This episode offers a sneak peek behind the scenes at Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies. Lisa Haushofer hosts a roundtable live from the 2021 Food Studies conference, Just Food: Because It Is Never Just Food. Editors from the Gastronomica editorial collective – Amy Trubek, Paula Johnson, and Daniel Bender – reveal what’s coming down the pipeline and share their thoughts on what they’d like to read in Gastronomica.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Meant to be Eaten by becoming a member!Meant to be Eaten is Powered by Simplecast.

Meant To Be Eaten

Gastronomica: The Next Issue

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Melissa Fuster. Michaël Bruckert explores meat industrialization in South India. Recounting his fieldwork in the region of Tamil Nadu, Bruckert traces the commoditization of poultry, from farms, markets, and butcher shops to eateries, home kitchens, and consumers’ plates. In this global South context, he explains how recent developments in animal agriculture have changed how people think about chicken - as animal and as meat - and have in the process materially transformed the chicken itself.Image courtesy of Michaël Bruckert.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Meant to be Eaten by becoming a member!Meant to be Eaten is Powered by Simplecast.

Chicken Politics

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies  hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Paula Johnson. V. Constanza Ocampo-Raeder explores human-nature relationships through the social life of camarones, a Peruvian river crustacean. Drawing together stories of landscape, labor and gastronomic revival, Ocampo-Raeder distills the complexity of crawfish-catching from river to plate.Photo Courtesy of V. Constanza Ocampo-RaederHeritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Meant to be Eaten by becoming a member!Meant to be Eaten is Powered by Simplecast.

When the Rainbows Bring the Crawfish

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Bob Valgenti. Eric Funabashi discusses Japanese immigrants' culinary experiences in Brazil following the initial migration of Japanese workers to São Paulo’s coffee farms in 1908. Drawing on published cookbooks and immigrants’ private diaries, he shows how Japanese immigrants forged new culinary practices and identities in Brazil over the course of the 20th century.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Meant to be Eaten by becoming a member!Meant to be Eaten is Powered by Simplecast.

Japanese Immigrants’ Pantry

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Jaclyn Rohel. Jaclyn is joined by her colleague, anthropologist Janita Van Dyk, to introduce a new feature on recent and upcoming books in Food Studies, “What to Read Now.” This episode focuses on Just the Tonic: A Natural History of Tonic Water (Kew Publishing, 2019) in conversation with authors Kim Walker and Mark Nesbitt to explore sparkling water in the history of medicine, in cocktail cultures, and in the archives.Photos courtesy of Kim Walker and Mark Nesbitt.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Meant to be Eaten by becoming a member!Meant to be Eaten is Powered by Simplecast.

What to Read Now

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Krishnendu Ray. Alison Hope Alkon and Rafi Grosglik discuss representations of race in food media. Drawing on examples from contemporary popular culture, they explore how the medium of television engages with racial inequalities and how it could act as a critical intervention for social change.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Meant To Be Eaten by becoming a member!Meant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast. 

Race in American Food Television

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Daniel Bender. Chef Rob Connoley discusses culinary collaboration and the roots of Ozark cuisine at his research-driven restaurant, Bulrush. Drawing on his experiences of shared knowledge creation with a range of local academic and culture partners, Connoley helps bring place-based storytelling to the forefront of culinary creation.Photo Courtesy of BulrushHeritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Meant To Be Eaten by becoming a member!Meant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast. 

Well Rooted: A Gastronomica Interview with Chef Rob Connoley

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, guest hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Melissa Fuster. Historian Amy Bentley returns to the show to discuss the politics of food and nutrition. She traces how the Reagan administration 40 years ago shifted (deliberately or inadvertently) the classification of ketchup from a condiment to a vegetable in an effort to overhaul national school lunch programs and cut government costs, a move that disproportionately affected the health of lower-income children.Photo courtesy of Amy Bentley.Meant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast.

