Category: Tasting Lab

While this post may be brief, I wanted to take a moment to consider food and taste as rebellion.

Our current society has many rules about what can be eaten and when, and why. Foods and beverages that can alter consciousness are for the most part ‘controlled’. There are age restrictions, circumstance restrictions, etc.

So what about those who drink and eat when they are not supposed to? This could include things so simple as eating cereal for dinner, a minor social oddity, to drinking alcohol while underage, or eating when ritual calls for a fast.

In some ways, the act of rebellious eating is perhaps an act of privilege, because it’s hard to eat something you’re not supposed to when you don’t have access to it at all.

There are many ways that eating as an act of rebellion can be dangerous, such as breaking diets meant to improve health, or drinking or taking drugs while driving. Looking at just a brief moment of what I can think of as a negative act of rebellious eating, there may be more dangerous, negative ways to eat rebelliously than empowering and overall positive ways.

But it is an interesting bit to think about, don’t you think?

I can imagine some ways that eating rebelliously can be positive. Appreciating food from other cultures, if it’s forbidden or stigmatized in your own culture, could be a positive act of rebellion around food. Changing the ceremony around eating, or the company in which eating is done can be a positive act of rebellion, personally or on a larger scale.

Enjoy some end of quarter puzzling on what interesting dynamics there can be when the circumstances where eating becomes rebellion.

Red vines taste like theatre. Jalapeno Poppers taste like playing Spore on my Ninetendo DS Lite. Wild sage smells like the heat and high desert of Utah where neighbors burned unwanted sage in the summer. Wasabi Peas taste like writing, Andes mints taste like trips to Olive Garden.

These are strong sense memories for me. Nearly every time I taste these foods, I think of these events, or actions. They are strongly associated with each other. The only time I ever ate Red Vines were at dance lessons when I was young, and later during theatre programs when I was in high school. They accompanied the smell of sweat, dust, glitter, and hot lights.

I have a lot of these sense memories, and I don’t remember them until I’m hit with that scent, or taste, or sound. Not all of them are good, but many of them are. I think everyone has them, consciously or not. The traditions of eating certain foods, or certain smells can make you feel a certain way. Maybe that’s part of what it means when it ‘feels like christmas’ or another holiday, the smells and sights are there, and they trigger past memories and feelings.

You long for food you haven’t tasted in a long time, food that reminds you of happy times, of family, or special memories.

Sense memories make up or supplement traditions surrounding food and scents.

It’s really fascinating to think that a simple whiff of a certain smell of a food can bring you in your mind to an entirely different place in time.

This was brought up in class briefly during on of the tea tastings over the last two weeks, and I thought it was a really interesting dynamic to explore. Some of my sense memories are so strong and immediate they’re startling, some are subtler. When I’ve smelled the different teas, I’ve been brought back to being a child with my dad and smelling his tea. It smelled so familiar and comforting, but at the same time, when I tasted the tea itself, it only tasted like that scent for a moment.

My dad drinks a lot of tea, and has for as long as I can remember. But the way he made tea is very different than the way the tea we have been tasting is made. I don’t know the chemistry of it, but I know it’s a lot less precise, but very precisely the way my dad wants it to be. There’s a much smaller amount of tea to water and it’s typically brewed longer. My dad knows which teas can be left in the water and which ones will get bitter if they’re steeped to long. When I drank tea when I was little it was almost always half and half with goat milk, but never any kind of sweetener. Just milky tea.

With the tea we are tasting in class, it smells so familiar, but the taste is so quickly more bitter than what I am used to that after one or two sips my body feels a little shaky.

Thinking about these differences can certainly bring up questions of authenticity and what you really taste when you taste things.

Do you drink things that taste bad in your mouth and like them because they are very healthy? Are you tasting the idea of the food’s authenticity or history of labor and place of origin rather than the taste of the food itself?

To consider all the variables in tasting food, memories, knowledge, bodily chemical reactions, at once would be impossible. But perhaps it is also impossible to separate any one variable from the rest.

I am content with enjoying the taste of the food itself. When I can take into consideration knowledge about a food and its sustainability, about its ethical origins, I will. When I can make the effort to make something myself from a form that has been processed as little as possible, I will.

I will also enjoy the certain foods that bring up strong sense memories. And I will work on figuring out what balance of healthy, ethical, and good tasting that I need in my life.

