SCHEDULE

DAY I

FRIDAY, APRIL 4

Day II

SATURDAY, APRIL 5

Popular magazines promote food as lifestyle, each photograph labored over by stylists and photographers who have corrected the surface, endlessly repositioned the food, and adjusted the lighting to capture its greatest allure. Accompanying texts hold the promise of sophistication or offer the bittersweet pleasure of nostalgia. Rarely is the more disturbing side of food—the shocking, repulsive, erotic, or political—explored. This panel will look at the ways in which food can be used to subvert cultural norms through both narrative and imagery.

Presenters: Darra Goldstein, the Frances C. Oakley Third Century Professor of Russian, Williams College, and editor-in-chief, Gastronimica, The Journal of Food and Culture; John E. Finn, professor of government, Wesleyan University, and graduate of the French Culinary Institute

Between 1960 and 2000, the earth’s population doubled from 3 billion to 6 billion people. By about 2040, another 3 billion will be added. An increasing global population and changing diets are leading to a greater demand for food and animal feed from agriculture, while arable land is under pressure. To date, growing demand has been met by a number of agricultural improvements that have increased productivity, drawing on the sciences of plant breeding and plant biotechnology. Improved seeds and crops provide benefits such as increased crop yields and pest control. New technologies in development will expand these benefits to areas such as drought tolerance and improved food oils, all within a scientific framework that keeps food safety paramount.

Presenter: David A. Fischhoff P’08, vice president for technology strategy and development, Monsanto Corporation

Lunch

Presenters: Barbara Haber P’85, culinary historian, former curator of books at Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library at Harvard University, and author of From Hardtack to Home Fries: An Uncommon History of American Cooks and Meals; Krishnendu Ray, assistant professor of nutrition and food studies, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University, former faculty member at the Culinary Institute of America, and author of Exotic Restaurants and Expatriate Home Cooking: Indian Food in Manhattan

Presenter: Eric Asimov ’79, chief wine critic, The New York Times

Reception and Dinner

Ruth Reichl P’11, editor-in-chief, Gourmet magazine

Day III

SUNDAY, APRIL 6

Food is one of the materials of everyday life through which a culture knows and replicates itself. We will walk through the intimate cultural doorway of food to understand how cultures create personal and emotional bonds to the symbolic meanings and social structures enmeshed in cooking, sharing, and eating food. Gina Athena Ulysse, author of Loving Haiti, Loving Vodou: A Book of Rememories, Rants and Recipes, will offer an alter(ed)native view of Haiti that considers the impact of migration on family traditions and the role that food plays in the process of reclaiming lost memories. Karen Anderson will look at how, across cultures, one’s cuisine marks one’s social status. She will ask why certain foods are privileged as pure or healing, while others are marked as polluting. Using Hinduism and Ayurveda as primary examples, she will explore how food bespeaks morality, health, and social hierarchy.

Presenters: Karen Anderson, associate dean of continuing studies and director, Graduate Liberal Studies Program, Wesleyan University; Gina Athena Ulysse, assistant professor of anthropology and African American studies, Wesleyan University

Why should we care about agriculture and agriculture policy? We are both consumers and stewards of the earth. How can we balance the need for increased food and energy production with our need to preserve the environment and access to healthy and local food? The answers may seem easy, but the politics of food and agriculture are complicated. How do we develop the best policies and effectively implement them to benefit everyone?

Presenters: Jimmy Daukas, director, Farm Policy Campaign, American Farmland Trust; Rosa DeLauro, U.S. Congresswoman from the Connecticut Third District and chair of the Agriculture-FDA Appropriations Subcommittee