Ketchup as a Vegetable: Condiments and the Politics of School Lunch in Reagan’s America

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, guest hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Jessica Carbone. Alexis Agliano Sanborn explores how Japan's school lunch programs connected people and supported communities in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Highlighting civil-society initiatives, she shows how school lunch programs were a source of resiliency in local food supply and distribution networks.Photo courtesy of Alexis Agliano Sanborn.Meant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast.

Lunch Interrupted! COVID-19 and Japan’s School Meals

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, guest hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Krishnendu Ray. Historians Michelle T. King and Wendy Jia-Chen Fu discuss the stigmatization of Chinese food and eating habits in Anglophone media coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. They weigh in on common questions surrounding wet markets and the wildlife trade in Chinese food systems, dispel misinformation, and share ways to both combat negative stereotypes about Chinese food and support Chinese American communities in the United States.Photo courtesy of Michelle T. King.Meant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast.

Rumor, Chinese Diets, and COVID-19: Questions and Answers about Chinese Food and Eating Habits

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies , guest hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Jaclyn Rohel. Alyshia Gálvez explores the work of transnational food couriers known as paqueteros and paqueteras. These informal grassroots entrepreneurs connect people and places across international borders through the delivery of goods, care packages, and specialty and traditional foods. Drawing on ethnographic research of micro-local foodways in Mexico (Puebla) and the United States (New York) and the connections between them, Gálvez discusses how informal food couriers humanize an increasingly industrialized food system in the post-NAFTA landscape.Photo courtesy of Alyshia Gálvez.Meant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast.

Paqueteros and Paqueteras: Humanizing a Dehumanized Food System

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies , guest hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Bob Valgenti. Bryan Dale and Jo Sharma share a COVID-19 dispatch from Toronto, Canada. They discuss how their project "Feeding the City, Pandemic and Beyond" has developed a model of public scholarship that documents food system experiences, community challenges and local resilience. By engaging grassroots voices, from farmers and urban growers to school food advocates, market provisioners and other local stakeholders, they highlight actions toward sustainable food solutions for building a socially just and resilient global city. https://feedingcity.org/Photo courtesy of Bryan Dale and Jayeeta Sharma.Meant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast.

Feeding the City, Pandemic and Beyond

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, guest hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Daniel Bender. John Broadway problematizes how a global restaurant ranking system produced an irony in haute cuisine in the years prior to the pandemic: elite, hypermobile customers travelling the world to eat hyperlocal food in celebrated restaurants. Commenting on restaurant rankings, access and exclusivity, he positions this phenomenon in light of staggering inequality in contemporary food systems.Photo Courtesy of John BroadwayMeant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast. 

Around the World in 50 Restaurants: The Curious Irony of Hyperlocal Food

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies , guest hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Lisa Haushofer. Adrienne Bitar investigates the many miracle food cures for COVID-19 that continue to circulate on social media, drawing from her piece that appears in the current issue’s Dispatches section. By analyzing the so-called Israeli lemon baking soda tea and Yoruba pepper stew miracle cures, she explores the changing role of authority, food, and new media during this pandemic. Meant To Be Eaten is powered by Simplecast.`

Decoding Miracle Food Cures for COVID-19

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, guest hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Melissa Fuster. John Gifford discusses salmon and sustainability, drawing from his piece that appears in the current issue’s section on “Working with Ingredients.” Taking us to the waters off the coast of Vancouver Island, he explores the environmental effects of aquaculture, which is growing to meet global demands for fish. He then looks to Lake Michigan, to offer an alternative model of fishing that is both sustainable and in harmony with Indigenous culture.Photo Courtesy of John GiffordHeritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Meant to be Eaten by becoming a member!Meant to be Eaten is Powered by Simplecast

Salmon on the Table

Meant to be Eaten looks at cross-cultural exchange in food and contemporary media. What determines “authenticity”? What, if anything, gets lost in translation when cooking foods from another’s culture? First-generation Chinese host, Coral Lee, looks at how American culture figures forth in less-than mainstream ways, in less-than expected places.