stephanie porzio - communal meal
DESCRIPTION
Thesis Midterm UpdateTRANSCRIPT
THE COMMUNAL MEALSTEPHANIE PORZIO
FALL 2012THESIS — PIRONE
Food should be valued less for caloric content and
more for what it expresses about relationships
—GARY PAUL NABHAN
TOPIC OF STUDY
FOOD & THE COMMUNAL MEAL.
This is the topic I began with this semester. I love food
and it was a central part of my life growing up. De-
spite my family’s busy schedules, we always sat down
for dinner together. The dinner table was the place
where we talked, laughed, argued— it is where we
communicated. Because of this, I grew up with a sub-
conscious feeling that food brings people together.
For my thesis project, it is my mission to study food
and the communal meal as it relates to relationships,
culture, authenticity, and identity. For me, this topic
is vital and I can honestly say nothing matters more to
me than finding a way to use food to bring people
together, encourage community, and enrich relationships.
»
ACADEMIC RESEARCHRhetoric of Food. Joshua Frye and Michael S. Bruner
Changing Families, Changing Food. Peter Jackson
Food as Communication/Communication as Food. Janet M. Cramer
Slow Food Revolution. Carlo Petrini
Food in History. Reay Tannahill
We Are What We Eat, Ethnic Food and the Making of the Americas.
Donna R. Gabaccia
Food and Cultural Studies. Bob Ashley, Joanne Hollows, Steve Jones,
and Ben Taylor
Edible Ideologies: Representing Food and Meaning. Kathleen Lebesco
An Edible History of Humanity. Tom Standage
WHEN I BEGAN MY LIBRARY RESEARCH,
I was shocked to find so much information on my topic.
It turns out that my subconscious feeling about food
bringing people together is more than just a feeling—
it is an actual scholarly idea that has been studied and
researched. This opened my eyes to so much valuable
information.
»
I WAS VERY AFFECTED BY A QUOTE I READ IN ONE OF MY ACADEMIC
research books: “The contemporary moment, as scholars of post-modernity
insist, is characterized by anxiety and dislocation. Subjects find themselves
increasingly fragmented, and thus struggle to find themselves at all.”
This prompted me on a new path of research related to identity, culture, and
food traditions. I am deeply interested in how these things can work to give
the modern person a better sense of stabillity, authenticity in their lives.
Post-Modern world
globalization
“myth of eternal return”
Post-Nationalism
Transnationalism
culture and modernity
Zigmunt Bauman (fastness)
Multiculturalism
Authenticity?
Heidegger and “Das Man”
Michel DeCerteau and “everydayness”
Naomi Klein and “narrative myths”
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PRECEDENTSL
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EXPERIMENTS
MY 5X5 PROCESS AND EXPERIMENTS ARE CASUAL AND ORGANIC
as a way to complement my heavy academic findings on the topic on
the communal meal. From collecting oral histories in my own family
to hosting a dinner party with my neighbors— all of my 8 experiments
deal in some way with food, the meal, or the recipe.
»
1. DINNER PARTY
Ask a question:
What will happen if I invite my new neighbors, Deniz
and Sherry over and have a dinner party in my apart-
ment?
Hypothesis:
I think if I invite Deniz and Sherry over for dinner, they
will accept, we will have a nice meal/get to know each
other better/become closer friends/relax and be com-
fortable.
Experiment:
Invited neighbors over on Wednesday, planned to host
a small dinner in my apartment.
Conclusion:
Despite 1. the small space of my SoHo apartment, 2.
the busy schedules of my neighbors and roommate
that I don’t know so well, 3. the fact that we only have
1 real chair, 4 soup bowls, and a desk for a dinner
table, word of the dinner party became contagious
(neighbors invited their friend, roommate invited her
boyfriend) and dinner party attendance increased by
50%!! PEOPLE REALLY DO ENJOY TOGETHERNESS!
2. UNEXPECTED BRUNCH
USUALLY WHEN YOU MEET SOMEONE IN NYC,
the first thing you do is exchange contact information. I
had knocked on my neighbor’s door to invite them for my
dinner party though, so even though we felt like dear
friends by dinner party’s end, Sherry didn’t have my cell
number when she wanted to text me and thank me the
next day so instead she left a handwritten note. So per-
sonal and sweet! On Saturday morning, when I knocked on
their door to return some bowls, they were having brunch
(which they had cooked themselves) and invited me in—
of course I joined!
