Food Changes: Eating as an (Agri)Cultural Act?

Food changes with how it’s grown, where, when, and by whom. Food also changes with the processes of being seeded, harvested, marketed, stored, fermented, cooked, talked about, and eaten. From flavors of local seasonings to the global effects of climate change on foraging and agricultural systems, this program invites recognition of the patterns whereby foodscapes and landscapes change, specifically patterns of how humans change and are changed by food. What can be learned when as hunter-gatherers who have become agritourists, we intentionally move through different landscapes while tasting culturally relevant foods? We’ll use observation and expressive arts to understand how language itself reflects the changes that inform and are informed by foods such as caviar, challah, and cocoa tea. We’ll engage with the cultural and ecological ingredients that shape and are shaped by, for example, banana bread, bonbons, and baloney.

With increasing intention and intensity we’ll move between viscerally experiencing how food changes in “real” places and reading about and watching food in climate fiction (e.g., Mbue’s How Beautiful We Were, Mongkolsiri’s Hunger, Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide, Joon Ho’s Parasite, Atwood’s MaddAddam, Simpson’s This Accident of Being Lost). Our case study approach may include these and others’ imaginings of food in literature and film as well as place-based learning during field trips. Why? As Wendell Berry puts it, “the circumstances, the place, knowing your place—is all-important. [T]here’s this thing I wrote, ‘Eating is an agricultural act,’ I’m so sorry about … By itself it’s baloney.” During group field trips and then student field studies we’ll ask where, when, why, and at what cost eating is knowable as an (agri)cultural act … and by whom.

Throughout winter and spring quarters, our movement between researching global food histories and hands-on learning in food labs and a weekly farm practicum will enable us to observe patterns whereby in the eating process food changes, changes the eater, and reflects changes in landscapes. For one week during winter quarter and for two weeks during spring quarter, students will be supported to design, engage in, and document field studies in locations of student choice through in-program individual learning contracts. 

Food Changes: Eating as an Agricultural Act? will collaborate with numerous community groups (e.g., SW WA Food Hub, WSU Ag Extension, Culinary Breeding Network), other campus programs, and campus events including the various Center for Climate Action and Sustainability (CSAS), Center for Entrepreneurial Learning and Transformational Learning (CELTC), Art Lecture Series. This program will be excellent preparation for students interested in the 2026-27 study abroad program Bittersweet: Cocoa and Permaculture in Trinidad.

Anticipated Credit Equivalencies:

Winter

4 - Climate Literature and Film

4 - Creative Writing: Food and Difference

4 - Cultural Studies in Food and Agriculture

4 - Farm Practicum: Winter

Spring

4 - Food in Literature and Film

4 - Multispecies Ethnography

4 - Field Studies in Food and Agriculture

4 - Farm Practicum: Spring