My goodness gracious! Your generosity in sharing your essays, syllabus and curriculum is astounding, and so very welcome: thank you! I'm looking forward to all of it. I'll be visiting Cape Town next month, and thinking about your idea "that we can only explore the consumption (or pleasure) of food and tourism OR the ills of it is incorrect. Both are necessary to actually advancing toward a deeper understanding."
I lived in New Orleans for 7 years, so I can't help but think about shaky, often toxic relationship with tourism there, and the machine of culinary tourism, which almost always rewards and celebrates those who already have money and power, while looking away from the darker inequities of the city. (With some bright-spot exceptions.)
For dumplings, it’s hard to go wrong with Fuchsia Dunlop or Hetty McKinnon. Keeping Hetty’s spinach and tofu dumplings in the freezer is one of the best acts of self care. From using them in soup to piling a few of them on top of a big salad, they are indispensable!
To Asia, With Love has a great collection of filling recipes too—the carrot, kimchi, and feta is a favorite as is the herby mushroom variation.
The “lecture as essay” is a brilliant idea and I think will work because you have a point of view that’s defined enough to animate them. Too often academic writing is clogged with jargon and says very little.
I would love to try miso-glazed asparagus in an Ooni. I can never get it right under the broiler; the spears always end up overcooked before the proper brûlée appears.
Seeing Paulie in Italy and reading Lord’s snippet reminded me of the episode of Bourdain’s show where he was in some coastal town that had been renowned for centuries as having the most beautiful, crystal-clear water teeming with delicious fish and gorgeous coral. Those centuries of hype-driven overuse had rendered the beautiful water completely barren of life, leading to the guide resorting to throwing frozen calamari over the side for Tony to “catch” in a macabre attempt to deny the obvious.
I am very much looking forward to this class, Professor!
Thanks for this! I’ve been doing some research on the Peruvian gastronomic boom and tourism, and the readings/essays here are a great complement to my mess of thoughts.
Your students are lucky to have you—you’re putting so much time and thought into your curriculum—and thanks for sharing your work with us here! Have you made ashak (I’ve also seen it spelled aushak in some restaurants)? One of my favorite dishes to eat in the DC area restaurants I’ve been to. I made them from the cookbook Parwana, and she provides two sauce options, one vegetarian. I think there’s a press version online.
For dumplings, I've been really enjoying Hannah Che's mushroom and cabbage filling! She had a cookbook of vegan Chinese cooking come out recently, and I'm sure there are other recipes in there, but I followed one from her website: https://theplantbasedwok.com/vegan-mushroom-potstickers/
I substituted Chinese chives for scallions (as suggested) and added a little bit of diced five-spice tofu for protein. They were great both steamed and boiled, although I haven't tried them fried. I served them at a Chinese new year dinner and everyone raved about the flavour and textural variation!
I work in the travel industry, so very excited to read your work and learn. I know how much research and energy this takes so I appreciate you making your class materials available to your Substack readers!
We hosted a three part course on anti-racism in travel a few years back and one of the topics we explored was the words we use to describe a place, especially its food. We specifically deconstructed the below article from NY Times and the impact our choice of words like “weird, exotic, strange” etc has at a macro level when we are describing another destinations food while traveling.
Finally, I love a good street food tour. A good street food tour can reveal the layered and complex history and cultural nuances of a place through the stops the guide chooses. I just did one in Cairo where we started at Tahrir Square, the birthplace of the Arab Spring. Our guide then took us down a street to the entrance of American University, dove into the significant role the university and students played, and painted the most vivid picture-- “This was the frontlines of the revolution.” I had goosebumps.
Ohhh! So excited to be privy to this curriculum - even blew the dust off my nearly untouched copy of Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawai‘i! Let’s do this!
This is so wonderful; I took an English literature course at La UPI last semester about Caribbean Identity and was introduced to Kincaid and Walcott, as well as the paradise myth.
It’s been one of the best courses I’ve taken (in part due to having an inspiring professor much like yourself) and as a Puerto Rican, the course served as a creative vehicle to expolore my own identity in the Caribbean context.
My goodness gracious! Your generosity in sharing your essays, syllabus and curriculum is astounding, and so very welcome: thank you! I'm looking forward to all of it. I'll be visiting Cape Town next month, and thinking about your idea "that we can only explore the consumption (or pleasure) of food and tourism OR the ills of it is incorrect. Both are necessary to actually advancing toward a deeper understanding."
