Good food should not be limited to those with the means to pay well above the wages of the average worker. Good food is about health, accessibility, opportunity, and so much more. But what is good food, and how do we access it? How does a fast food cheeseburger differ in taste from one made in your own kitchen? How about cost? Time needed to access and prepare? So many more questions go into an inquiry on good food, but to start we have to look at what we are cooking with.
Throughout this class, I hope to harness the individual modules to move closer towards my goal of making good food accessible to all. Starting with our Mondays on the farm, I hope to deepen my understanding of where our food comes from, how it grows, how long it takes to produce and how much goes into the running and maintaining of a working organic farm.
Next with the experiments from Taste What You’re Missing, I am hoping that the detailed information and hands on experiments about the big senses and flavor profiles will help me take my cooking skills to another level, armed with these base skills and instincts that develop throughout the quarter working on them.
As dry as I find Mark Bittmans writing, I cannot deny that the information in his book is incredibly interesting. Throughout the food seminar module I will be doing my best to put aside the issues I have with Mark Bittman and his writing style, to focus on our shred interest on food as medicine and human sustainability. As much as it pains me to say, Bittmans work inspired a huge question within my project: What will kill us first, our planet or our plate? As a reference to if it will be our poor food choices or our lack of sustainable practices that will end the human race quicker.
The Scholarly Ingredients module goes hand in hand with my ILC work (a detailed description of which can be found under the “Good Food For All ILC” tab) starting with the intro to the companion to Food and Literature, followed by a thematically selected chapter, which for me is Chapter 6: Modernism and Gastronomy. I will use this time, both to learn from and reflect upon the provided texts, but also to develop better annotation and wordpress skills, making this time extra valuable.
I am ecstatic for another quarter of work within this program and I am diving straight into my work, starting with my in-program ILC entitled “Good Food For All” which centers around the idea that good food should be accessible to everyone regardless of status, as well as making sure that food in general is accessable and that knowledge is spread to students in and out of my on campus communities. I am hoping to harness this class and this quarter to serve my community and I am so grateful you are joining me!