FCC Field Study Trip: Part III (Dayton)

Following our visits to Cincinnati and Fairfield, our Food and Culture Colloquium field study trip group headed about 40 minutes north to Rue Dumaine in Dayton, where both their Americanised take on regional French (Provençal) cuisine restaurant and their emphasis on seasonal and local ingredients caught my attention.

FCC Field Study Trip: Part II (Fairfield)

It took less than an hour from Findlay Market and our first stop in Cincinnati to get to the original, Fairfield location of Jungle Jim's International Market (there's a second, recently opened location in Eastgate). I've been to Jungle Jim's only once (this past August, as part of my visit to Cincy) and even then it was an overwhelming experience. This time around, we only had a little over two hours to explore the six acres of space, an establishment that I affectionately refer to as the Toys 'R Us for foodies. As most of our field study trip participants had never been to Jungle Jim's, and since there are no guided tours on weekends (because of the high volume), I put together a brief scavenger hunt that guided them through the market. Below, you'll find the scavenger hunt script, along with accompanying site photos to introduce you to different areas of the market. Of course, for the true Jungle Jim's experience, I'd encourage you to check out the market the next time you're in the area!

FCC Field Study Trip: Part I (Cincinnati)

Following the conclusion last Wednesday of the modules and practicums of this year's Food and Culture Colloquium, the much-anticipated field study trip to Southwest Ohio finally arrived this past Saturday. The trip, eight months in the making, served as the capstone event to the Colloquium and brought us to Findlay Market in Cincinnati, Jungle Jim's International Market in Fairfield and Rue Dumaine in Dayton. Presented in three separate posts, this one shall serve as a brief overview of the first third of our "more than a foodie" experience.

Food and Culture Programme: College Cuisine

On and around the Hill, it's becoming more and more difficult to deny the fact I'll be heading out at the end of the academic year. And indeed the list of lasts [for now] seems to be getting checked off quicker than I'd like. One of these items is the last food and culture program in a residence hall, which took place this past Monday in East Hall with RA Jaime and her residents. On our "An Italian Affair" menu (the planned budget of which was $60 for 20 people): handmade whole wheat tagliatelle with roasted vegetables, handmade dunderi with fresh pesto al'Amalfitana, Italian dressing chicken, handmade lemon meringue cookies with raspberry sherbet, and fresh lemonade with strawberry coulis.

Food, Creativity and Courage: The 2013 International Food and Culture Festival at Denison University

This year's IFCF logo was created by Freda Okundaye '14 and digitised by Bryan LeBlanc '15. Bryan also compiled images of international sites, as well as food and items from our Center, to create this year's IFCF banner. The quotation (by Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger) written on the orange peel of our above logo reads "The mind without culture can never produce good fruit."

Yesterday, more than 525 students, faculty, staff and community members from and outside of Granville found their way into Curtis Dining Hall, bringing with them not only a satiable appetite for food (and I hope a bit of culture), but also metaphorical suitcases of history, heritages, family recipes and memories that filled the space which for me yielded an emotional state of success and a validation of the hard work put into our second annual International Food and Culture Festival. Feeding off this year's campus wide theme of Creativity and Courage, creativity was key in executing the global, gastronomic representation of this year's menu: a purposefully diverse collection of ingredients and techniques in the form of 26 dishes (arguably, 29) spanning six continents, the menu of which was developed over the past three months and refined over the past few weeks. But perhaps even more importantly, everyone brought with them their own amounts of courage-- the courage not only to cook dishes that ranged from recognisable and extremely familiar and personal to completely "foreign" and arguably unpronounceable, but to in some (if not many) cases step outside of one's comfort zone and eat whatever happened to be presented on the plate. [Note on the aforementioned link: instead of individual country dish videos, this year I asked faculty, staff and students to do their best in trying to pronounce this year's menu offerings. Throughout this post, I have linked each pronunciation along with the suggested recipe (if available) for each dish.] On one hand, this second IFCF was a matter of relative redemption and a challenge to one up last year; on another, it's truly an opportunity to bring people together. But aside from meeting folks I would otherwise never have the opportunity to meet, and introducing folks to new dishes and techniques, engaging in conversations about how folks had grown up eating one of many variations of the same dish, receiving the outright approval of properly executed dishes and hearing comments such as "wow, this brought me back to my childhood and being in my grandmother's kitchen" make the work put into the festival that much more meaningful.

ITKP: "Holiday Culinary Culture"

As many of  you may already know, I have come to enjoy and appreciate the challenge of creating complicated programmatic menus. And today's In the Kitchen Practicum--the final one for the semester--was no exception. On the proposed menu: baked brie en croûte with caramelised onions; hand made sundried tomato ravioli with roasted red bell pepper and acorn squash, topped with oregano browned butter (made solely with fresh oregano and heavy cream); dry rubbed beef short ribs with Kansas City style barbecue sauce; and homemade gingerbread with cinnamon and salted caramel swirl ice cream.

