Over the following weeks I will be reading selected chapters from my reading list (posted below) to explore the relationship between our complex personal histories and our food/cooking preferences and habits. For each chapter/reading I will be creating my own writing prompts and answering them in my posts along with a short summary of the reading, this allows me to begin to explore curriculum writing/content creation as well as providing me with the material I need for the second piece of my ILC.
Each week I will be using the writing exercises to explore my personal history with food and cooking, with the final product of my work being a menu of meals accompanied by a body of writing and pictures explaining my connection to them. Along with the writing exercises I will also be talking to members of my extended family who were around for my upbringing in England, and my parents and sister with whom I have eaten more meals than anyone else in my life.
This ILC is dedicated to the woman I have watched cook my whole life. My grandmother, Dorothy Louise Haynes, we lost her in 2014 but she forever set the bar for Sunday roast. I got my middle name from her, as well as her love of shiny jewelry and fun shoes. My mother, Lisa Catherine Haynes, is the woman who always makes it work, despite a family that loved to eat her meal ingredients before she had a chance to cook. Every holiday and birthday was made magic by her hours of labor, which for too long was far underappreciated by my sister and I. When I put my heart into meals for my loved ones, I remember that these are the women who taught me to do so.
Reading List
Jordan, J. A. (2015). Edible memory : the lure of heirloom tomatoes & other forgotten foods. The University Of Chicago Press.
Korsmeyer, C. (2017). The taste culture reader : experiencing food and drink. Bloomsbury Academic, An Imprint Of Bloomsbury Publishing Pic.
Samuelsson, M., & Heidi Sacko Walters. (2006). The Soul of a New Cuisine. Harvest.
Stuckey, B. (2012). Taste what you’re missing : the passionate eater’s guide to getting more from every bite. Free Press.
Twitty, M. (2018). The cooking gene : a journey through African American culinary history in the Old South. Amistad, An Imprint Of Harpercollins Publishers.
Wilson, B. (2016). First bite – how we learn to eat. Harpercollins Publishers.