»
1:38 — Sherry talks about TV show FRIENDS and how she feels like we have our own FRIENDS situation now, with our ‘open door’ policy started by the dinner party6:18 — discussion between 4 of us about how food should bring people to-gether7:19 — I ask: How often do you (Sherry & Deniz, neighbors) cook? They tell me about Shakshuka (Turkish dish we are eating) and Saturday brunch tradi-tions9:20 — Talking about dinner out (date night)14:00 — TV shows, the Sopranos, mafia, loyalty, family structure in different cultures.17:16 — Religion and food18:00 — Islamic tradition of circumcision. (becomes a very funny 12 minute conversation about the experiences of Deniz and Tolga as children going through this process)31:15 — “This was delicious!”34:00 — Dishwashers and older women using it for storage instead of wash-ing!35:32 — Piping Madeleines (cookies) at Dominique Ansel (our neighborhood bakery)36:08 — Marcel Proust and involuntary memory. Where a memory goes when forgotten. How we remember languages.44:10 — Involuntary memomy. Smell/sound inciting a memory43:42 — Memory like a sensory snapshot, not just visual but with elements from all the senses.
I VOICE RECORDED OUR WHOLE MEAL AND REALIZED
after playing back the recording, that food is the great
“leveler”. We were a relatively diverse group— different
cultures, political beliefs, religions, ages, social status—
but we were able to talk about anything over this casual
meal. Listening back to the conversation we talked about
politics, then socials issues, then it was “pass the bread
please” then religion, then we laughed a lot, then “what is
for dessert”. Eating together gives common ground.
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3. INVOLUNTARY MEMORY & APPLE TART
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I CURRENTLY INTERN AT A WELL KNOWN
food magazine, which I thought would be a
beacon of good food habits but is really a
place where people eat lunch out of plastic
containers in their cubicles. SO UNCOOL.
As an experiment, I warmed up some apple
tart in the microwave at work to enhance
the smells. The girl in the cubicle next door
noticed the delicious smell, and I gave her
half of my tart. We had a lovely five minutes
of chatting and I got to know about her and
her heritage a bit better.
Eating is a physical experience. It affects all
of the senses. Smells can call up memories
of past experiences. This is a powerful thing.
»
I WALKED AROUND MY SOHO NEIGHBORHOOD ON A SATURDAY
morning, seeking out some old family-owned food businesses in the
area. As I shopped fort delicious hand-made pastas, cheeses, and cuts
of meat, I made friends with at least one person in EVERY one of the
3 business I observed. Sara from Raffetto’s, Robin and Vincenzo from
Joe’s Dairy, and Sal and Pino from Pino’s. A different environment from
the standard “grocery store”
4. NEIGHBORHOOD FAMILY-OWNED BUSINESS OBSERVATIONS
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5. JARRING FOODS FOR WINTER
MY FAMILY PRACTICES THESE
traditions of preparing garden
grown food to last through the
cold winters. These traditions have
always been a part of my life.. but
In recently began to think more
and more about these “old” tradi-
tions and what will happen to them
when them when the people who
practice them are gone. Will the
recipes/processes live on? How
can I preserve these beautiful tra-
ditions along with the memory of
the people who practice them?
»
6. ORAL HISTORIES
AS I CONVERSED WITH MY FAMILY MEMBERS ABOUT FOOD, COOKING, AND
the communal meal I was interested to learn two things: 1. The art of cooking is a
shared experience, passed down from parents to children and 2. People always
prefer their mothers/fathers cooking.
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7. PASSED DOWN FAMILY RECIPES
I AM CURIOUS ABOUT THE IDEA OF “PASSED DOWN FAMILY RECIPES”
and how this relates to identity, community, and authenticity. I looked through
some of my mom’s and grandmother’s written recipes thought about these
delicate and beautiful, but somewhat useless method of storing heritage.
»
8. QUESTIONNAIRE
GENDER BREAKDOWN: 33 women, 15 men, 2 n/a
AVG AGE: 21.5 years old
24 out of 50 people were born in US.
Of those 24 American born people,
9 consider themselves “American” (37%)
88% have childhood memories of family meals
AVG TIMES/WEEK THE PERSON COOKS: 3 times
68% have recipes handed down to them by family
members
Of that 68%, only 29.5% have the recipes in written
form, the remainder is verbal.
27 different nationalities
IT IS IMPORTANT FOR ME TO KNOW HOW OTHERS MY AGE
feel about food, memory, identity, and most importantly the
communal meal. The results of the questionnaire opened my
eyes to many things, including the idea that the cooking and
the communal meal drawn on strong and comforting memories.
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STATEMENT
I am studying the communal meal because I want to expose
food’s ability to create human interaction in order to
revitalize cultural traditions, encourage community, and
reclaim identity.
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