Author: Emily Contois

April Showers Bring May Flowers—and Thesis Due Dates

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Spring has finally sprung in New England and tomorrow looks to be a great day for the Boston Marathon. Luckily, I’ll be able to take some time to enjoy Patriots’ Day because I’ve spent the last few weeks glued to my desk chair, pounding out the second draft of my thesis, which examines the marketing of weight loss programs to men. Here’s a little taste… Over the past decade, much has changed on the twenty-first century landscape of dieting, as the “low carb craze” of Atkins and South Beach made way for today’s Paleo Diet, evangelizing the diet of Stone Age hunter-gatherers and encouraging dieters to “eat like a caveman.” Perhaps no change is more notable, however, than the new target audience of weight loss programs—men. Considered a masculine food in cultures the world over (Jensen and Holm 1999), the high intake of meat in low-carbohydrate diets made the Atkins and South Beach diets more popular among men than conventional low-fat diets. While men joined these diets in new numbers (Weinbraub 2004), Men’s Health Magazine …

Forecasting a Bright Future from the 2013 Future of Food and Nutrition Graduate Conference

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This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending the 7th annual Future of Food and Nutrition Graduate Research Conference at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. Organized and run by Friedman graduate students, the conference was as engaging and polished as any put on by a professional organization. Graduate student research dealt with a host of topics both international and domestic, ranging from food access, food prices, and property values near grocery stores to behavior change and breastfeeding. Presentations that I attended also explored childhood obesity in Indonesia, regional U.S. food systems, and the latest in molecular nutrition. Students came from diverse backgrounds, including not only nutrition policy, biochemical and molecular nutrition, public health, and medicine, but also environmental science, agriculture, economics, urban and environmental planning; not to mention food studies and gastronomy as well. Collectively, presenters brought valuable multidisciplinary perspectives to the topics of food, nutrition, and food systems. Beyond attending thought provoking panels, I participated in the poster presentation, giving two-minute power pitches on the paper I …

Meat is Bad & The World is Flat: Thoughts from the Critical Nutrition Symposium

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On March 8, 2013, I had the pleasure of attending the Critical Nutrition Symposium at UC Santa Cruz, organized by Julie Guthman, author of Weighing In. The event was spawned from a roundtable discussion at last year’s Association for the Study of Food and Society conference. The symposium brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to critically examine what is missing from conventional nutrition science research and practice, discuss why it matters, and brainstorm how to move forward in an informed and balanced way. What follows are a few of my favorite key ideas from the day’s discussions. Adele Hite, a registered dietitian and public health advocate who is not afraid to ask big and delightfully confrontational questions regarding nutrition science, began the day by dissecting Michael Pollan’s now famous aphorism—Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Step by step, she revealed the decades of revisionist myth and shaky science on which the diet most often considered healthy (one that is plant-based) is built. For example, she argued that the recommendation to eat like our grandparents is …

Talk to Me Baby! Encouraging Dialogue between Nutrition Science and Food Studies

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I’m very excited to be heading to UC Santa Cruz for Friday’s Critical Nutrition Symposium, an event that will address questions that I’ve also been pondering for a while, such as:  What’s wrong or missing in conventional nutritional practice? What are its effects in terms of human health and social justice? What other approaches might work better? What follows are some thoughts I have at this point on the current connections and future opportunities between nutrition and food studies, which I’m sure will be greatly expanded by the end of Friday’s discussions. Unlike other disciplines that inform food studies, generally heralding from the liberal arts and social sciences, nutrition science is just that – a science, thus coming from a divergent academic tradition that tends to favor statistics over narrative detail and quantitative methods over qualitative (Faltermaier 1997). In addition, nutrition and food studies contribute to one another’s fields in a more complex way because their area of focus overlaps — they both study food. Up to our current point in history, each discipline has tended …

Thoughts on Ph.D. Programs, the Arduous Task of Moving, and Food & the Senses

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A seemingly-unimaginable-totally-wonderful-slightly-bewildering thing has happened to me—I’ve been offered admission to not one dream Ph.D. program, but several. While I’ll be making endless lists of pros and cons until April 15, one fact remains certain: my husband and I will indeed be moving again this summer, which brings up bitter-sweet memories. On a hot and humid morning in July 2011, my husband and I moved everything we owned from a shipment container into a U-Haul truck and then into our new apartment in Brookline. After hours of traipsing up and down the stairs with arms full of far-too-heavy boxes, we returned the U-Haul truck to its lot. Without a car, we were about to begin the mile walk back to our new home, when we spotted a Dunkin’ Donuts across the street. Having never eaten there before and only newly aware of its ubiquity across New England (this was months before I first began my research on Dunkin’ Donuts coffee culture), we were beckoned forward, strangely drawn to the strawberry-vanilla Coolatta we had seen advertised on television and …

