Food For Thought

Culture, Identity, and Worship at the Altar of Appetite

Jan 05, 2025

Welcome to the first syllabus of 2025! We’ve cooked up a lot this term, so we hope you’re hungry. If you want to print out the syllabus, see the PDF attached.

Course Description

This course will explore the profound relationship between food and identity, examining how culinary experiences and narratives shape personal transformation, cultural expression, and societal critique. Through memoirs, films, art, and pop culture, students will investigate how food functions as a metaphor for intimacy, power, obsession, and survival. Ultimately, Lit Girl students will gain a deeper understanding of how food storytelling reflects broader themes of resilience, sensuality, chaos, and cultural influence, while considering the role of food writing in contemporary media and its potential for cultural virality. By examining food’s symbolic power in contemporary life, students will critically assess how consumer-driven dynamics shape personal and collective identities, especially in a world where food often serves as both a commodity and a symbol of cultural capital. You’ll be able to justify that $20 Erewhon smoothie or the artisanal grocer down the street. It’s for research after all.

Food for Thought will be divided into five modules: Phone Eats First, If You Can’t Handle the Heat, The Chef’s Kiss, Gluttony Gospels, and Bite Me.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

Examine the role of food in shaping identity and cultural narratives, exploring how food practices reflect personal and societal transformations.
Analyze how food functions as a metaphor for intimacy, power, obsession, and survival.
Evaluate the intersections of food, culture, and emotional life, considering the ways food writing expresses personal and collective struggles, desires, and values, and investigate how food writing is just the literary version of oversharing on social media about your latest meltdown.
Investigate the viral potential of food in contemporary media, learn how a perfectly staged avocado toast can somehow change the world (or at least get a million likes), and understand how food-related content spreads cultural influence.
Critically engage with diverse food-related texts to take a peek behind the curtain at how culinary experiences shape broader social, gender, and class dynamics—because who knew that a perfectly roasted chicken could expose the intricacies of power and privilege?

Texts and Materials

Literature

Basterrica, Augustina. Tender is the Flesh. Hogarth, 2021.

Bittman, Mark. The Best Food Writing 2023. Globe Pequot, 2023.

Broder, Melissa. Milk Fed. Hogarth, 2021.

Colwin, Laurie. Home Cooking. Anchor Press, 1988.

Davis, Camas. Killing It: An Education. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2021.

Danler, Stephanie. Sweetbitter. Anchor Books, 2016.

Ephron, Nora. Heartburn. Pantheon Books, 1983.

Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. Doubleday, 1989.

Hamilton, Gabrielle. Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef. Random House, 2012.

Hamsun, Knut. Hunger. Translated by Robert Bly, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1967.

Hayden, Meredith. The Wishbone Kitchen Cookbook: Seasonal Recipes for Everyday Luxury and Elevated Entertaining. Ten Speed Press, 2025.

Hazell, Lottie. Piglet. Henry Holt and Company, 2024.

Nosrat, Samin. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking. Simon & Schuster, 2017.

Onwuachi, Kwame. Notes from a Young Black Chef. Knopf, 2019.

Potts, Olivia. A Half Baked Idea. Fig Tree, 2019.

Reichl, Ruth. Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir. Random House, 2019.

Rothfield, Becca. All Things Are Too Small: In Praise of Excess. 2024.

Woolever, Laurie. Care and Feeding: A Memoir. Ecco, 2025.

Yuzuki, Asako. Butter. Translated by Polly Barton, 2024.

Zauner, Michelle. Crying in H Mart. Knopf, 2021.

Poetry

Crane, Stephen. “In the Desert.” The Black Riders and Other Lines, Copeland & Day, 1895.

Merriam, Eve. “How to Eat a Poem.” It Doesn’t Always Have to Rhyme, Atheneum, 1964.

TV/Film

Burnt. Directed by John Wells, Broad Green Pictures, 2015.

Chef's Table. Season 1, directed by David Gelb, Netflix, 2015.

Fresh. Directed by Mimi Cave, 2022.

Julie and Julia. Directed by Nora Ephron, Columbia Pictures, 2009.

Like Water for Chocolate. Directed by Julián de Tavira and Ana Lorena Pérez Ríos, Max, 2024

Parts Unknown. Directed by Anthony Bourdain, "Ireland," 2014.

No Reservations. Directed by Scott Hicks, Warner Bros. Pictures, 2007.

Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy. Season 1, CNN, 2021.

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Nosrat, Samin, creator and host. Directed by Various, Netflix, 2018.

The Lost Kitchen. Season 1, directed by Various, Discovery+, 2020.

The Menu. Directed by Mark Mylod, Searchlight Pictures, 2022.

The Taste of Things. Directed by Véra Belmont, Le Pacte, 2023.

Twilight. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, Summit Entertainment, 2008.

With Love, Meghan. Created by Meghan Markle, Archewell Productions, 2025. Netflix.

Articles

Gross, Samantha. “Olivia Wilde’s Salad Dressing Is the Talk of the Internet.” The Cut, 19 Oct. 2022, thecut.com/saladdressing.

Kennicott, Philip, and Tom Sietsema. "Great Artists and Their Use of Food Symbolism." The Washington Post, 18 May 2023, washingtonpost.com.

Liu, Connie. "Through Food, Asian Americans Stop Pushing Heritage to the Back Burner." NPR, 4 Jan. 2019, www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/01/04/682182165/through-food-art-asian-americans-stop-pushing-heritage-to-the-back-burner.