This is great -- what lucky students!
I lived in New Orleans for 7 years, so I can't help but think about shaky, often toxic relationship with tourism there, and the machine of culinary tourism, which almost always rewards and celebrates those who already have money and power, while looking away from the darker inequities of the city. (With some bright-spot exceptions.)
For dumplings, it’s hard to go wrong with Fuchsia Dunlop or Hetty McKinnon. Keeping Hetty’s spinach and tofu dumplings in the freezer is one of the best acts of self care. From using them in soup to piling a few of them on top of a big salad, they are indispensable!
To Asia, With Love has a great collection of filling recipes too—the carrot, kimchi, and feta is a favorite as is the herby mushroom variation.
I’m excited for your upcoming essays; your syllabus sounds dynamic, timely and provocative. Thanks for sharing with us.
The “lecture as essay” is a brilliant idea and I think will work because you have a point of view that’s defined enough to animate them. Too often academic writing is clogged with jargon and says very little.
I would love to try miso-glazed asparagus in an Ooni. I can never get it right under the broiler; the spears always end up overcooked before the proper brûlée appears.
Seeing Paulie in Italy and reading Lord’s snippet reminded me of the episode of Bourdain’s show where he was in some coastal town that had been renowned for centuries as having the most beautiful, crystal-clear water teeming with delicious fish and gorgeous coral. Those centuries of hype-driven overuse had rendered the beautiful water completely barren of life, leading to the guide resorting to throwing frozen calamari over the side for Tony to “catch” in a macabre attempt to deny the obvious.
I am very much looking forward to this class, Professor!
Very excited to follow along with some of the readings here, thank you for sharing! Will you be in boston at all for teaching the course?
Thanks for this! I’ve been doing some research on the Peruvian gastronomic boom and tourism, and the readings/essays here are a great complement to my mess of thoughts.
Your students are lucky to have you—you’re putting so much time and thought into your curriculum—and thanks for sharing your work with us here! Have you made ashak (I’ve also seen it spelled aushak in some restaurants)? One of my favorite dishes to eat in the DC area restaurants I’ve been to. I made them from the cookbook Parwana, and she provides two sauce options, one vegetarian. I think there’s a press version online.
For dumplings, I've been really enjoying Hannah Che's mushroom and cabbage filling! She had a cookbook of vegan Chinese cooking come out recently, and I'm sure there are other recipes in there, but I followed one from her website: https://theplantbasedwok.com/vegan-mushroom-potstickers/
I substituted Chinese chives for scallions (as suggested) and added a little bit of diced five-spice tofu for protein. They were great both steamed and boiled, although I haven't tried them fried. I served them at a Chinese new year dinner and everyone raved about the flavour and textural variation!
I work in the travel industry, so very excited to read your work and learn. I know how much research and energy this takes so I appreciate you making your class materials available to your Substack readers!
We hosted a three part course on anti-racism in travel a few years back and one of the topics we explored was the words we use to describe a place, especially its food. We specifically deconstructed the below article from NY Times and the impact our choice of words like “weird, exotic, strange” etc has at a macro level when we are describing another destinations food while traveling.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/world/asia/bangkok-thailand-fruit-durian.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Finally, I love a good street food tour. A good street food tour can reveal the layered and complex history and cultural nuances of a place through the stops the guide chooses. I just did one in Cairo where we started at Tahrir Square, the birthplace of the Arab Spring. Our guide then took us down a street to the entrance of American University, dove into the significant role the university and students played, and painted the most vivid picture-- “This was the frontlines of the revolution.” I had goosebumps.
Ohhh! So excited to be privy to this curriculum - even blew the dust off my nearly untouched copy of Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawai‘i! Let’s do this!
I’ll check it out, thanx again!
Hi Alicia,
This is so wonderful; I took an English literature course at La UPI last semester about Caribbean Identity and was introduced to Kincaid and Walcott, as well as the paradise myth.
It’s been one of the best courses I’ve taken (in part due to having an inspiring professor much like yourself) and as a Puerto Rican, the course served as a creative vehicle to expolore my own identity in the Caribbean context.
Will be following along the readings, thank you!
Marvelous newsletter gift here
I very much enjoyed reading Eating Puerto Rico. It is so informative; scholarly without being too dry. Thanks for recommending.