Category Archives: alumni

WWOOFing in Italy

by Ashley Pardo

I would have never believed if someone had told me that the best food of my life was patiently waiting in 200-year-old stone farmhouses, or that my new best friends would be lawnmowers and weed whackers, or that I would soon be chasing goats and sheep in the mountain of Piedmont, Italy. In fact this became my reality, as I embarked on a life-changing experience; all thanks to an organization called WorldWide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF). WWOOF operates globally, allowing people to obtain a list of farms that need help in the country of their choice. It’s up to you at that point to contact and make an arrangement with the farm. Basically, you exchange your blood, sweat, and tears for food, housing, and an opportunity to living on a working organic farm.

photo by Ashley Pardo

My adventures commenced at a farm known as Petra, located in the village of Castino, under the care of a gracious couple named Maura and Maurizio. Before I could say buongiorno, my expectations of an eight-hour workday were hurled out the window. The morning was a series of interesting tasks: organizing, threading, and taming tumultuous Dolcetto and Moscato grape vines and applying organic treatments, packaging and labeling honeys for the farmers’ markets, planting, weeding, and harvesting (occasionally sampling) a variety of seasonal fruits and vegetables. Afterwards, tired and famished, we fortified ourselves with a two-hour pranzo, followed by a two-hour break spent devouring Italian cookbooks, obsessively scribbling recipe notes, or hiking. After another four-hours of work, we’d sit down to cena and relax as a family. It took approximately five hours to adjust to this rhythm and pace of life.

My next visit to a cheese farm called Amaltea in the mountains of Mombarcaro, run by a young, talented, and widely renowned cheesemaker and shepherd named Alessandro Boasso. Our main task was milking his forty sheep and goats twice a day, and moving them to graze on different pastures. During my stay we made and gorged on the best formaggio of my life in il caseificio, even rivaling the cheeses I sampled in Ihsan Gurdal’s acclaimed cheese certification course at BU.

photo by Ashley Pardo

The meals I enjoyed while WWOOFing changed my view of food and cooking forever. We ate whatever vegetables were available from the garden, and meat from animals that were known, loved, and cared for. The most shocking revelation was that most meals (besides homemade pastas, pizzas, and farinata) took no more than 15 minutes to prepare. Meals were incomplete without il pane, the literal plate cleaner between courses. A wooden cheese tray with no less than five raw milk cheeses was always the grand finale: robiola, gorgonzola, pecorino, raschera, fontina, cacao cavallo, mozzarella, and fontina were the usual suspects. I prayed for each meal to last forever, as I soaked up the company, language, atmosphere, and copious amounts of Barolo and Barbaresco, homemade liquors, and grappa.

photo by Ashley Pardo

As my farm stays came to a close, I reflected on the richness and depth of my voyage. Not only is WWOOFing economical (in ten weeks, I spent ~150 euros, mainly on foodstuffs and wines to bring back to the US), but it also allows you to immerse yourself in a culture and its people in a real and genuine way. Something tourist travel doesn’t always allow you to do. I still keep in touch with Maura, Maurizio, and Alessandro, and I feel that they became la mia famiglia. These human connections are perhaps the most rewarding part of WWOOFing.

(If you are interested in WWOOFing at Petra, Maura and Maurizio’s farm, or Amaltea, Alessandro’s cheese heaven, they are both listed under the Piedmont region of WWOOF Italia, http://www.wwoof.it)

Ashley Pardo graduated from the Gastronomy program in 2012, focusing on the culinary arts, nutrition, and food writing. She is currently based in Miami, FL where she works as a personal chef, food educator, along with being involved in other culinary related entrepreneurial projects. You can follow her adventures on her food blog, www.thegrizzlykitchen.com.

