American Food Stories

We’ve talked about the absence and fragility of historical archives about what people actually ate at various points in history. It can be hard to know! We’ve also read about community archives and community cookbooks, and how they preserve traditions, culture, and heritage that makes the diversity of American food so unique. So let’s make life easier for future food historians!

Why we’re doing this

• Consider the fragility, limitations, and value of food archives
• Document “everyday” food history
• Gain basic experience with oral history creation and archiving
• Participate and reflect on a collaborative public history project

What you will do

• Record ~5 minutes (more is fine, try not to be too much under) of someone (maybe yourself) discussing a food experience, dish or food tradition. The topic doesn’t really matter as long as it’s meaningful to the speaker.
• If recording yourself, visiting the Digital Humanities Studio (Amaranth) in Mesa Vista is highly recommended for easy access to a good audio recording setup. If you want to record someone else over Thanksgiving or whatever, you can use your phone, no prob.
• Use basic sound editing software to clean up the recording (this takes about 30-45 minutes even if it’s your first time)
• Create a ~50 word introduction to your speaker to help contextualize them and the story
• Write up a ~600-word ANALYSIS (not summary) of the story based on course themes to “read between the lines” (like the cookbook assignment)
• Use/take a photo or use AI to generate some goofy image related to your food topic
• Create a simple webpage to present your speaker bio, image, and interview clip
• See instruction links below for technical details

Questions to keep in mind for your analysis

• How does the story related to identity, gender, community, authenticity, heritage, etc?
• What kind of larger themes appear (exotic, health, comfort, economy, speed, etc)?
• What kind of assumptions can you detect about cooking/cuisine/food?
• Are there various “national” or “ethnic” influences?
• How much does tradition or originality or authenticity matter?
• REMEMBER: You’re READING BETWEEN THE LINES to tell your readers/listeners about American culture and cuisine.

Instructions

• Setting up your own copy of the food stories site
• Creating your own food stories page in your new site
• Recording your audio
• Editing your audio
  • Remember you can use whatever editing tool you want; I provide instructions for Audacity because it’s free and works with all operating systems.
• If you get stuck, email me or Amaranth
• Editing and Submitting your work

Due Date

December 12 (the last day of finals)

Questions

Coursework is frustrating and virtually impossible to do well when you’re not sure what to do or how to do it. Please reach out if something’s not clear!