Cooking Up a Storm at the 2013 Cookbook Conference

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The Roger Smith Cookbook Conference in New York City drew an eclectic mix of culinary scholars; food studies academics; food writers and bloggers; food photographers and stylists; cookbook writers, editors and publishers; chefs; and those hoping to become any of the above. I participated in the panel, “Cookbooks as Works of Art and Status Objects,” which explored the slew of elaborate and expensive cookbooks that have come out recently that function as coffee table books more so than cookbooks. Examples include: The French Laundry Cookbook, The Big Fat Duck Cookbook, Alinea, Eleven Madison Park, NOMA, and Modernist Cuisine. The panel also featured Kim Beeman, Jane Black, Sarah Cohn, and Anne McBride, each of us bringing a different perspective to the nature and meaning of these cookbooks. I discussed these cookbooks as extensions of the trophy kitchen, given their ornamental nature and status-making potential. I also attended several other panels, which I summarize in this post. I have captured what I found to be the most tantalizing sound bites from panelists, but I have by no means provided an …

From Domestic Space to Status Symbol: A Kitchen History Photo Essay

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Later this week, I’ll be discussing not only trophy kitchens, but also the phenomenon of ornamental trophy cookbooks at the Roger Smith Cookbook Conference. Just as I’ve explored the phenomenon of expensively outfitted kitchens that are then rarely used for cooking, the panel, “Cookbooks as Works of Art and Status Objects,” will explore cookbooks (such as Thomas Keller’s French Laundry Cookbook and Heston Blumenthal’s The Big Fat Duck Cookbook) that may find themselves more at home as coffee table art books than functional tools in the kitchen. And so on that note, please enjoy this photo essay of the evolution of the twenty-first-century trophy kitchen. UPDATE: Some content from this post appears in my article, “Not Just for Cooking Anymore: Exploring the Twenty-First Century Trophy Kitchen,” published in the Graduate Journal of Food Studies, Winter 2014, pages 1-8! Nancy Carlisle and Melinda Talbot Nasardinov straightforwardly define the kitchen in America’s Kitchens as: the domestic space where food is prepared…primarily an indoor space, the place where people go to chop, mix, roast, boil, and bake. Indeed, for hundreds of …

Imagining the Dunkin’ Donuts Identity Outside of New England

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Today I conclude my January 2013 blogging and this series of four posts, each covering sections from my paper, “Dunkin’ Donuts: A Site and Source of Bostonian Identity.” Here you can find posts one, two, and three.  In the global marketplace, Dunkin’ Donuts provides a unique case study of coffee consumption as an expression of identity, particularly in opposition to Starbucks, which has so powerfully shaped coffee culture worldwide. While the Dunkin’ Donuts coffee identity is uniquely salient in Boston and New England, the role and meaning of Dunkin’ Donuts also carries weight in other U.S. cities and in the international market, providing areas for further research. For example, a study that identified devout Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks drinkers as “tribes” was conducted in cities outside of New England, in Phoenix, Chicago, and Charlotte. While the specific reasons for brand loyalty may vary in each city, Dunkin’ Donuts marketing strategies target some of the same cultural components that they do in New England. For example, the Dunkin’ Donuts brand is repeatedly linked to sports mania wherever possible, …

When Theory Actually Applies: Starbucks is to Bourdieu as Dunkin’ Donuts is to Foucault

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Dedicated to joyous cups of joe in this (ever colder!) month of January, what follows is the third of four posts, which cover sections from my paper, “Dunkin’ Donuts: A Site and Source of Bostonian Identity.” Here you can find posts one and two.  In a Washington Post article comparing an existing Starbucks store to a newly opened Dunkin’ Donuts shop in the same area, the authors vividly reveal the opposing coffee cultures of each chain, saying, “Medium vs. grande. Good, quick and hot vs. Colombia Nariño Supremo. Metal frame chairs vs. comfy couches.” These catchy comparisons reveal the differing cultural frameworks of the two chains, which are I argue align with opposing theoretical frameworks. Starbucks sells a culture of aesthetics and coffee as a lifestyle, which aligns with Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social status and distinction. Bourdieu contends that members of higher social classes possess the resources and opportunities to secure greater economic, social, and cultural capital than the classes beneath them. This acquisition of capital thus informs their development of taste and preferences, as …

Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee: A Site and Source of Bostonian Identity

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It’s January 7, which means that many folks must excitedly or begrudgingly head back to work after a wintery escape that began just before Christmas. This day requires a little extra courage and motivation, which might be found in a cup of coffee. If you’re like the 50 percent of Americans who buys coffee at work, I invite you to sip and enjoy this first section from my paper, “Dunkin’ Donuts: A Site and Source of Bostonian Identity.” The landscape of New England is marked by not only world-famous fall foliage and monuments to America’s history, but also the abundant pink and orange signs of Dunkin’ Donuts, which despite being an international franchise, is a powerful symbol and source of regional pride and identity. Writing as a local, Mike Miliard links Dunkin’ Donuts with Bostonian identity in his Boston Phoenix article, “Choosing Our Religion: How One Little Post-War Doughnut Shop Became Synonymous with Boston’s Identity,” as he says, “It’s a lynchpin of our identity. It’s a religion. It’s a cult. People in these parts freaking …

Ring in the New Year with Picasso and Dalí’s Food-Related Art

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Whether you’re ringing in the New Year with a prominent party, a delightful dinner, or champagne in quantities worthy of a Gatsby gathering, I wish you a Happy Near Year—as, in this case, does the food-related art of Picasso and Dalí. A selection of works by these two artists uses food to provide intellectually elevated irony and humor, grounded in both linguistics and visual presentation. Hey—if nothing else, this post can provide you with enviable fodder for cocktail conversation on this New Year’s Eve.  Picasso linked food and linguistics in a playful, yet intellectual form of perceived realism. He repeatedly makes linguistic jokes through the purposeful and witty inclusion of textual ephemera in his collages. And yet, while he includes food advertisements and bottle labels in his pieces, he may be doing so without literal allusion to food, eating, drinking, or dining, but rather based on his personal adoration of typography. For example, in café scenes, Picasso repeats names and labels of dinner wines, brandies, and ales by pasting actual labels or newspaper advertisements onto the canvas …

Family Dining on Christmas and in ‘Eat Drink Man Woman’

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Between college, grad school, working, and grad school again, I’ve lived a thousand or more miles from my family for the last ten years. This means that for one reason or another, I haven’t been home for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner in just about as long — and this year, that fact is making me even sadder than usual. Suffice it to say, I’ve got family and meals on the brain, which made me think of a favorite food film. In Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), director Ang Lee expertly tells the story of changing family dynamics in Taipei, Taiwan during a time of rapid modernization, employing a universal medium — food. Through Chef Chu who has lost his sense of taste and his three daughters, this film addresses many themes, including gender, family, and globalization. Gender and authority come to the fore in this film, as they do in the public world of food where men in general are more likely to hold positions of power. Such is the case for Chef Chu. While he no longer …

What’s Your Food Culture Type: June Cleaver or Hippie?

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How Americans cook and eat is only in part about food. Much more of the story is told by the contextual details of the time. For example, the postwar era of the 1950s, crystalized in the pop culture image of June Cleaver, was characterized by marked changes in American life: more women entered the workforce; the middle class grew; car and home ownership increased; and the food industry, centralized by World War II, sought a civilian market for processed foods. Because of the amalgamative effect of these factors, packaged-food cuisine, such as the can-opener cooking proffered by Poppy Cannon, became popular. Following this decade of rapid consumerism and processed foods, a subset of Americans in the 1960s and 1970s — hippies! — viewed food in a reactionary way to those who came before them. Opposed to the high-speed and time-obsessed American lifestyle — not to mention panicked by war, conflict, and imminent ecological demise — the counterculture expressed their worldviews, like the 1950s generation before them, through food, adopting a distinctly anti-modern perspective. Today’s food views build upon the undulating …

Curating an Online Food Exhibit: “Making the Modern American Food System”

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After studying the food views of second-wave feminists, the cuisines of the counterculture and the 1950s, and the foodways of turn-of-the century immigrants, Dr. Warren Belasco’s U.S. Food History course turned to specific histories of the industrial food system—from the Dust Bowl to the industrialization of milk production to the rise and triumph of refrigeration. At each stage, we pondered how these events, people, and institutions contributed to both America’s abundant, cheap food supply and the distancing of Americans from traditional food knowledge. The course culminated in our final project assignment: creating an online food exhibit dedicated to the creation of the modern American food system. And so I invite you to visit my online exhibit, “Making the Modern American Food System.”