Alumnus Profile: Rudolf Vincent T. Manabat

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by Lucia Austria

Gastronomy alumnus, accomplished baker, and cookbook author, Rudolf Vincent T. Manabat, knew that the multidisciplinary master’s program would be a perfect fit. After graduating with a degree in Hospitality Management and Culinary Arts from De La Salle University – College of Saint Benilde, Manila, Philippines, Rudolf searched for food studies programs in the United States. “BU’s Gastronomy program was my first choice. I’m an avid fan of its founder, Julia Child.” Rudolf dived into the world of gastronomy with his first class, Anthropology of Food taught by Karen Metheny. There he learned the relationships between culture, cuisine, and authenticity, setting the stage for his academic career.

Without hesitation, Rudolf immersed himself in Boston culture. Through the course, Culture and Cuisine: New England, he discovered the rich complexities of American foodways. By connecting with fellow classmates and local foodies, Rudolf enjoyed the metropolitan city’s rich diversity. “My friend and classmate, Ashley Pardo, taught me how to prepare vegan cakes and pastries. Tokyo native Sarah Kurobe shared her knowledge of Japanese food. It’s really about building a network, and the program helped make that connection!”

The Gastronomy program was also an opportunity for Rudolf to examine food systems in his home country. His final paper for the course, Understanding Food: Theory and Methodology, examined food insecurities in the Philippines. “Rice is every Filipino household’s basic security. In my paper, I discussed how social inequality in the Philippines deprives poor farmers from their social security needs. Moreover, I emphasized on how the local rice farmers practice their agencies to help demolish the social inequality that has been keeping them deprived.”

After graduating in May 2012, Rudolf accepted a position at his alma mater as a Culinary Lecturer. Rudolf shares his passion for cooking with his students and emphasizes the value of thinking critically about food, a skill he honed as a BU student. “In my lessons, I incorporate theories that I’ve learned in the Gastronomy program by making my students aware of the current food issues in developing countries, and how we could all help create long-term interventions to prevent food shortages and poverty. Majority of the colleges in the Philippines do not offer food policy courses, and one of my goals is to develop a course that deals primarily with the current food issues worldwide.”

Philippines cookbook award

When he’s not inspiring his students in the classroom, Rudolf bakes and writes recipes for his self-authored cookbooks. In 2008, he was recognized as the Philippines’ youngest cookbook author with his book, Gastronomy & I. His second book, Baking Secrets made the 2012 list for Top 5 Philippine Publication Bestseller, and was also awarded as the Philippines’ “Best Dessert Book” by Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. Rudolf is currently completing his third work, More Baking Secrets.

While a student at BU, Rudolf took advantage of the learning and networking opportunities offered within and outside the Gastronomy program. “Never stop learning and exploring. It’s all about meeting and working with the right (if not the best) foodies, and the program made it happen for me!”

Lucia is a current Gastronomy student, gastronomyatbu.com 2012 Fall Editor, & Purchasing Coordinator for Taza Chocolate.

A Recipe for Research

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by Lucia Austria

Barbara Rotger
photo by Lucia Austria

Barbara Rotger knows that there is more you can learn from a recipe than just how to cook a Thanksgiving turkey, or the best pecan pie. Cookbooks have been a focus of research for cultural studies scholars, picking apart recipes to understand the diet of a particular society. In her November 6^th talk sponsored by the Culinary Historians of Boston held at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute Schlesinger Library, Rotger suggested the limitations of studying cookbooks. She argued that recipe boxes have the potential to reveal true ideas of what types of food past societies prepared and ate. She reminded us that cookbooks are prescriptive literature—“If cookbooks are saying, ‘this is who you should be,’ and community cookbooks say, ‘this is who we would like you to think we are,’ then recipe boxes get you closer to ‘this is who I am.’”

Rotger’s talk was not only a journey through a random recipe box she acquired from eBay, but through a research process inspired by her own grandmother’s recipe box that turned into her BU Gastronomy Master’s thesis project. She recognized a dearth in recipe box related research, and therefore, a lack of methodology. According to food writer Sandra Oliver, scholars are “put off” by the thought of using recipe boxes as a subject of study. Indeed, they would be a history student’s nightmare, as there are no page numbers, no indexes, are difficult to date, and often fragile. Rotger knew these boxes had untapped potential for understanding history and set out to develop a methodology.