And for now, portabello mushrooms fried in butter with Italian spices smell like Roche Harbor at Sunset, on a balcony, overlooking the harbor.

There was talk about the labor it takes to produce food in the first few chapters of Tompkins, and during the production of our potluck lunches and tastings and seminars. I think it’s a topic that deserves more discussion.

Perhaps this is a brief overview of what I have learned about food and labor, perhaps it is an example of connections that can be further studied, perhaps it will bring up some dynamics that haven’t been discussed or thought about yet. In any event, it is helpful in the context of this course.

There is definitely a gendered dynamic to food production. Typicallly and traditionally much food preparation is done by women or femme people. That food production labor can lead to oppression or empowerment, depending of course on circumstance and context and what ability each individual has to wield power of influence over their own lives and the lives of others.

This dynamic between empowerment and oppression can also be influenced by the interaction of technology. We have seen this in other areas as well. In my research project on the safety of sex toys I noted in my research that the technology of sex toys, especially the vibrator, has moved from a tool of oppression – because it was originally a tool to assist doctors in administering “paroxysms” (orgasms) to their female patients suffering from “hysteria” which could be indicated by any number of symptoms that are today generally considered symptoms of being frustrated and unfulfilled both in the quality of life and quality of sex – to a tool of empowerment – as it was when it became available for general consumers and became a symbol of sexual liberation around feminist movements when women could use it to control their own pleasure, without needing to rely on another person’s input or control.

I can see parallels in food technology as well as I consider labor saving devices and storage methods that also have the effect of distancing the end point of food from the beginning of production. Food production in its entirety is an incredibly labor intensive process. Farms must be maintained, planted, harvested. Harvested food must be shipped, processed, packaged, and shipped again and perhaps stored for various amounts of time at each part of the process. Once purchased from a store the food must be prepared in various ways which of itself can take a very long time, depending on the type of food and type of meal prepared.

The technology that has gone into improved farming, shipping, processing, packaging, and storage equipment has been a labor saving endeavor. It distances the end product of food from the beginning point by time, by geographical distance, by season, and by cultural recognition between the beginning point of food, a plant or seed or flower and the well dressed salad, intricately spiced main course, and sweetened and artfully presented desert.

In addition to the technology needed to on the side of food pre-meal-preparation, there has been great technology increases on the meal preparation area as well. Food processors, fridges, grinders, pots, pans, ovens, sinks, dishwashers, rice cookers, bread machines, mixers, blenders, garbage disposals, vacuum sealers, even sponges and detergents. Each piece of technology, each appliance in a kitchen has been created to reduce or ease the labor that goes into food preparation, food storage, and cleanup. Each thing also creates more distance between the origin of foods and the end result, though in different ways.

Now, as far as this technology and distance serves as both as a source of oppression and empowerment, especially in the gendered environment we live in, can be traced in advertising I’m sure.

For this technology has made laboring over food more enjoyable, easier. It’s marketed as a level of expertise, a value added option to social status. It is in a way a tool that encourages the continuation of the gendered divide of food preparation and makes the oppression of being societally required to perform a role seem more appealing because fancy equipment and being valued as an expert in something, in the traditionally considered emotional aspects assigned to women and femme people – the joy and pride of taking care of those around you.

But while this technology has these negative implications, it also has empowering ones. Technology reduces the time and labor it takes to prepare meals. Thus time is opened up for other pursuits, energy is saved that can be spent in other ways. It opens up a space for change. And that space can be incredibly powerful, and many forms of hell raising can come from its availability.

I find it really interesting to consider these dynamics, and I hope that this outline of some of the dynamics I can is interesting to someone.

There are many rituals and practices that surround people’s experiences. Rituals, patterns, traditions, are attached to nearly everything we do, even food. The study of rituals around food, farming, cooking, and eating have been the subject of anthropological studies, cultural studies, and part of the feeling of identity within current cultures. I think it’s an interesting exercise to think about the rituals around food and eating we have in our current lives, since it’s an important aspect of studying ancient peoples and cultures, it can certainly be helpful in studying living people.

During our week 2 potluck, before everyone started eating, a couple people spoke about different ways they wanted to appreciate, acknowledge, or think about food while they were eating. One spoke about taking a moment to be silent and think about the origin of the food, how it would nourish, and how important it was to acknowledge. Another thought that eating while having our seminar discussion itself would add an important dimension to our experiential learning.

Each of us has memories and traditions associated with food and how to eat, and these experiences influence the ways we want to experience eating and food.