ITKP: "An Introduction to Molecular Gastronomy and Molecular Cooking"

clockwise from right: strawberry on top of chocolate mayo, asparagus on top of hollandaise, raspberries on top of dark chocolate mousse, asparagus on top of sauce kientzheim; plate also with mayonnaise-- all created with the molecular technique of emulsification

Many months ago, I discovered chocolate Chantilly ("invented" by the father of modern gastronomy, Hervé This; some recognise him as MG's godfather) and it forever changed the way I viewed chocolate. On some level of the culinary universe, bringing together chocolate and water is like creating a hybrid community from two competing subcultures. Okay, maybe this discovery wasn't all that dramatic, but it was amazing and is now relatively impressive that understanding the science behind food can aid in its transformation and the redefinition of relationships between foods that usually don't get along. This relationship with food--as presented as the kickstarter to our Food and Culture Colloquium's November focus on the intersection of food and the liberal arts--was the highlight to our fourth In the Kitchen Practicum.

Cooking as a Community (with DSFs)

I've often found that, in the most unexpected of ways, food (un?)expectedly brings people together, those of like or different minds and ideologies, those of different ages and experiences. And throughout the process, we can create anything from a ritualistic or a mechanical (not necessarily complimentary adjectives) framework to operating within mass chaos or overwhelming entropy (which in this case could very well be complimentary if not synonymous). The act of cooking--or more importantly participatory cooking--typically brings out an inherent support structure and desire to be helpful and considerate, in a world that's moving too fast to really think of either. And the yield is such that, in the most open and interdependent systems, it is shared and consumed by everyone. For a brief moment in the grand scheme of things, we've created a rather utopian, living-learning environment predicated on a basic need to eat, as well as the felt sense of belonging. At least, this is the internal dialogue playing in my head as I continue facilitate food and culture programming throughout campus, and which I came to better understand as I reflected on a dinner I cooked with and for Denison's Sustainability Fellows, as the kickoff to their program's first retreat. The goal, at its core, was to begin to develop a closer group dynamic and community through the galvanizing impact of food. And judging by the amount of laughter, cleared dishes and bags of compostable material, I'd say this dinner was a success.

First Res Hall Food and Culture Programme (for the Academic Year): De-Stressing Tortillas

About an hour or so after the second In Kitchen Practicum of the academic year ("Courageous Cooking Class: Fermented Foods"), Saturday's foodie day continued with my first residential hall food and culture program of the year. Working with two resident assistants, we aimed for an interactive program that could focus on easily replicable recipes for students (in this case, seniors), and settled on making tortillas by hand-- a rather therapeutic and de-stressing process that requires nothing more than flour, fat, salt and water.

A Truly Epic Post: 25 Foods Just in Time for Post #150!

Plates galore!

Shortly following the success of our fall "Migrations"-themed event à la a domestic focus on farm to table cuisine, planning for an international focus went underway. Resulting in a celebration of 25 countries (or in some cases, inspirations or regions), 25 different foods made it onto a truly eclectic and highly ambitious menu. And operating within the framework of food fusion and in search for authenticity, I cannot be anything but enthusiastically grateful for the commitment of the Sodexo staff and Denison's Dining Services, as well as all of our sponsors, students and multi-cultural student group advisors who helped make Denison's first international food and culture festival the success that it was. I admit there were a few of the misfires, but would like to emphasise before continuing with this post just how monumental of a task I laid before the staff. Certainly we could have gone with fewer dishes (which arguably, though not guaranteed, could have turned out better), but the desire to celebrate many and test the limits resulted in humble lessons learned and the motivation to better everything that was accomplished. For this, my 150th blog post, I invite you to continue to read on for my takes on each dish that I tried, as well as the cultural connections behind each one.

Food and Culture Programme #2: French Food Fare

Happy day-after-Thanksgiving! Alas, an upcoming season full of food and the company of friends and family has officially begun with Thanksgiving now seeming to have passed ages ago and the hectic shopping schedule fills the air. But, before I get to my Thanksgiving break posts, I still need to catch up on my second residence hall food and culture programme. Last Wednesday, in consultation with the RA of a female-only building, we went with one of my favourite cooking themes: French. (No bias... well, not much anyway.) For about $2.75 per person, some of the students helped me in preparing four dishes from four regions of France for our menu: ratatouille (Provence, southeast), poulet à la crème (Bresse, east) with an apple-based cream sauce (Normandie-inspired, northwest), brie en croûte (Île-de-France, central), and a play on brochettes de fruits frais served over vanilla ice cream.

Food and Culture Programme: Finding a Part of Self in Filipino Food

Last Saturday, I received an e-mail confirmation stating approval of my proposed research titled "Students at the Table: Stone Soup and Undergraduate Food Culture on a Liberal Arts Campus." And what proper timing! On Tuesday, I held my first formal food and culture programme of the year which incorporates the research questions I am studying. For the time being, the research is for my own personal inquiry but I hope to transform it into presentable conference and/or publishable material. Until that latter part comes to fruition, I see this as an added bonus not only for a new programming module of my design but as a means of critiquing already existing programmes and creating a space to talk within a field of study (or rather an activity of being) I find incredibly fascinating. (NB: I do recognize my first food and culture programme, however, as the Stone Hall potluck.)

Stone Hall Potluck Kicks Off Food and Culture Programming

Good morning! If you're reading this and didn't know by now, I'm embarking on new programming here on campus focusing on food and culture. In the last few months, I've learned there are faculty on campus that teach about food but not much has been done by way of non-class-related programming... until now. Certainly a means of getting residents to meet each other in a more pseudo-formal structure, the Resident Assistants in the residence hall I'm living in organized a potluck for the building, with our charge that residents who participate in the dinner need to bring food that somehow represents the residents in the room in some way. Not only was there a great turn out, but there were great explanations and conversations that joined the eclectic mix of identity represented in food.