Mrs. Edna Abner’s Recipe Box
photo by Barbara Rotger

Using her acquired eBay recipe box that came from an estate sale in Iowa, Rotger described how she was able to mine the box for information in efforts to establish location, time period, and identity of the owner in order to put the box into context. Rotger used a material culture approach through inductive research by observing and coding information and recognizing patterns before coming up with a tentative hypothesis and developing a theory. She categorized cards into type of dish (dessert, side dishes, salads, soups, meats, etc.), recipe format (handwritten, clipped from newspapers or clipped from products), and recipe date, if any. What aided Rotger in establishing a date and location for the recipe box were the non-recipe items included, such as addressed envelopes, calling cards, and a graduation program. With this information, Rotger pulled census data and was able to identify that the box belonged to Mrs. Edna Abens who lived with her husband and son Pocahontas County, Iowa during the 1930s.

photo by Barbara Rotger

This discovery allowed Rotger to ask the question, “How did women in 1930s rural Iowa live?” By comparing her findings against current historic research on the lives of early 20^th century American women in the domestic realm, Rotger concluded that Edna was an independent woman who “provisioned her family in a manner that required knowledge, skill, and planning.” Edna did not fit the bill as the “dainty” housewife who fussed over gelatin-molded salads, an image promoted by popular home economists at the time. For Rotger, “Edna’s recipe box reflects a different kind of cuisine than that described by scholars using other kinds of sources.”

Rotger’s thesis project demonstrates that the fields of food studies and material culture studies have plenty room for new inquiries. Breakthrough research can come from your own personal questions about culture, even from your grandmother’s kitchen.

Lucia is a Gastronomy student and Fall 2012 Editor of gastronomyatbu.com. Her research focuses on food and Filipino-American identity.

Alumnus Profile: Avi Schlosburg

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by Lucia Austria

It was chance that alumnus Avi Schlosburg took the class American Food during his senior year at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Little did he know that it would be taught by a pioneer of Food Studies, Dr.Warren Belasco. With a major in Ancient Studies, and an interest in American culture and policy, Avi excelled in Belasco’s class, opening him up to the gamut of topics and fields covered in Food Studies. It was Belasco who pointed Avi north to BU’s graduate program in Gastronomy.

Avi made the most of his graduate career by enrolling in challenging courses and taking on thought-provoking research projects. In U.S. Food Policy and Culture taught by Dr. Ellen Messer, Avi learned about the dynamic relationship between government policy and culture. Dr Carole Counihan’s class, Food Activism, broadened Avi’s awareness of the various organizational efforts towards creating fair foodways for our society. These courses were life-changing for Avi, “As someone who is extremely passionate about resource and information sharing as a means to push the food movement forward, I immediately connected with how the content of the courses applied to the real world.”

Outside of the classroom, Avi participated in a number of academic conferences. In 2010 he presented his research, “Representations of Hunger in America since the Recession” at the Association for the Study of Food and Society Conference (ASFS). He also participated at the 2011 Real Food Challenge/Northeast Food and Justice Summit as a panelist with other BU Gastronomes in a discussion entitled, “Redefining the Food Studies Vocabulary.” Avi’s final graduate project, “The Theory and Practice of Food Studies at the High School Level” addresses the dearth of food education programs for high school students and aims to help education professionals introduce comprehensive food pedagogy into high schools.

It’s not surprising to learn that Avi currently works for the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) as their Food Day Project Assistant. First launched on October 24, 2011, Food Day is a nationwide campaign toward more healthy, affordable, and sustainable food. It seeks to address five priority food and diet issues: promote healthier diets, support sustainable and organic agriculture, reduce hunger, reform factory farms, and support fair working conditions for food and farm workers. Events held by thousands of people across the country throughout October address each of these issues and work towards both unifying the food movement and informing sound food policies.

