comprendre la valeur des produits qu’ils achètent, car un rapport affectif a été établi. Les consommateurs peuvent aussi mieux apprécier les intentions des producteurs de fromage au Vermont. Certes, la qualité du produit est d’une importance capitale. Cela dit, les consommateurs aiment également connaître les récits associés à la production de ces fromages, et les marchands croient que le relais qu’ils assurent entre producteurs et consommateurs constitue une partie importante de leur identité professionnelle

Terroir Products in North America: Dreams or Future Reality?

This introduction seeks to analyze the French concept of terroir and its possible applications in North America. By focusing on Quebec and Vermont, respectively the most advanced Canadian province and American state in terms of defining and regulating terroir, it outlines the primary challenges in developing government certifications for terroir and explores ways in which the practical and legal considerations associated with such certifications compare and contrast with similar considerations in Europe. In so doing it focuses on three products: cheese, wine, and maple syrup.L’introduction a pour but de s’interroger sur la notion de terroir et ses implications en Amérique du Nord. En centrant plus spécifiquement le propos sur le Québec et le Vermont qui, respectivement au Canada et aux États-Unis, sont la province et l’État les plus avancées, il s’agit de préciser la manière dont la problématique est soulevée et de s’interroger sur la comparabilité avec l’Europe des réalisations pratiques et juridiques notamment en ce qui concerne le système des appellations protégées. Trois produits, les fromages, le vin et le sirop d’érable serviront de cas de réflexion