Author: Emily Contois

Why Budweiser’s “America” Rebrand Matters

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Yesterday, Anheuser-Busch announced plans to rebrand Budweiser as “America” from late May through the November elections. Citing upcoming events like the 2016 Olympic Games, the Copa América soccer tournament (which will be held in the US for the first time), and the fall’s presidential election, Ricardo Marques, a vice president at Budweiser, declared it will “probably the most American summer of our generation.” It’s an event that Anheuser-Busch is keen to capitalize upon, though the invocation of “our generation” is interesting as “Millennials” (if we even exist as something more than a marketing category) are some of the least likely consumers to be purchasing packs of “America” this summer. Relatedly, Anheuser-Busch aims “to inspire drinkers to celebrate America and Budweiser’s shared values of freedom and authenticity.” This latter value seems particularly contentious given the ever-increasing market share of craft beers, which trade upon (perhaps equally constructed) notions of authenticity, identity, and lifestyle. Budweiser has directly targeted this tension, as their 2015 Super Bowl spot and subsequent ads throughout the year spread a distinctly anti-craft message, which can’t be separated from the brand’s subsequent claims to Americanness. Anti-craft messaging aside, this rebranding of a national …

Why I Support Render, Feminist Food Writing & Activism

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As its website states, Render: Feminist Food & Culture Quarterly works in every issue “to spotlight all the badass women who are making waves within the persistently male-dominated food industry.” These efforts “to smash the patriarchy in the food industry” are important for all of us, as readers, thinkers, and eaters. It’s why I renewed my subscription and contributed to Render’s Kickstarter, which ends on May 4. I’m not part of the Render team, but as pledges currently fall short of their goal, I wanted to offer these few words of support, because these issues have been top of mind for me lately. In our course, “Food and Gender in U.S. Popular Culture,” my students and I have discussed and pondered, sighed and screamed about not only the continual under-representation of women in the food industry and the media that covers it, but also about how the icon of the celebrity chef — constructed as white, male, and straight — is a cultural figure that by its very nature subordinates every other identity within the industry. This particular construction of the celebrity …

Beyond Local: Taste the Spirit of Montana at Lilac in Billings

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Update: Like too many treasured local restaurants, Lilac was forced to close during the Covid-19 pandemic. I leave this story up as a tribute to a special restaurant, its chef and owner Jeremy Engebretson, its staff, and the food scene of my hometown. //  Montana is called “the last best place,” a long-cherished refrain that applies now more than ever to its increasingly innovative restaurants. Here, beneath an expansive blue sky, diners can taste not just Montana ingredients, but the spirit of the state itself. Expressed through food, the Montana identity values the land and landscape, direct communication and unpretentiousness, affordability and responsibility, and an ironclad sense of character—in ingredients, dishes, cooking technique, and people too. Nestled in the Yellowstone River Valley beneath breathtaking sandstone cliffs, Billings is the largest city in the state, where I grew up, and home to Lilac, a restaurant that has earned local adoration and national accolades. Just a year after it opened in 2012, Lilac was the only restaurant in the state to be included in OpenTable’s Diners’ Choice Award …

Social Media Lessons for Aspiring Public Intellectuals

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I attended several fascinating panels at the 2016 OAH Annual Meeting here in Providence this past weekend (check out #OAH2016 on Twitter), and also learned some very helpful lessons from “Navigating Social Media and Traditional Media,” organized and chaired by seasoned publicist Sarah Russo. (She also shared her social media knowledge at least year’s OAH on the panel, “Media Training for Historians,” which you can watch here). Her three fellow panelists at this year’s conference were: Clay Risen, Senior Editor, Op-Ed page, New York Times Max Larkin, Producer, Radio Open Source with Chris Lydon Donna Harrington-Leuker, Professor of Journalism and Social Media, Salve Regina University Here are the top five things I learned about how academics can be accessible public intellectuals on social media, which is increasingly becoming part and parcel of what we do: Best social media platforms for academics: Twitter to amplify, Medium to develop portfolio of pieces w different voices/audiences. #OAH2016 — Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) April 9, 2016 Advice from @jmlarkin: Maintain an authentic, concrete digital footprint so media can find you. #OAH2016 #oah16_216 — Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) April 9, 2016 Need …

Teaching Food Studies, Cookbooks & Writing

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How do cookbooks speak? What stories do they tell—and whose? What do cookbooks reveal about power and how it operates? How do cookbooks communicate and construct gender? These are some of the questions my students and I have pondered lately in our course “Food and Gender in U.S. Popular Culture” at Brown University. For our first assignment, students analyzed how cookbooks prescribe and transgress conventional gender roles. A uniquely interdisciplinary field, food studies scholarship often employs various methods, but the close reading of cookbooks is one method that approaches universality. I’m working with a thoughtful and engaged group of 20 mostly first- and second-year students. While most had read and used cookbooks for cooking, few had previously considered them as elements of popular culture, as valuable historical evidence, as prescriptive literature that shape notions of gender, or as sources in which the so-often-silenced voices of women and people of color can be heard. In an effort to fully scaffold and support our work with cookbooks, we first did some reading. While there are many incredible texts I could have assigned, we read from: Jessamyn Neuhaus. …

