Gastronomica

What do eel, pie, and mash shops reveal about London's past, and what role do they play in the current moment? In this episode, Stuart Freedman talks with Signe Rousseau about his research on forgotten foods and changing urban spaces, forthcoming in Gastronomica’s newest issue (Summer 2023). Combining sensory ethnography with the concepts of nostalgia and resistance, Freedman explores working class identity through the social worlds of London's disappearing eel, pie, and mash shops.

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This episode brings together physical chemistry, history, and food studies in search of the origins of a colonial Mexican fudge. In conversation with Gastronomica’s Jaclyn Rohel, Patrick Charbonneau, Jeffrey Pilcher, and Kelsey Kilgore discuss their unique collaboration and share the story of how they re-created the dish in the teaching kitchen of the University of Toronto’s Culinaria Research Centre. Drawing on manuscripts and published cookbooks from the 18th to 20th centuries, in combination with hands-on culinary experimentation, they trace the recipe to Mexican vernacular traditions of candy making.

Photo Courtesy of Kelsey Kilgore.

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What roles do culture, ecology, and neuroscience play in making sense of lived experiences of eating? In this episode, Victor Valle speaks with Krishnendu Ray of Gastronomica’s Editorial Collective about his newly published personal essay, “Toward a Poetics of Chile.... in Another Mexico.” Reflecting on palatal taste, memory, family biography, and colonial history, Victor connects culinary aesthetics with neural networks as he delves into acquired tastes and parses the complex sensations of his chile-eating experiences over time.

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How is value created in heritage food systems, and what role does the figure of the artisanal producer play? In this episode, anthropologists Lauren Crossland-Marr and Elizabeth Krause introduce a special section on authenticity, published in Gastronomica’s newest issue (Spring 2023). In conversation with Gastronomica’s Bob Valgenti, Lauren and Elizabeth share some of the most pressing questions around the notion of authenticity today. Drawing on culinary cases from Italy – including ethnographic research on slow figs and fast fashion - they discuss how storytelling and producers’ improvisations shape value in the face of social, environmental, and economic precarity.

Photo Courtesy of Betsy Krause

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In this episode, James Edward Malin talks with Gastronomica’s Jessica Carbone about the history of seltzer in New York City. Drawing together histories of migration with histories of public health, engineering, and urban infrastructure, James sheds light on how soda water eventually came to be Jewish food icon. In discussing his new article in Issue 22.4 of Gastronomica, James takes listeners on a historical tour of some of New York’s most important water provisioning sites, from the Croton Aqueduct, to seltzer street carts, to the eventual implementation of rooftop water towers. 

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How does environmental change and water scarcity affect heritage crops? In this episode, Holly Brause discusses her newly published ethnographic research on the chile industry in southern New Mexico. In conversation with Paula Johnson of the Gastronomica Editorial Collective, Holly connects the local effects of climate change and drought to the economic and cultural value of a heritage crop. Drawing together taste, place, and practices of agricultural production, she explains how the strategies used to grow chiles under the conditions of water scarcity can have unintended consequences for the quantity and quality of chiles produced.

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In this episode, Chanelle Dupuis talks with Dan Bender of the Gastronomica Editorial Collective about contaminated waterways and sensory perceptions of environmental change. Focusing on the changing smell of water and the role of the nose in sensing environmental degradation in the Peruvian Amazon, Chanelle sheds light on how bilious odors and processes of “slow smelling” affect riverine residents and Indigenous communities in and around the Nanay River. Drawing from her article in Gastronomica’s newest issue (22.4), Chanelle connects the odors of pollution to ways of living that have come under threat, elaborating on the implications for community identity, local livelihoods, health and the sourcing of local foods, and spiritual connections to the waterways.

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Join Gastronomica’s Editorial Collective as we discuss The Water Issue (22.4). Recorded live at the University of Toronto in November 2022, this episode offers a peek into a roundtable conversation on water across social and ecological registers, drawing connections between place, taste, and social justice. With contributions from Gastronomica editors including Paula Johnson, Irina Mihalache, Krishnendu Ray, Signe Rousseau, Bob Valgenti, Jessica Carbone, and moderated by Dan Bender, the roundtable explores water as a topic of food studies research where infrastructure, history, culture, and ethics meet.

Photo courtesy of Paula Johnson.

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How is the war in Ukraine impacting regional food supply chains? In this episode, Gastronomica’s Bob Valgenti speaks with scholars Diana Mincyte and Fabio Parasecoli about the current state of food systems in countries that immediately border Ukraine. They shed light on crisis and resiliency in localized food networks -- from emergency aid and community food supports for refugees to smallholder farming -- and on what may lie ahead for food security in Eastern Europe more broadly. Listeners can learn more from their new article in the Fall 2022 issue of Gastronomica.

Photos courtesy of Fabio Parasecoli and Diana Mincyte.

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Could the future of a cuisine be designed, and if so, by whom? Gastronomica Co-Chair Signe Rousseau hosts ⁠Fabio Parasecoli⁠ in a discussion of the cultural work that tastemakers do in creating new forms of value in Polish food. From potatoes and vodka, to wine, to mushrooms and other foraged plants, they explore the ways in which tastemakers – as designers – create, innovate, and prototype new culinary experiences by working across the past, present, and future. Fabio shares insights and ethnographic reflections from his ⁠new Gastronomica article, co-authored with Mateusz Halawa⁠, now available in issue 22.3.

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