During week three potluck and tasting time, I noticed several aspects of behavior. Those who were putting together spice packs and coating the salmon with salt and sugar mixes were grouped together, debating and discussing and becoming a hub of activity. The lights in the classroom weren’t as bright as they were the rest of the day, but I don’t actually remember whether that was because a different amount of outside light was coming out, whether someone had turned down the lights, or if it just seemed that way. The couple of people who were putting the final touches on the potluck lunch had candles by their station, and were playing music. There were a few scragglers, myself included, who weren’t participating in either of these activities.

For me, this was a time for me to be quiet and rest. I’m not used to being around classmates for an entire day. Usually my lunch break allows me to be somewhere else, or with particular people or in a different place. For me, this has been a very vital part of staying focused, being able to pay attention, and not be overwhelmed by social interaction. This break time is not a time that I am relaxed, exactly, but it is a time that I have always been able to shut down, and not think about anything important. It allowed me to be able to charge in time to go to seminars and second half of day activities and being to function. With this program, I don’t have that mid day time that I can shut down that part of my mind that must be alert around other’s, and I’ve had to adjust my approach to the day so I can stay focused. So on this day, it was helpful to be able to just sit and watch what others were doing. To eat my own food and not think about anything in particular. For this piece, the observations I jotted down while I was resting my mind were helpful and productive.

Food rituals can be formal, informal, personal, spiritual, traditional, or new. They can have multiple aspects of these at once. A formal meal could be something with extended family, a black tie fundraiser, or a practice of religion or spirituality. A personal, casual meal can recharge your body and relax your mind. Memories can be strongly tied with food, or the smells and tastes of food.

The parts of the rituals around food can be the food itself, how it tastes, how it smells; the preparation of the food, with someone else, alone, using a specific teapot for a particular tea; the preparation of how you eat, the utensils, table, couch, movie, music, silence good dishes, plastic tupperware, do you take a moment before you eat to recognize the food and the effort; the time of the meal, holidays, time of day, related to a particular action like harvest; the clean up after a meal can be a separate or included ritual also, who cleans the dishes, who puts away the food and how; and the lack of eating or meals can have significance as well. Fasting and breaking fast are important aspects of many different cultures.

These aspects of food and performance and eating are important to note, even if noting them doesn’t have any impact on your practices in the long run. Because it might teach you something, it might teach someone else someone, it might help you recognize a part of a self care routine, or a part of something that stressed you out, or disconnects you from community.

We spoke during seminar about the way that potlucks can’t be a go to activity anymore, because of so many dietary restrictions and issues. Part of this is probably purely for reasons of preference, what people will or won’t eat, but it’s also for health and medical reasons.

It’s curious to consider the different parts of our use of technology or cultural shifts and how they might have impacted the ability for people to participate in putlucks. When I was little, I enjoyed potlucks, but there was always a large section of food I couldn’t eat, and usually I couldn’t tell which foods I couldn’t eat. I had to trust my mom to find out from the people that made the food which dishes were vegetarian, and we had to trust that they really knew what that meant. So many people are unaware or misinformed about different types of diets and allergies. I have always been frustrated and amused by the conversations that go a little like this; “you’re a vegetarian? Oh cool, so am I!” (pause) “well but I don’t count fish/chicken/shellfish because (reason), so I eat those sometimes. But otherwise I’m totally a vegetarian.” Those conversations are frustrating because they spread misinformation about what being vegetarian means, or at least what it has always meant to me, and then suddenly people will say they understand what it means and still cook fish/chicken/etc because someone else they knew was a vegetarian but still ate that.

Which can be a very unpleasant experience, because if you don’t know what’s in your food and eat it, and you’ve been vegetarian long enough, you can’t digest meat. So upset stomach and unpleasant night’s ahead! Me and my mom has always been careful enough with my food that that hasn’t happened to me, but it’s happened to my parents a lot. For my dad, when a friend painstaking prepared a meal, checking constantly about what could be in it or not lead to a very painful day or two because they didn’t realize that chicken broth wasn’t vegetarian, and when my dad eats meat it sets off his arthritis and leaves him in pain.

I don’t know when these kinds of health issues, and allergies, started to become so prevalent in our world, because there aren’t any studies that have been done it that I’m aware of. But they haven’t always been so widespread, and because it seems so new, the rituals around food haven’t changed to account for them, and those who have different diets or allergies must be extremely vigilant around the food they eat and how it’s been prepared, they have to question the rituals other’s go through to prepare food, which becomes a ritual (or a practice) in itself.

