ENGL3071: The American Food Revolution in Literature and Television

America's relationship with food and eating has changed profoundly over the last fifty years. At the heart of this revolution was a group of charismatic personalities who through writing and television brought first European and then global sensibilities to the American table. They persuaded Americans that food and cooking were not just about nutrition but also forms of pleasure, entertainment, and art; ways of exploring other cultures; and means of declaring, discovering, or creating identity. Their work would eventually transform the American landscape, helping give rise to the organic movement, farmers markets, locavorism, and American cuisine, as well as celebrity chefs, the Food Network, and restaurant reality television. In the meantime, the environmental movement was sending its own shockwaves through American consciousness of food production and consumption. The joining together of these movements--culinary and environmental--has brought a new ethical dimension to the subject that is now at the forefront of current concerns about American food. Insofar as we eat, we necessarily make choices that have profound implications for our health, our communities, the environment, and those who work in the food industry, broadly defined. This class will trace the American food revolution with the intent of understanding how our current system came to be and thinking through the ethical implications of our daily actions. We will read classic literature from the rise of the movement, in varying degrees instructional, personal and documentary, while viewing some seminal television moments for the food culture we now know. We will give particular attention to recent work that focuses on the personal and environmental ethics of food.

View on University Catalog