During the fall quarter I realized that I really liked learning about the history of domestic space. When I learned that spring quarter would be devoted to an individual project I decided to focus on the theme of the kitchen and to the art of baking bread. I will choose a different banana bread recipe and bake it on Monday night for every week for critique on Tuesday. The critique will engage the program in a matrix of banana bread qualities for assessment. The inspiration for this project comes from my love to bake rather than cook, understand breads and also the need to improve my baking skills with different types of banana bread each week. For spring quarter I have the chance to learn more history, technology advances, gender roles, food history: information that really fascinates me. I came to evergreen to learn more about photography and this project will lend its self to the art of food photography a field I have not yet experimented in. The ultimate aim for this project is to create a “cookbook” of recipes and photographic images.

My aim is to be satisfied with the amount of knowledge that I will learn from historical inquiry into bread from reading recipes and having to bake one of the recipes every week. I want to go into further depth and learn more about the history and significance of the kitchen and to learn more about culture and history of bread. I plan on taking notes on my books and continue with doing written weekly reading reflections. Taking notes on the information that stands out to me helps to remember the information and think critically about what I am reading. Writing reading reflections not only will it help me think critically but also help me improve my writing skills. Since I will be baking a loaf of banana bread every week I will learn how to follow different recipes and I will observe and learn what certain ingredients do to the bread, how the taste and texture changes if I were to add a different ingredient than normal. I plan on making a food matrix for taste testing the breads. I will distribute this matrix to each class mate along with a piece of banana bread. Utilizing the matrix critique will help me understand what my class mates liked about the bread and what they did not like about it. Also I will be able to compare the differences between the breads from different weeks. I am also going to learn about food photography. So each week I will be working on improving my photography skills in a field I have not yet explored by experimenting with lighting, composition, and set arrangements.

For this quarter I have to say that I am most excited to read the books I found. The first book is called Easy Banana Bread Recipes by Kitchen Kreations. It was published on February 24, 2012. This book will be the book I am going to get my recipes for each week. The second book is called The Medieval Kitchen: A Social History with Recipes by Hannele Klemettila. It was published on September 15, 2012. From reading this book I will learn about food history, food culture and ideologies that have to do with eating in medieval times across Europe. The third book is called Six Thousand Years of Bread: Its Holy And Unholy History by H.E. Jacob. It was published on November 17, 2007. This book is about the history of bread from ancient Egypt to modern times it will explain the role in politics, religion, and technology. The fourth book is called Kitchen Culture in America by Sherrie A. Inness (Editor). It was published on September 26, 2000. This book is filled with people’s short essays either about food relationships, gender, class, race, and women’s role in the kitchen. The fifth book is called Food photography: pro Secrets for Styling, Lighting and Shooting by Lara Ferroni. It was publish on March 6, 2012. This book will teach me how to take photos of food like a pro. This way I can hopefully use some of the techniques shown to photograph my bread. The last book is called America’s kitchens by Nancy Carlisle, Melinda Talbot Nasardinov, and Jennifer Pustz. It was publishe on December 1, 2008. This book will inform me more on the history of kitchens in America.

By the end of the quarter I plan on putting together my very own banana bread cookbook. In the cookbook I will include the average results for each banana bread recipe from critique, the recipes I used along with the photographs I took. I think the criteria for evaluating the success of my work should be based on how well put together the book is, how much time I spent working on doing everything that I would need to do to get it done.