For me personally, it is hard to constantly turn down people’s offers to cook or share food. I feel bad because I cannot partake in something that someone spent time and effort in preparing. To have to interrogate anyone offering food about what’s in it and how it was prepared, because them reassuringly saying that it’s ‘all natural’ really doesn’t mean anything to me. My allergies are to natural substances that are usually considered healthy. I have the interesting experience that I can eat (in general) either expensive, organic vegan/vegetarian dishes, or the cheapest, processed food, but the middle ground is where most of my allergies lie. There is one tomato sauce I can eat, that you can get only at the dollar store. I can eat it because it’s made cheaply enough to not have olive or canola or sunflower oil in it, and it’s in a glass jar rather than a can. So to determine whether I can eat something someone else has prepared I have to know if they regularly cook meat in the dishes they used to prepare the food, I have to know if they used canned foods, I have to know if they used cooking spray or oil, and then what kind. I have to interrogate the entire chain of production to make sure it won’t make me sick. So many things that I am allergic to get into people’s food without their conscious awareness of it happening.

The preparation of the kale we harvested week 3 is a good example of this. I picked some kale leaves from the field with my own hands. At that point I can eat them, sure. When we massaged them, the person sitting next to me commented that they smelled and felt oily. They were still considered by most in the class as ‘just kale’. But only moments later it was noted that the leaves has been drizzled in olive oil. Still ‘just kale’? By most people’s perspective, the oil added in this step unbeknownst to the room was inconsequential, a nothing. But that inconsequential step would mean a migraine for up to several days if ingested, to me.

So instead of performing that interrogation ritual, it’s easier to perform the apologetic refusal ritual.

My conclusions from these observations and notes is that it’s very important to consider what rituals each of us go through around food, eating, and preparation and why we do each of those things. Which parts are important and meaningful, which are autopilot or habit and why? In addition, it would be interesting to know more about the variables and factors in how people’s ability to participate in things like potlucks has changed over the last decades.

SOS: ComAlt. Sarah Williams.

Tasting Response. Wk 1.

Zoe Wright.

1/16/17.

In the stead of participating in the tastings every other week, I will be writing a short note on my observations of the tasting and of the social culture related to food that is created in the classroom during mealtimes and tastings.

During the tasting last week there was brief discussion about the phenomenon of liking things less or differently the more you learn about them, and about how so many classes with social justice aspects have a very large success rate of making you really despise things you used to like, or at least feel highly guilty about wanting to still like them.

This week our tasting involved five types of eggs. These were called: White, Pink, Marbled, Golden, and Salmon Roe. The first four were various ways to prepare hard boiled eggs. The fifth is the egg of a salmon. The class was to write down visual observations, then taste each type once and write down first taste observations. Then the class was to read the blurb about each kind of egg, which included something about what it was or how it was made, and some personal touches about what it meant to a few different people. After reading the blurb for each egg, they were to taste the eggs again and write down what, if anything changed.

Thus each description was read and the eggs turned into a normal hard boiled egg from Stiebers Farms Cage free “Sunrise Fresh” eggs; a ‘golden’ egg that had been bought locally and were known as “Egg Lady” eggs, which had been scambled in their shell and then boiled; Egg Lady eggs that had been pickled in beets, a recipe found on Allrecipes.com that one commentor said tasted just like their grandma’s recipe, and that one commentor said was a beloved family favorite; and Egg Lady eggs that had been boiled in black tea sourced from the controversial Sakuma Brothers farm, making them tea eggs that you might find with street vendors in Chinese communities; and salmon eggs that had to be harvested at a particular point in the salmon’s reproductive cycle to get the correct texture and flavor.

This exercise was a way to highlight the different things that go into forming what something tastes like and especially whether or not you like that taste or that food. Where it came from, how it was grown. Who’s serving it, why, and when. Some of what was discussed last week was how knowing background information affected how you physically tasted, and mentally decided, which was better. Some mentioned that knowing when fish eggs had to be harvested, before the salmon has a chance to use them to actually reproduce, made them choose not to eat those eggs. While another said that looking at the background of salmon eggs made them not want to eat them, but the taste and flavor and the personal experiences linked to eating them overpowered that new knowledge.

