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Sage Encyclopedia of Food Issues
Ken Albala
The SAGE Encyclopedia of Food Issues explores the topic of food across multiple disciplines within the social sciences and related areas including business, consumerism, marketing, and environmentalism. In contrast to the existing reference works on the topic of food that tend to fall into the categories of cultural perspectives, this carefully balanced academic encyclopedia focuses on social and policy aspects of food production, safety, regulation, labeling, marketing, distribution, and consumption. A sampling of general topic areas covered includes Agriculture, Labor, Food Processing, Marketing and Advertising, Trade and Distribution, Retail and Shopping, Consumption, Food Ideologies, Food in Popular Media, Food Safety, Environment, Health, Government Policy, and Hunger and Poverty. This encyclopedia introduces students to the fascinating, and at times contentious, and ever-so-vital field involving food issues.
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Early Modern Food: Desire, Theory, and Innovation
Ken Albala and Molly Taylor-Poleskey
For the first event of the Renaissances Graduate Research Series, "Early Modern Food: Desire, Theory, and Innovation," Molly Taylor-Poleskey, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at Stanford, and Ken Albala, Professor of History and Director of Food Studies at the University of the Pacific, will discuss Taylor-Poleskey’s dissertation chapter: "Dietary Theory and Practice at the Court of Brandenburg-Prussia" in the light of Albala’s project: "Japanese Food in the Early Modern European Imagination."
Molly Taylor-Poleskey uses food to understand the cultural program that shaped the consolidation of Brandenburg-Prussia in the 17th century, and explores the intellectual climate at court where dietary theory developed in line with the interests and ambitions of the ruler. In her discussion with Professor Albala, she wishes to reflect on the shaping of identity through food in the shifting cultural landscape of the early modern period.
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Delta Narratives: Saving the Historical and Cultural Heritage of The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
Steve Boilard, Robert Benedetti, Margit Aramburu, Gregg Camfield, Philip Garone, Jennifer Helzer, Reuben Smith, William Swagerty, Marcia Eymann, Tod Ruhstaller, David Stuart, Leigh Johnsen, Dylan McDonald, Michael J. Wurtz, Blake Roberts, and Margo Lentz-Meyer
From August 2014 through July 2015, the Delta Narratives project, on contract to the Delta Protection Commission, addressed two questions. First, in what ways does the historical experience of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta contribute to an understanding of key themes in regional and American history? Second, how might Delta stories gain wider appreciation within the region, throughout Northern California, and among people in the rest of California and beyond?
Scholars on the project team documented ways the history of the Delta illustrates trends in land management and reclamation, technological shifts in transportation and agriculture, the impact of ethnicity and labor specialization on community building, and finally, the shifting visioning of America's promise and fall from grace by artists and writers in response to the intense cultivation of the Delta and the conditions which workers there endured. Their essays testify to the intrinsic value of Delta stories and to the additional perspectives they bring to regional and national history.
With these essays in hand, the project team investigated the current infrastructure for the preservation and dissemination of historical and cultural information in the Delta. It created a directory of institutions committed to promoting Delta stories. In order to stimulate conversations between these stakeholders, the team organized two workshops at which the scholars and archivists shared insights and invited commentary and conversation. Subsequently, with the support of the Center for California Studies at Sacramento State University, a conference entitled “More than H2O: Saving the History and Culture of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta” presented findings and discussed strategies with an audience of state and local stakeholders. Delta Narratives culminated with a conference organized around an American Assembly model. The conference generated a list of suggestions for further action regarding the recognition, preservation, and dissemination of Delta stories.
High on the list of initiatives were adequate mapping of historically significant locations, an organization that would draw together the many cultural and historical groups in the Delta toward common action, the initiation of annual Delta Days to celebrate the region, and the creation of educational materials including web applications (apps), and a website devoted to the region.
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A History of Ideas about Fermentation and Digestion
Ken Albala
While recent scientific study has begun to unravel the role of fermented foods in digestion and basic metabolic function, medical thought about the role of fermentation in physiology goes back about 450 years. Long before Pasteur and the identification of bacteria, and the more recent decoding of the DNA in the human gut biome, physicians long ago speculated on the processing and refinement of food as a kind of ferment and tentatively promoted what we would today call probiotics. This talk explores the ways we can appreciate not only bygone methods of food preservation but how people in the past believed fermented foods could preserve the human body in health.
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Back to the Kitchen: Escaping Processed Food
Ken Albala
To escape the adverse effects of consuming industrial processed food, society must learn fundamental cooking skills once more.
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