“There is so much incredible work being done throughout the country around food access, healthy school food, sustainable agriculture advocacy and education, and other critical issues within the food system, but much of this work is done within the silos of each of these issues and regions. The appreciation I get from connecting someone in Cleveland working on a project similar to someone else in New Jersey, both of whom are clearly stretched for resources, says so much about the current state of the food movement, and our food system. Food Day is the logical next step to connect the dots, and unify the country around these issues that affect every one of us as eaters.”

For Food Day events happening in your area, search here. Hosting your own, fellow gastronome? Tell us about it! Send your story and photos to laustria[at]bu.edu.

Celebrating Julia Child’s Centenary with her Assistant & BU Alumna, Stephanie Hersh

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by Emily Contois

As food lovers across America celebrate today what would have been Julia Child’s 100^th birthday, Boston University Gastronomy students, faculty, and alumni celebrate not only Julia, but also the academic program that is part of her legacy.

Established by Julia Child and Jacques Pépin, the Boston University Master of Liberal Arts in Gastronomy program is primed to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of its founding—and what better way to learn about how it all began than to sit down with Stephanie Hersh, the first graduate of the program with a Major in Gastronomy, and Julia Child’s full-time personal assistant for nearly 16 years.

Stephanie Hersh, the first graduate of the Master of Liberal Arts program with a Major in Gastronomy,
with Julia Child

While interested in food from an early age, Hersh recalls that pursuing a career in food was not always viewed with esteem, respect, and a degree of celebrity, but rather as invisible, manual labor. Regardless, after receiving her undergraduate degree, Hersh studied at the Culinary Institute of America, and happily began working in Boston-area hotel kitchens and as a private chef. While taking a course to augment her administrative skills, Hersh got word that Julia Child was looking for an assistant.

“I never in a million years would have pictured myself with Julia,” she says. “It was a dream job.” While working with Child, Hersh expressed her concern for yet another change in the restaurant industry. “It used to be that you could start in a restaurant as a pot washer and work your way up to become the executive chef,” says Hersh. “Eventually, that stopped being the case because chefs needed to know about nutrition and menu planning; to understand how to balance a meal and the connection between food and culture. They needed to be media savvy. The chef suddenly became someone who was important and thus needed more training.”

A strong advocate of education, always eager to learn new things herself, Child participated in meetings with Boston-area chefs and academics alike, collective efforts which eventually resulted in the creation of the Boston University Master of Liberal Arts in Gastronomy program. The program now graduates healthy cohorts of students on an annual basis, who pursue careers not only in restaurant kitchens, but also in academia, food and agricultural policy, and other areas of the food industry. Hersh gushed, “Julia would be so thrilled to know the program is still carrying on and doing so well.”

As the first graduate of the Master of Liberal Arts program with a Major in Gastronomy, Hersh describes her studies as a broadening experience. She says:

The food and culture link is key. Food is a great ‘socializer.’ It connects people in a non-threatening way. Think about when you’re on an airplane. Most people sit and put their heads down, trying to avoid eye contact or talking to anyone. But once the in-flight meal is served, strangers connect. The icebreaker is discussions about the food.

For her thesis, titled, “Children’s Cookery Books: Windows into Social and Economic Change,” Hersh built upon her personal and professional interest in children’s cooking. She drew from resources in the Johnson and Wales University Culinary Arts Museum cookbook collection, exploring children’s cooking alongside historical, social, and economic trends.

Stephanie Hersh

Hersh still loves cooking with children. She currently lives in Christchurch, teaching adult education cooking courses and a twelve-week food technology course to New Zealand school children, 11 to 13 years of age. This food technology course is required across the country and serves as a pre-cursor to home economics courses, which are taken in high school. She teaches students how to use kitchen equipment, the basics of food processing, and creative, critical thinking skills.

