ENG 245 CC: TASTING DIFFERENCE

Tasting Difference: Minority Food Writing.  What do sustainability, veganism, fusion cuisine, carb-free diets, celebrity chefs, cooking shows, cultural appropriation, and gentrification have in common? They all have to do with food. We eat to survive and will be eventually eaten after our death, but food transcends these realities. It is omnipresent, both a basic human need and an elaborate mode of expression, a powerful love language and a maker of extreme difference (cannibals!). Food inspires visceral reaction and causes controversy because our identities shape and are shaped by gastronomic practices, negotiations, dreams, and fears. This dynamic is particularly visible when the identities belong to non-dominant cultures. In this course, we will consider textual and visual representation of food in print and digital media by minorities—racial, ethnic, linguistic, religious, and sexual. While our focus will remain on the United States and mostly English-language texts, the authors will claim roots in West Africa, Central America, East Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Readings will include cookbooks, menus, self help, Instagram posts, and films, as well as food memoirs, novels, short stories, and poems. For a fuller experience of the subject, students will also approach food on a more sensory level, through actual preparation and consumption and/or less conventional means such as online tastings and invention of recipes for imaginary dishes.