Association for the Study of Food & Society

Agriculture to Culture: The Social Transformation of Food

The Joint 2004 Annual Meetings of the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS) and the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society (AFHVS)

Thursday, June 10 - Sunday, June 13, 2004
The Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, NY 12538

"For three days in mid-June, I had the pleasure to attend the joint ASFS-AFHVS conference, Agriculture to Culture, at the Culinary Institute of America. It's easily known as the CIA, and it is a school of concentrated intelligence about cooking. Several of the restaurants at the school are listed in the Zagat Survey which we received at the conference, and I can vouch for the excellence of the food at Ristorante Caterina de Medici who taught the French a thing or two about the use of the fork. I also had the pleasure to eat lunch twice at the American Bakery Cafe where the desserts and bread made the trip worthwhile. The passion fruit-apricot tart and the chocolate hazelnut puff were delicate and full of wonderful flavors. Walking the ground floor glassed wall hallway of Roth Hall, one could see the student chefs preparing meals for the nearby restaurants. I wandered into Farquarson Hall where the students took their meals and was invited to share a dessert of crême caramel. Students told me that hospitality is the watchword. The excellence of the food is due in part to the commitment of the school and the chefs to buy local ingredients whenever possible. For example, our bag lunches prepared by CIA students for the pre-conference tours included cheese from the award winning Sprout Creek Farm, one of the two farms visited on the farms tour. The highlight of the Poughkeepsie CSA farm, aside from the lesson on blue and red tractors, was eating fresh strawberries as we walked the rows that included five varieties.

This year's panels were among the better ones I have attended of over a dozen years of witnessing this conference evolve. There were so many excellent papers, many by young scholars, that offered historical and cultural analysis of food production and consumption such as Brooke Jordan's presentation on the Ojibwe of southern Lake Superior, Kyla Wazana Tompkins' examination of contrasting foods as metaphors, the hilarious macho aspect of chili consumption by Wesley Dean, the production of the world's largest enchilada by Ramona Lee Perez, and Michaela DeSoucey's look at how social food movements transition into commercial markets.

I was also fortunate to hear Penny Van Esterik's impassioned analysis of the commercial endangerment of Lao survival foods, and Krishnendu Ray's articulate examination of 'Men in White,' the chef as crafts person approaching artist. The audience discussion on this paper was much like a volleyball game with insightful comments keeping the thought aloft and in play. I thank all who had a hand in organizing the joint conference and those who participated as presenters and attentive audience members. It was one of the more intellectually stimulating and tastier meetings I have attended. As someone said at the ASFS business meeting, we eat well, and this is one of the joys of these conferences."

Richard Ryan, El Centro, CA