Ravindranath, Mohana. “The Secret to a TikTok Restaurant’s Viral Success.” Bon Appétit, Condé Nast, 5 July 2022, www.bonappetit.com/story/tiktok-restaurants-viral-success.

Romano, Aja. “How TikTok Food Influencers Beat the Food Network at Its Own Game.” Vox, 4 Aug. 2023, Vox.com/culture.

Art

Bosch, Hieronymus. The Garden of Earthly Delights. c. 1490–1500, Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Farm to Table: Art, Food, and Identity in the Age of Impressionism. Chrysler Museum of Art, 2024, chrysler.org.

Manet, Édouard. Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe. 1863, Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

Potluck Group Show. Hashimoto Contemporary, 2023, San Francisco.

Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista. The Banquet of Cleopatra. 1744, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

Course Schedule

1.19 - Phone Eats First

Readings:

Colwin, Laurie. Home Cooking. Anchor Press, 1988.
Hochschild, Arlie. The Best Food Writing 2023. Globe Pequot, 2023.
Nosrat, Samin. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking. Simon & Schuster, 2017.

Viewings:

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Nosrat, Samin, creator and host. Directed by Various, Netflix, 2018.

Supplementary Materials:

Bon Appétit Test Kitchen. YouTube, 2013, www.youtube.com/c/BonAppetit.
Ravindranath, Mohana. “The Secret to a TikTok Restaurant’s Viral Success.” Bon Appétit, Condé Nast, 5 July 2022, www.bonappetit.com/story/tiktok-restaurants-viral-success.
Romano, Aja. “How TikTok Food Influencers Beat the Food Network at Its Own Game.” Vox, 4 Aug. 2023, Vox.com/culture.

2.2 - If You Can’t Handle the Heat

Readings:

Bourdain, Anthony. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. Ecco, 2000.
Davis, Camas. Killing It: An Education. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2021.

Viewings:

Chef's Table. Season 1, directed by David Gelb, Netflix, 2015.
With Love, Meghan. Created by Meghan Markle, Archewell Productions, 2025. Netflix.

Supplementary Materials:

Burnt. Directed by John Wells, Broad Green Pictures, 2015.
Hayden, Meredith. The Wishbone Kitchen Cookbook: Seasonal Recipes for Everyday Luxury and Elevated Entertaining. Ten Speed Press, 2025.
The Taste of Things. Directed by Véra Belmont, Le Pacte, 2023.
Woolever, Laurie. Care and Feeding: A Memoir. Ecco, 2025.

2.16 - The Chef’s Kiss

Readings:

Broder, Melissa. Milk Fed. Hogarth, 2021.
Danler, Stephanie. Sweetbitter. Anchor Books, 2016.
Ephron, Nora. Heartburn. Pantheon Books, 1983.
Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. Doubleday, 1989.

Viewings:

Like Water for Chocolate. Directed by Julián de Tavira and Ana Lorena Pérez Ríos, Max, 2024.

Supplementary Materials:

Gross, Samantha. “Olivia Wilde’s Salad Dressing Is the Talk of the Internet.” The Cut, 19 Oct. 2022 thecut.com/saladdressing.
Manet, Édouard. Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe. 1863, Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
No Reservations. Directed by Scott Hicks, Warner Bros. Pictures, 2007.
Yuzuki, Asako. Butter. Translated by Polly Barton, 2024.

3.2 - Gluttony Gospels

Readings:

Hamsun, Knut. Hunger. Translated by Robert Bly, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1967.
Hazell, Lottie. Piglet. Henry Holt and Company, 2024.
Rothfield, Becca. All Things Are Too Small: In Praise of Excess. 2024.

Viewings:

Fresh. Directed by Mimi Cave, 2022.
The Menu. Directed by Mark Mylod, Searchlight Pictures, 2022.

Supplementary Materials:

Basterrica, Augustina. Tender is the Flesh. Hogarth, 2021.
Bosch, Hieronymus. The Garden of Earthly Delights. c. 1490–1500, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.
Crane, Stephen. “In the Desert.” The Black Riders and Other Lines, Copeland & Day, 1895.
Merriam, Eve. “How to Eat a Poem.” It Doesn’t Always Have to Rhyme, Atheneum, 1964.
Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista. The Banquet of Cleopatra. 1744, National Gallery of
Victoria, Melbourne.
Twilight. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, Summit Entertainment, 2008.

***GUEST LECTURER: LOTTIE HAZELL***

3.30 – Bite Me

Readings:

Onwuachi, Kwame. Notes from a Young Black Chef. Knopf, 2019.
Reichl, Ruth. Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir. Random House, 2019.

Viewings:

Julie and Julia. Directed by Nora Ephron, Columbia Pictures, 2009.
The Lost Kitchen. Season 1, directed by Various, Discovery+, 2020.

Supplementary Materials:

Hamilton, Gabrielle. Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef. Random House, 2012.
Farm to Table: Art, Food, and Identity in the Age of Impressionism. Chrysler Museum of Art, 2024, chrysler.org.
Kennicott, Philip, and Tom Sietsema. "Great Artists and Their Use of Food Symbolism." The Washington Post, 18 May 2023, washingtonpost.com.
Parts Unknown. Directed by Anthony Bourdain, "Ireland," 2014.
Potluck Group Show. Hashimoto Contemporary, 2023, San Francisco.
Potts, Olivia. A Half Baked Idea. Fig Tree, 2019.
Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy. Season 1, CNN, 2021.
Zauner, Michelle. Crying in H Mart. Knopf, 2021.