Academic cuisine

[Michael Odom]

Not the culinary academy, but the academy's rising interest in matters
culinary: Now that there are professors of food studies at New York
University and elsewhere, dry academic jargon might get just a little
juiced up--if not actually spicy. The november issue of the journal
_Lingua Franca_ contains a short article on food as an emerging
academic discipline in American universities.

The article states "This month, the University of California Press
will launch California Studies in Food and Culture, an ambitious,
open-ended series on culinary history. The first title of the series,
Andrew Dalby's _Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices_, traces the
changing fashions, economics, and belief systems that have surrounded
aromatics from cinnamon and coriander to ambergris and aloeswood.
Subsequent titles, following at a rate of one or two per season, will
cover topics ranging from the politics behind the Food and Drug
Administration to Renaissance dietetics and the history of Camembert."

Other academic presses issuing food-related titles in recent months
include the U of illinois, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the U of
Pennsylvania, the article says. Illinois, is also committed to a
series of food books, so is the U of South Carolina. Don't expect the
prose and delights of M. F. K. Fisher, the article says: "the new
scholarly food books examine everything from the rise and fall of
French haute cuisine to the social history of popcorn."

This could be interesting on many levels--the confluence of the
proverbial ivory tower with cast iron skillets and chile peppers. The
editor of the California series is Darra Goldstein, who in addition to
being a professor of Russian also advises New York's Russian Tea Room
on the niceties of czarist food and manners. Another project
Goldstein has taken on is editing a new "journal of food and culture"
called _Gastronomica_ which the article says will be something like an
_Artforum_ for foodies. The first issue is due out next February and
will contain articles on the history of a kind of Mediterranean clay
pot called an olla, the symbolism of food in Dutch still life
paintings, poems and cartoons. Sounds fun and a little nuts. I plan
on reading at least the first issue.

M.Odom is at modom at koyote dot com