This tasting was in response to reading and discussion of the introduction of Kyla Wazana Tompkins book Racial Indigestion, which opens by looking at an example of the way black bodies have been considered edible objects in advertisement and entertainment over the last century and a half or so. This introduction is us up for reading the rest of the text, which examines cultural artifacts such as a books and advertisements and what those artifacts have to do with food and eating and how people of different social, racial, or other statuses looked at food and eating. This tasting sets up the idea of taste (or liking) being built on something other than the chemical interaction between taste bud and brain – or the simple ‘it tastes good.’, ‘it tastes like this . . .’, or ‘it doesn’t taste good.

This study of how taste and liking is affected by knowledge is really interesting, since the idea of taste, as in personal taste – taste in food, or even taste in clothing, or taste in movies – is a very prevalent idea in our culture.

Thinking about personal taste and individuality in this culture brings up an interesting contradiction.

One part of that contradiction is that diveristy is a brilliant and beautiful thing, and having different tastes, experiences, and beliefs is deeply part of diversity. For the other part of the contradiction, there is the idea of fitting within certain social boundaries of which things each person with a particular identity can like. Thus there is a contradiction, you can have a diverse personality and life experience, but only within a selection of pre-approved actions and tastes.

This contradiction and the way it takes form in each part of identity or personality is an incredibly complex thing. There are pieces of study in various places. One of the pieces of study is perhaps this class and it’s consideration of and critical thinking about these tasting labs.

And perhaps part of the study, at least a casual version of it, would be further looking at particular topics related to the social interactions around food. The casual and formal ritual of food. The expectation of behavior around food in certain contexts. The things that influence taste, both the physical taste of food, and the attachment of the value of liking something. And the maintenance of social boundaries around food.

And of course, whatever interesting aspect of food and food culture is brought up at each tasting.

SOS: ComAlt. Sarah Williams.

Tasting Response. Wk 1.

Zoe Wright.

1/16/17.

In the stead of participating in the tastings every other week, I will be writing a short note on my observations of the tasting and of the social culture related to food that is created in the classroom during mealtimes and tastings.

During the tasting last week there was brief discussion about the phenomenon of liking things less or differently the more you learn about them, and about how so many classes with social justice aspects have a very large success rate of making you really despise things you used to like, or at least feel highly guilty about wanting to still like them.

The idea of taste, as in personal taste – taste in food, taste in clothing, taste in movies – is a very prevalent idea in our culture. Now whether having your own tastes and your own personal style in the way you live your life an interact with objects is a good thing or a bad thing is not something I would attempt to consider. But thinking about personal taste and individuality in this culture brings up an interesting contradiction.

So many of the good things about interacting with different people and difference places is the amazing breadth of diversity in how people live and build and take up their space. Fostering diversity and being able to handle difference is a huge hot topic of this school, this state, country, whatever level you want to look at. In that area, it’s something to strive for.

But there is also the idea of fitting in. and that while sure, you can have a personality, but it has to fall within these boundaries. If it doesn’t fall within those boundaries you can become an outsider, a novelty, or worthy of ridicule.

Thus the contradiction. Have your own personality, but only within this pre-approved selection of actions and tastes.

There are some who enforce those boundaries, some who purposefully flaunt then, and some who just try to live without being pressured by either of the other two.

These social boundaries exist in every part of a personality I can think of. Clothing, movies, culture, religion, food, books. In some cases, there are rules about what actions you are allowed to take to partake in particular aspects of personality, or to enjoy a particular thing. For example, if you eat string cheese by biting the end of whole each time, you are considered differently than if you eat the string cheese by pulling it into strings.

There is a collection of things that go into taste, or liking things. At least for myself there is. Even just focused on the liking of food, there are many aspects to liking that food. Where it came from, how it was grown. Who’s serving, why, when. Some of what was discussed last week was how knowing background information affected how you physically tasted, or mentally decided, which was better.

I wasn’t exactly sure what I was supposed to be doing for the tasting workshop, so I suppose this was a kind of musing to figure out what I wanted to be able to pay attention to during the next tastings, so I could write in more depth about those.

With this piece of musing on fairly random bits about taste, I did find a few aspects I’d like to come back when it fits with the tasting. Some of the topics that have come up:

Social interactions around food, or the casual ritual of food. The things that influence taste, both the physical taste of food, and the attachment of the value of liking something. And the maintenance of social boundaries around food. And then whatever might come up after observing each tasting.