Meant To Be Eaten

This episode of Meant to be Eaten was produced in collaboration with Gastronomica Journal. 

Melissa Fuster, from Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, is in for Coral Lee.

A conversation with Azri Amram. 

Can food serve as a tool to build bridges in times of conflict? Azri Amram takes us to the Palestinian town on Kafr Qasim, the site of a massacre in 1956, which today serves as the site for food tours,
motivating dialogue between Palestinians and Israeli-Jewish “food tourists”. Azri Amram is completing his doctorate degree in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at The Ben-Gurion of the Negev in Israel, examining Jewish-Palestinian relationships in food spaces.

Photo Courtesy of Azri Amram. 

Meant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode of Meant to be Eaten was produced in collaboration with Gastronomica Journal. 

Bob Valgenti, from Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, is in for Coral Lee.

A conversation with Rose Wellman. 

Jello is a beloved dessert and also an unexpected source of religious debate. Anthropologist Rose Wellman shares the fruits of her field work in Iran as part of our series of deeper dives into recent articles in Gastronomica. Dr. Wellman’s research explores the many ways that jello and the question of its status as halal highlight a number of religious, political and generational tensions in modern day Iran.

Meant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode of Meant to be Eaten was produced in collaboration with Gastronomica Journal.

Bob Valgenti, from Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, is in for Coral Lee.

A conversation with Krishnendu Ray. 

Street Food—emphasis on street, that “dwelling place of the collective” and site of liveliness. Sociologist Krishnendu Ray returns to the podcast to explore the vitality of street food, its vendors, and why cities should protect these spaces from the homogenizing gaze of the Global North. The Chair of the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at NYU-Steinhardt, Dr. Ray recently delivered the Distinguished Lecture at the annual event co-sponsored by SOAS University of London and Gastronomica.

Meant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode of Meant to be Eaten was produced in collaboration with Gastronomica Journal. 

Bob Valgenti, from Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, is in for Coral Lee.

A conversation with Laurie Bertram. 

What motivates the passionate defense of a recipe? Historian Laurie Bertram expands on her recent Gastronomica article dedicated to the curious case of Icelandic vínarterta—a cake whose origins and most adamant defenders are, surprisingly, not found in Iceland. Cherished and defended by Icelandic immigrants to North America, the dish’s history highlights how food can serve as the crossing-point for issues of class, gender, geopolitics and cultural identity.

Meant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A conversation with Rebecca de Souza.

Do food pantries completely miss the point? Rebecca de Souza thinks they might. In “Feeding the Other,” Rebecca demonstrates how “food pantries stigmatize their clients through a discourse that emphasizes hard work, self help, and economic productivity rather than food justice and equity.” We discuss the power and significance of stigma, and why food pantries are unable to combat hunger.

Photo Courtesy of Rebecca de Souza.

Meant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

After a decade of building up sustainable farming, ethical trade, and community development in Africa, Jeff Abella—and his partner, Ishan—founded MOKA farms in Cameroon, and thusly— MOKA Origins, a bean-to-bar/bag chocolate and coffee that inspires "real social change". Jeff is here to explain—well, first and foremost, what “bean-to-bar” is, the challenges and unique rewards of building MOKA Farms up in Cameroon, and how it feels to have been *fair trade* before fair trade was cool.

Photo Courtesy of Jeff Abella.

Meant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A conversation with Carol Pak.

Carol Pak is the founder of Makku, America's first canned craft makgeolli company. We discuss why she markets Makku as she does (the can reads "rice beer"), and whether craft-beverage-crazed America s ready for makgeolli (as more than just a novelty "Asian" beverage).

Meant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A conversation with Amy Trubek.

Amy Trubek's research interests include the history of the culinary profession, globalization of the food supply, the relationship between taste and place, and cooking as a cultural practice. We discuss the sustainability of restaurant culture and work. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences at the University of Vermont, and part of the new editorial collective leading Gastronomica.

Meant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A conversation with Daniel Bender. We’re all very concerned with saving food–from preservation to curation to nostalgia to archiving to salvation– but Daniel Bender, an editor of leading food studies journal, Gastronomica, and history professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough—took a step back to ask, “what exactly are we saving food from?”

Meant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A conversation with Amanda Hesser. Amanda Hesser is CEO and co-founder of food, home, and lifestyle brand, Food52. Now in its 10th year, Food52 has evolved wildly from the recipe-sharing site it used to solely be, and recently closed a very large funding round (which we’ll get to in a bit). Amanda and I will be picking up where UK food writer Sybil Kapoor and I left off last week. We discussed what “taste” means, how it is biologically, culturally, and socially constructed, and why it’s important to continually challenge our own… and today, we’ll be exploring how “taste” is determined in our -- supposedly-- algorithmically-optimized worlds, if our unique “taste” is indeed our own, and whether SEO-driven content hurts or helps us.

Meant to be Eaten is powered by Simplecast.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.