CFP: Critical Nutrition Studies Panel at ASFS 2016

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If you engage critical nutrition studies in your work, my colleague Stephanie Maroney (PhD Candidate, Cultural Studies, UC Davis) and I welcome your submissions to join our panel submission to the ASFS/AFHVS/CAFS conference to be held June 22-26, 2016 in Toronto. The panel, “Interrogating Nutritionism and Dietary Science in Novel Food Products,” examines the discursive effects of the marketing for two novel food products: FairLife Milk (Emily) and the Human Food Bar (Stephanie). The panel explores the relationship between the cultural values that animate these advertising messages and the scientific research that supports these products.   Drawing from the field of Science and Technology Studies, critical studies of nutrition recognize and reveal the ways that scientific knowledge is not neutral, natural, or objective – rather, it is co-constituted alongside sociocultural values and beliefs. By looking at the history and politics of dietary advice, we can better explain and account for the assumptions that structure contemporary nutrition science and the marketing claims used to differentiate products in our health-centric culture. We seek additional papers that critically examine …

6 New Food Studies Books That I Can Stomach Reading

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When I was preparing for my preliminary exams, I had a friend warn me that after reading 300-or-so texts, the thought of picking up another book would make me feel physically ill. While there were certainly moments when I literally couldn’t stand reading another word, I’m pleased to share that I not only passed my exams in November, but am still hungry for more. I’ve been browsing the food studies titles that have come out recently, and here are six that I’m looking forward to reading: 1. Kate Cairns and Josée Johnston. Food and Femininity. New York: Bloomsbury Academic (September 2015). 2. Kima Cargill. The Psychology of Overeating: Food and the Culture of Consumerism. New York: Bloomsbury Academic (October 2015). 3. Deborah A. Harris and Patti Giuffre. Taking the Heat: Women Chefs and Gender Inequality in the Professional Kitchen. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press (May 2015). 4. Julie Parsons. Gender, Class, Food: Families, Bodies, Health. Palsgrave Macmillan. (September 2015). 5. Toni Tipton-Martin. The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks. Austin: University of Texas Press. …

Savoring Gotham in Edward Hopper Paintings + A Star Wars Rant

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I’m thrilled to have written a few entries in the newly published Savoring Gotham: A Food Lover’s Companion to New York City, edited by Andrew F. Smith. As I flip through this tome—brimming with stories about Gotham’s notable foods and beverages, restaurants and bars, historical sites and events, cuisines, personalities, and brands from throughout the city’s five boroughs—one of my favorite entries so far is on Edward Hopper’s paintings of New York City food life. Depicting at times eerily quiet moments with minimal action between human figures, Hopper’s subject matter often drew from urban sites of quotidian America life, including food spaces—modest restaurants, automats, coffee shops, and chop suey joints—which Hopper frequented often with his wife. His paintings use these culinary locales, however, to express the common themes that mark his body of work: anonymity, anxiety, pensiveness, loneliness, and isolation. Hopper’s work critiques the promises of an abundant, fast-paced, cosmopolitan life in the big city, showing how the easy availability of food and drink at all times of the day and night might not lead to contentment. Instead, it fosters dissatisfaction and unease. More isn’t better. …

Announcing the Graduate Journal of Food Studies 2.2 & the End of Food Puns

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Look no further for groundbreaking scholarship, throught-provking book reviews, and stirring art from emerging scholars. The third issue of the Graduate Journal of Food Studies (volume 2, no. 2) is now live online. The issue starts with editor-in-chief Carla Cevasco’s insightful letter, “I hate food puns,” which urges us all to refrain from foodie figurative language in an effort to bolster the intellectual foundations and popular perceptions of our field. Gone be the “food fights,” “seats at the table,” and, sigh, “food for thought.” I especially love her assertion that these phrases make food studies appear “fun” and approachable, but in the end, “Food studies should not be easy.” Our topics may be quotidian. That’s what makes them powerful and meaningful. Our conferences and events may consider eating and drinking primary. That’s experiential learning and intellectual embodiment, purposeful commensality and mindful consumption. Our work speaks to students and the public. That’s how our field will continue to expand and survive. Food studies is not a passing fad nor a field of inquiry with soft edges. As Carla argues so well, its acuity …

CHAViC 2015: An Insane Asylum, on a Dinner Plate?

