Jaclyn Rohel – Gastronomica

Podcast Dispatches from Vol. 21: What to Read Now with Melissa Fuster

November 29, 2021November 29, 2021Gastronomica

For our sixth season of podcasts produced in collaboration with Meant to Be Eaten on Heritage Radio Network , we sit down (virtually) with authors who have contributed to our third issue of 2021, edited by Krishnendu Ray, and featuring articles and creative pieces which collectively address the issue of “gastropolitics,” as described in that issue’s editorial letter. You can find all previous episodes in the series under “Web Exclusives.”

For this episode, Reviews Editor and Collective member Jaclyn Rohel highlights three titles recently reviewed in Issue 21.4 which may be of interest to both food scholars and lay readers of topics related to food production, consumption, and representation:

The Uncertainty Mindset: Innovation Insights from the Frontiers of Food, by Vaughn Tan

FoodWISE: A Whole Systems Guide to Sustainable and Delicious Food Choices, by Gigi Berardi

Tasting Difference: Food, Race, and Cultural Encounters in Early Modern Literature, by Gitanjali G. Shahani

Jackie is then joined by Gastronomica colleague Melissa Fuster to discuss Melissa’s new book, Caribeños at the Table: How Migration, Health, and Race Intersect in New York City (UNC Press, 2021). An expert in both public health nutrition and food studies, Melissa weaves together research in history, policy, health, and everyday life to connect newcomers’ culinary practices to the complex structural factors that shape well-being. Melissa also discusses how this work led her to develop her community-based research initiative, the Latin American Restaurants in Action Project.

Podcast Dispatches from Vol. 21: What To Read Now with Kim Walker and Mark Nesbitt

May 17, 2021May 17, 2021Gastronomica

For our fifth series of podcasts produced in collaboration with Meant to Be Eaten on Heritage Radio Network, we sit down (virtually) with authors who have contributed to our recently published second issue of 2021, featuring articles on topics including commensality and creative collaboration, the politics of food systems, and race and representation.

For this episode, our Reviews Editor Jaclyn Rohel and her Culinaria research colleague Janita Van Dyk introduce a new feature on recent and upcoming books in Food Studies, “What to Read Now.” This week Jackie and Janita are joined by Kim Walker and Mark Nesbitt, authors of Just the Tonic: A Natural History of Tonic Water (Kew Publishing, 2019; reviewed in Issue 21.1), to explore cinchona-infused sparkling water in the history of medicine, in cocktail cultures, and in the archives.

Podcast Dispatches from Issue 21.1: Alyshia Gálvez

February 1, 2021May 10, 2021Gastronomica

For our fourth series of podcasts produced in collaboration with Meant to Be Eaten on Heritage Radio Network, we sit down (virtually) with authors who have contributed to our upcoming first issue of 2021, which continues to feature COVID-19 Dispatches, but also original research articles around the themes of the relationship between food, power and politics, cultivating relationships, and sustaining memories.

For this episode, Editorial Collective member Jaclyn Rohel is joined by Alyshia Gálvez, who explores the work of transnational food couriers known as paqueteros and paqueteras in her forthcoming article, “Paqueteros and Paqueteras: Humanizing a Dehumanized Food System.” These informal grassroots entrepreneurs connect people and places across international borders through the delivery of goods, care packages, and specialty and traditional foods. Drawing on ethnographic research of micro-local foodways in Mexico (Puebla) and the United States (New York) and the connections between them, Gálvez discusses how informal food couriers humanize an increasingly industrialized food system in the post-NAFTA landscape.

*Please note that around the 10-min mark, Professor Gálvez mentions having been asked by federal attorneys to serve as an expert witness, while she meant to say that she had been approached by public defenders in that capacity.

Podcast Dispatches from Issue 20.4: Amy Bentley and Stephanie Borkowsky

November 17, 2020May 10, 2021Gastronomica

For our third series of podcasts produced in collaboration with Meant to Be Eaten on Heritage Radio Network, we sit down (virtually) with authors who contributed to our final issue of 2020, which continues to feature COVID-19 Dispatches, but also original research articles around the themes of “Working with Ingredients”, “Taste and Technology in East Asia”, “Excursions”, and “Dolce”.

For this episode, Editorial Collective member Jaclyn Rohel is joined by Amy Bentley and Stephanie Borkowsky is discuss their article “The Food and COVID-19 NYC Archive: Mapping the Pandemic’s Effect on Food in Real Time”, which describes an initiative that grew out of an NYU class and has become an ongoing archival project dedicated to curating and preserving the food experiences and memories of (mostly) New Yorkers in response to the pandemic.