Hersh advises all students, “Go with passion, absolute passion in the study of food. If you’re not, there’s no point in doing it. When you are happy, it becomes infectious.” She quips that while she has no idea what her future holds, “ Whatever I’ll be doing, I’ll be happily doing it—and I’m proud and delighted that the Gastronomy program is carrying on so well.”

Celebrating Julia Child’s Centenary

The Boston University Metropolitan College Programs in Food, Wine & the Arts will celebrate Julia Child’s centenary over the course of two festive evenings – Tuesday, October 2 and Wednesday, November 7. Visit the program website for further details.

Emily is a gastronomy student and graduate assistant, editing the Gastronomy at BU blog, January-August, 2012. She is also the recipient of a Julia Child Award for Excellence in Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts and a Jacques Pépin award for Scholarship in Gastronomy and Food Studies. Check out her research in food studies, nutrition, and public health on her blog, emilycontois.com.

Structure and Motivation: Reading Historic Cookbooks

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by Barbara Rotger

Barbara Wheaton,
culinary collection honorary curator,
Harvard Schlesinger Library

When Barbara Wheaton, honorary curator of the culinary collection at Harvard’s Schlesinger Library, refers to taking a structured approach, she means it. As a participant in her recent seminar on Reading Historic Cookbooks, each day’s work was to have a theme, such as “ingredients” or “cook’s equipment” and each participant was assigned a text to which to apply that theme. It is tempting to dive in to a cookbook and try to take it all in; focusing on a single element at a time ensures a kind of thoroughness that is necessary for an appreciation of the work as a whole.

That meant no conjectures about the publisher’s motives when we were supposed to be focused on ingredients and no thoughtful analysis of cooking equipment when the focus was to be on the structure of the meal. Wheaton further cautioned us as to the limitations of using cookbooks as sources (do not even begin to think that they will tell you what people ate!), and emphasized the need to complement their study with sources such as maps, letters and diaries, art and architecture, and economic data.

The seminar participants, an eclectic group of scholars and practitioners, were eager to delve into the books that Wheaton had selected for the week. We began by drawing lots to learn which cookbooks we would work with each day, texts that ranged from fifteenth century British manuscripts to twentieth century American community cookbooks. With my interest in twentieth century recipe boxes, I hoped for the latter, only to find that I would be starting by examining ingredients in the 1587 edition of Thomas Dawson’s The Good Housewife’s Jewel. Quick to read my mind, Wheaton reminded the group of her “no trading” policy: we were to push our own boundaries, and move out of our own comfort zones.

Recipe:
“To make a tart that is a courage to a man or woman”

And so I proceeded, well outside my comfort zone, with a browser open to the OED, trying to draw conclusions from the ingredients listed in the Jewel. My eyes strained to decipher the blackletter script, with its long s’s that look like “f”s and my brain struggled with non-standard spelling. For my presentation to the group the next day, I settled on a recipe “To make a tart that is a courage to a man or woman.” In this kind of work you can look for patterns, or look for outliers; the ingredients for the tart provide examples of both. Typical flavorings, including rose water, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and mace, appear in this and many other recipes in the book, while a few ingredients stand out. The recipe calls for a “potato” which struck me as a very early occurrence of a new-world food, until my excitement was tempered those better versed in this time period, who explained that a sweet potato was what the author had in mind.

I was similarly stumped by the call for “the brains for three or four cock sparrows” in the recipe. (I have examined my share recipe boxes and not one sparrow brain—male or female—has been used as an ingredient.) As I struggled to explain this in my presentation, Barbara Wheaton, with a twinkle in her eye, silently but clearly mouthed the word “aphrodisiac” to the rest of the group. Perhaps the structured approach has its limits: to understand some ingredients one must also consider the structure of the meal—and the motivations of the cook!