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Five glorious days musing over fascinating eighteenth and nineteenth-century objects and texts, multiple delectable meals (including one cooked over the hearth at Old Sturbridge Village!), stimulating conversation, and umpteen new friendships and professional food studies connections. All this was the result of my incredible experience at the American Antiquarian Society in the Center for Historic American Visual Culture (CHAViC) seminar, “Culinary Culture: The Politics of American Foodways, 1765-1900,” which was organized and orchestrated by Nan Wolverton, CHAViC Director, and led by Nancy Siegel, Professor of Art History, Towson University. The week’s lectures, material, and discussions were oriented around a case study assignment, in which each student chose one of seven artifacts/objects/ephemera (pictured below) to discuss in greater detail. With such exciting options, we all agonized over which object to choose and spent the week working through questions grounded in the lives of the objects themselves, like: Where did it come from? Who held it, used it, or owned it? Where did it live? Was it meant to be private or public? Why was it made? What is its message? What does it tell …

Eating for Muscle: What This Foodie Has Learned From Her Powerlifter Husband

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I don’t usually identify myself as a foodie, but compared to my husband—who trains hard and subsists upon protein shakes and loads of lean meat—you might as well consider me one. The diets of strength athletes, bodybuilders, powerlifters, and the like are a gustatory world away from what most people eat, what the USDA would recommend, or what any food enthusiast would sanction. In my most recent Zester post, I pondered the nearly twelve years I’ve spent cooking and eating alongside this man I love, as he’s worked toward his athletic goals, boiling it down to six food rules that muscle building folks follow: Protein is king. Food is fuel. Taste is secondary. Cheating is part of the plan. Bulk is good. Meal prep is not cooking. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this dearly dedicated, but distinctly anti-foodie subculture. And as a silly supplement, here are some shots of my husband’s weekly meal prep (and his lifting). Photo credits: Emily Contois, 2015

#phdlife: On Adopting a Dog & How Instagram Makes Academic Life Easier

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We adopted an adorable pit bull rescue on Valentine’s Day and it was only a matter of time before she somehow made her way onto the blog. And believe it or not, bringing her into our family has helped my academic life in myriad ways, from minimizing study-induced back pain and loneliness to off-time full of unlimited cuddles and kisses. Adopting a pup also means I’ve discovered the world of pet-friendly Instagram (if you’re the sort that follows doggies, she’s @raven_puppie), which is one of the most supportive communities I have ever been part of and one that makes the copious use of emojis that I’ve been desiring from everyone in my normal life. (Seriously. Why aren’t you guys texting me multi-colored hearts and snoozy faces all the time?) These doggie mamas and papas are ever present to tell my girl that she’s cute and special and that she’s part of a caring community of dogs and owners committed to animal kindness for all breeds and types, especially hers, one so often maligned. And so, as I’ve engaged for the first time with an …

Conference Save the Date: Graduate Association for Food Studies, October ’15

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Mark those calendars people! The Future of Food Studies, the first conference of the Graduate Association for Food Studies, will be held 23-25 October 2015, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The conference will include a keynote talk by Fabio Parasecoli, food studies scholar and coordinator of the Food Studies program at the New School, as well as graduate student panels that you won’t want to miss. The conference theme directly engages the complexity of food studies’ status as a “burgeoning” field, as so many characterize it. With roots in the late 1980s, food studies has consistently gathered steam—as well as a critical mass of articles, dedicated monographs, professional organizations, journals, and university programs—with more opportunities surfacing each year. The conference will engage these changes, actively pondering what the future of the discipline holds, conceptually, methodologically, and publicly. Graduate students are encouraged to submit paper and panel proposals by the CFP deadline of 31 May 2015. And I welcome everyone interested in the future of food studies to mark your calendars and plan to join us at Harvard in October. Please share widely—including this snazzy save …

Ann Seranne: America’s #1 Expert on Blender Cookery

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In 1961, Ann Seranne and Eileen Gaden, both former Gourmet Magazine editors, published The Blender Cookbook to rave reviews. Not at all gimmicky, the cookbook was heralded by Craig Claiborne as an inspired, functional, and welcome resource, penned by “probably the world’s leading authorities on what a blender will and will not do.” Not only the nation’s top blender cookery expert, Seranne wrote more than two dozen cookbooks, published mostly in the 1960s and 1970s. A woman with dual passions, she also bred champion Yorkshire terriers—who ate very well and loved garlic. Her name also buzzed among foodies a few years ago, when Amanda Hesser revived Seranne’s 1966 rib roast of beef recipe in a “recipe redux” in the New York Times. Read more about this lesser known cookbook author in my most recent Zester piece, “How the Blender Was Elevated to a Kitchen Staple,” and enjoy this image gallery, an ode to the humble blender.  

Nika Hazelton’s 1963 Rules for Judging Cookbooks

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People buy cookbooks for a variety of reasons. They look pretty on the bookshelf. Even better on the coffee table, depending on the book, a topic of culinary conspicuous consumption I discussed in a round table at the 2013 Cookbook Conference. Cookbooks can be fun to collect. Cookbooks represent skills we hope to learn or wish to have, meals we desire to eat, people we aspire to be. For well known cookbook author and writer Nika (Standen) Hazelton, however, there was only one reason to buy a cookbook: to cook from it, damn it. [I’m not sure if she would approve of such phrasing, but one of her cookbooks was titled, I Cook As I Please, so I might not be too far off.] The author of thirty cookbooks and innumerable articles for major food newspapers and magazines, Hazelton had little patience for those who purchased cookbooks as “escapist literature.” Instead, in a 1963 article in the New York Times, she laid out in black and white exactly how one ought to judge if a cookbook was up to snuff. Check …