——————-

Recipe “translation”: To Make a tart that is a courage to man or woman

Take two quinces and two or three burre roots and a potato and pare your potato and scrape your roots and put them into a quart of wine and let them boil until they be tender, and put in an ounce of dates and when they be boiled tender drain them through a strainer, wine and all, and then put in the yolks of eight eggs and the brains of three or four cock sparrows and strain them into the other a little rose water, and seeth them all with sugar, cinnamon and ginger and cloves and mace, and put in a little sweet butter and set I upon a chaffing dish of coals between two platters, and so let it boil until it be something big.

Barbara is a Gastronomy program alumna, mother of two, and the Gastronomy Program coordinator since October 2011. Read more about her life and work.

A Visually Delectable Graduating Project: Modernizing Food Still Life Paintings into Photographs

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by Meg Jones Wall

When it came time for me to start considering my final project for the Gastronomy program, I admit that I was completely overwhelmed. I knew that I wanted to use my photography skills and my interest in food styling to create some kind of visual project. It took several months of stressing, and a lot of help from my peers and advisors, but eventually I worked it out — I would research historic food still life paintings, then turn them into modern photographs. Having little experience with art history and still learning a lot about photography and food styling, I was pretty intimidated with my project. However, the delight of being able to play with food, figure out how to recreate these stunning (and extremely specific) props, and learning to manipulate my images in the proper way was too tempting to pass up.

The ultimate purpose of the project was to help me gain a greater understanding of the use of artistic elements in the paintings, such as composition, color, light, balance, and shape, as well as to create a visual collection of the images that could be studied and compared. After a lot of agonizing I chose three still life paintings, each featuring a glass of wine and other food items, from three different artists: Pieter Claesz, Paul Cezanne, and Georg Flegel. After researching and analyzing the paintings, I then created two photographs to accompany each one — a recreation of the original image, and an interpretative photograph done in my own artistic style. The final project was a book of the images, which includes some brief explanations and analysis, and an accompanying paper that goes into more depth on art history and the artistic elements that I focused on.

Pieter Claesz, “A Still Life with a Large Roemer, a Knife Resting on a Silver Plate Bearing a Partly-Peeled Lemon, Walnuts and Hazelnuts, on a Marble Ledge”

Pieter Claesz

Meg Jones Wall, Claesz Imitation

Meg Jones Wall, Claesz Interpretation

I won’t lie – creating these photographs was no easy task. Many of the props were so period-specific that to purchase replicas would be far too expensive, especially considering the amount I was already spending on food, plates, fabric, wine…I was forced to create goblets with glasses I already had, coupled with cuff bracelets, aluminum foil, paint, and a lot of imagination. Other items were simply impossible to find, so I had to be creative and develop substitutes that wouldn’t be so different from the original as to be distracting.

Paul Cezanne, “Still Life with Bread and Eggs”

Paul Cezanne

Meg Jones Wall, Cezanne Imitation

Meg Jones Wall, Cezanne Interpretation

Taking the photographs themselves was almost as challenging as the preparations — I would shift all of my items a centimeter, then take 20 more shots, obsessing over the tiny details that could completely change the composition of the image. If the balance was off or the color was too dull, it was like a blaring spotlight on my error, too wrong to be ignored. But the final photos are worth all the time and effort it took to create them. I modernized the images, using my own style, in the process, improving my photography and emphasizing my personal photographic signature.

Georg Flegel, “Snack with Fried Eggs”

Georg Flegel

Meg Jones Wall, Flegel Imitation

Meg Jones Wall, Flegel Interpretation

Meg Jones Wall graduated from the MLA Gastronomy program in January, and is currently developing the food section for an online magazine that will be launching in the fall. When she’s not writing, Meg can be found wandering farmer’s markets, developing recipes, and photographing everything in sight for her food blog, ginger-snapped.

Gastronomy Alumna: Hungry in Hungary

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by Meg Jones Wall

The past few years have held some wonderful, life-changing experiences for me. I got married. I realized that working in retail does not suit my personality. I entered the BU Gastronomy program. I even had some food that I helped prepare and style published in the Boston Globe’s Thanksgiving cover story.

And as thankful as I am for these experiences, nothing quite compares to picking up your life, grabbing your crisp new master’s degree, and moving to Budapest for almost four months.

Crazy? Yup. Difficult? Incredibly. Worth it? Without a doubt.

As a foodie, a writer, and a photographer, having the opportunity to spend several months living in and traveling through Europe was something of a dream come true. This was my very first time in Europe, and I was determined to take advantage of it — particularly by using my blog to record all of our adventures. I traveled to incredible cities like Barcelona, Rome, Dublin, and Vienna. I took a road trip through Prague, Paris, Lyon, Nice, Venice… I even got to see the beautiful Alps.

But one of the coolest parts of our European adventure was the fact that we were living in a small apartment in Budapest, a city that I really never thought I would see. Most people talk about their dreams of visiting Western Europe (and trust me, I’m thrilled that we saw countries such as France, Italy, and Spain), but having the opportunity to live, work, and eat in Eastern Europe was something I’ll never forget.

Hungarian food is different than anything I’ve had in the States. Meat-based, creamy, rich, and filling, this cuisine focuses on poultry, pork, spices, and a lot of sour cream. Most of the more well-known dishes, like stuffed peppers, chicken paprikas, and potato stew, are fairly inexpensive to prepare, but are filling enough to feed a family for several meals — or in the case of my husband and I, almost a week. I had a blast collecting family recipes from people that I met, trying to get an “authentic” cooking experience in between sampling some of the city’s best restaurants. Of course, there were also plenty of American fast food chains – Burger King, Starbucks, and (to my surprise) T.G.I. Fridays.

Food shopping was such a joy. Beautiful farmer’s markets are everywhere, bursting with produce — huge potatoes, bright cabbage, and a surprising amount of fruit. The small market that I went to most often, just a mile from the apartment we were living in, even had a butcher shop, spice shop, and several cheese shops inside, making it easy for me to get most of the things I needed for any recipe I could come up with. Of course, certain things just aren’t available, and it’s odd what I found myself missing — peanut butter, spinach, and bagels were essentially impossible to find.

One unexpected benefit of being surrounded by meat and dairy products in almost every meal? I found myself spending a lot of time considering my own diet and food choices, especially after taking Warren Belasco’s The Many Meanings of Meat course in my last semester at BU. With such a severe language barrier, I found it extremely difficult to know where the food I was purchasing came from. Additionally, I found myself eating much more meat and dairy that I was used to, and wrestled with the plant-based diet that we had talked so much about in Belasco’s course. Food and diet considerations aren’t always reached overnight, or even over the course of several months, but I now find myself moving towards a vegetarian diet — something I may not have seriously considered before arriving in Budapest.

Now that I’m back in Boston, settled back at home and searching for the food career of my dreams, it seems a bit surreal that I lived in a country where I didn’t speak the language and didn’t know a soul for several months. But I made a few great friends, had some incredible adventures, and learned at least a few Hungarian words.

And now that I can easily buy peanut butter again, I find myself really missing spaetzle.

Meg Jones Wall is a recent graduate of Boston University’s MLA Gastronomy program, and worked as Communications Graduate Assistant and blog editor during the fall semester of 2011. You can find her recipes, photographs, and thoughts on food at her blog, ginger-snapped.

Alumna Profile: Vivian Liberman

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by Emily Contois

When I asked Vivian Liberman when she first became interested in food, she exclaimed, “Always!” Liberman grew up in Colombia and loved going food shopping as a child with her mother. “Two things were my job,” she says, “to pick out the fruit and to shuck the peas.” She followed her love of food to culinary school, but at the behest of her mother also pursued undergraduate and graduate degrees in Hospitality Management. She has worked in restaurants, hotels, and spas across the United States, but she credits her studies in gastronomy for showing her food in a different light.

Liberman began the Gastronomy program in 2004, focusing her research broadly, but linked by the common thread of nutrition. She endorses a more practical approach to nutrition education, contending that teaching nutrition through culinary application is a more effective and realistic approach. In pondering her coursework at BU, Dr. Thomas Glick’s Readings in Food History course had a lasting effect on Liberman. “He taught me how to write and inspired me to continue the work that became my thesis,” she recalls. For her thesis, she researched the evolution of food advertising mascots, analyzing a variety of factors, such as social class, gender, and economics, shedding new light on the psychology of nutrition and consumer behavior.

Upon completing her MLA in Gastronomy, Liberman worked at Le Cordon Bleu in Miami for five and a half years. She currently works as the Training Manager at the Hotel Sofitel Cartagena Santa Clara in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. Her current research explores public perception of molecular gastronomy and is authoring an entry for an encyclopedia on the topic and co-authoring a book chapter on food studies and foodservice with Jonathan Deutsch, Associate Professor, Kingsborough Community College, City University of New York.

When pondering the influence of the Gastronomy program on her career, Liberman says, “The program really opened things up for me and gave me a more well-rounded view point. It made me a writer, taught me how to read, and to think from a different perspective. It changed my entire outlook on the food world. I am more than a cook now. The Gastronomy program has changed my life. It’s really made it better.”

Emily is a current gastronomy student and graduate assistant, editing the Gastronomy at BU blog, January-August, 2012. Check out her research in food studies, nutrition, and public health on her blog, emilycontois.com.

Alumnus Profile: Charles Shelton Earns Cocktail Celebrity

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by Emily Contois

Charles Shelton’s love of the sensory experience of food (a.k.a. eating delicious food) grew over time into a gastronomic intellectual curiosity. “Food embodies values,” he says. “By studying food, we can experience the diversity of how people have engaged with food over time.”

After attending Ithaca College, Charles’ intellectual food yearnings were satiated when he began the MLA Gastronomy program in June 2008. After completing the culinary certificate, studies in cheese, and a variety of courses in which he explored the aesthetic dimension of gastronomy, he graduated in May 2010. He credits Rebecca Alssid for engaging the best of Boston in the Gastronomy program, which greatly contributed to the quality of his education. After working at L’Espalier in Boston, Charles relocated to Austin, Texas, where he most recently worked at Uchi, a 2011 James Beard Award Winner.

Charles has also earned cocktail celebrity. He competed at the San Antonio Cocktail Conference held Saturday January 28, 2012. Among stiff drinks and even stiffer competition, he earned third place in the Original Cocktail Competition. The event attracted more than 150 spectators who enjoyed the spirited competition, featuring 32 amateur and professional contestants from across the country.

The final contestant to prepare his drink for a local panel of blind taste testers, Charles was the only winner who is not a bartender by trade. When creating a new cocktail, he starts with a classic and applies a new perspective. He enjoys using inspired ingredients and flavors that have symmetry and complement one another, such as his winning cocktail, a twist on the classic Manhattan.

The Protestant

1 ¼ oz. Sazerac Rye (or your favorite Rye)

1 ¼ oz. Hendrick’s Gin

½ oz. Carpano Antica Vermouth

½ oz. Simple Syrup

4 dashes Angostura Bitters

2 dashes Orange Bitters

Crème d’Yvette (Crème de Violette)

Chill a coupe glass with ice. Rinse coupe with Crème d’Yvette, discarding excess. Combine ingredients in mixer, shake vigorously with ice, strain into chilled rinsed coupe. Twist and flame orange rind over cocktail, wiping the rim with the flamed rind. Discard rind.

While we certainly wish we were like Shelton’s roommates who get to taste each of his cocktail experiments, we anticipate his future successes in the kitchen, behind the bar, and elsewhere in the world of food.