Applied Food Studies

Courses

APFS-110: Introduction to Food Systems

This course will help students to understand the connections between the kitchen and the rest of the world. It will provide them with the tools needed to select and source high quality, sustainable ingredients, and inspire them to explore and understand our food system. The focus will be on contemporary methods of food production, distribution, processing, marketing, purchasing, preparation, and waste management. These components will be examined from an environmental perspective with the objective of understanding the resource-intensive nature of the current food system and its impact on social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Particular emphasis will be placed on the contributions of restaurants to the climate crisis and their potential role in ameliorating its causes. It is hoped that through the experience of this course, students will contribute to food sustainability by practicing the responsible sourcing of ingredients.

APFS-150: Introduction to Gastronomy

An introduction to the social, historical, and cultural forces that have affected or will affect the way in which societies interact with food. Topics to be covered include: comparative foodways, the physiological process of tasting, agriculture and ethics, and terroir. The second half of the class centers on the history of French and American haute cuisine, and how cuisines change in response to technological developments, global events, and shifting cultural attitudes and beliefs toward food and eating.

APFS-155: Gastronomy

This course is a study of the social, historical, and cultural forces that have affected or will affect the way in which society interacts with food. Topics include the development of the culture around food in society; preference, aversion, and identity in food; taste; terroir; and food politics. Students will complete several written assignments and a research project.

APFS-200: Applied Food Studies

This course is designed to introduce students to foundational issues and contemporary concerns in food studies, an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary field that explores the social, cultural, historical, and political aspects of food and eating.  Food studies theories and concepts will be put into practice through the readings, course exercises, and research practice. The readings and assignments are designed to develop and hone the skills of critical thinking, problem solving, and inquiry and analysis that are the hallmarks of a classic liberal arts education, and also necessary for engaged participation as a global citizen of the 21st century. By the end of class, students will be better prepared to find and evaluate information, ask smart questions, and articulate clear, nuanced arguments about food and its relationship and value to our lives.

APFS-210: Food Ethics

The course teaches students the language and theories of philosophical ethics with the aim of generating productive dialogue about the ethical dilemmas that arise within our food systems. These dilemmas include debates over animal farming and meat consumption; food access and justice; labor practices in the food industry; the use of AI and technology in the food industry; genetic modification of crops and animals; cultured meat; environmental sustainability in the food industry; questions of authenticity and cultural appropriation, etc. The course will utilize an issues-based approach that allows students to explore a range of relevant ethical dilemmas. The goal is to foster active dialogue and debate through thought-experiments and modeling-rather than winning ethical arguments, students will be tasked with finding consensus and proposing ethically-informed actions to address ethical dilemmas at global, local, and personal levels.

APFS-305: Building Sustainable Food Communities: Theory and Practice

This course introduces students to civic engagement and learning by combining a semester-long internship at an organization focused on community building and empowerment in the field of food, with a survey of the academic literature on some of the important alternative modes of organization beyond the standard capitalist model. We will examine community-based organizations, the non-profit sector, cooperatives, and benefit corporations. Our analysis will include both an examination of the societal benefits of the alternatives to neoliberal capitalist organization and a critique of the individual alternatives. Students will have the opportunity to apply classroom content to the experience of working in the community, and vice versa.

APFS-310: Food History

Cuisines are like history; they begin as raw ingredients and raw "facts," and it is the human hand and mind that create them and give them meaning. This class is designed to serve three purposes: first, it is a broad survey of particular moments of change with political, economic, technological, and cultural shifts that impact food. Second, it is a survey of historiography (the practice of historical discipline) by considering the role of theory and methods within the field. Third, we will ruminate on culinary history, meaning how dishes themselves change, as well as how they are made, how they are eaten, and how they are valued. With all of this taken together, students will gain greater understanding of the cultural construction of food and history, by taking not only food and "facts," but also how these "truths" are contested and interpreted by people to give meaning to both the past and the present. These topics are weighty and complicated, certainly, and it would be a disservice to attempt to cover them all from the dawn of civilization to the present, and spanning across the globe. As such, we will concentrate largely on the west, but consider global perspectives as points of comparison.

APFS-320: Ecology of Food

This course will look at the food system in a way that takes into account the social, economic, political, environmental, and cultural impacts of food on our lives as citizens. Essentially, it connects individuals to their food in terms of how it is grown, produced, marketed and its consequences on society, be it positive, negative or a little of both.

APFS-400: Project in Applied Food Studies

This course will require students to synthesize and apply knowledge gained in previous food studies courses to create a scholarly experiential research project that will result in a substantial and lasting contribution to the Applied Food Studies program and The Culinary Institute of America. Areas of research can span the many disciplines and fields of study included in food studies, including but not limited to local food systems, sustainability, food insecurity, and food culture. Experiential research can include local food aid organizations,
educational opportunities in local schools, and explorations of local agriculture.

APFS-420: Food Policy

The landscape of food policy is shaped in a highly contested environment in which actors from government, industry, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and international organizations all exert influence. This course will examine the role these actors play in the disputed environment that shapes food policy in both rich and poor countries. We will review the influence of agribusiness, social movements (food activists), NGOs, state actors, and intergovernmental actors. The course uses an interdisciplinary approach utilizing resources from several academic disciplines including political science, economics, sociology, law, and anthropology; but emphasis will be on the political economy of food-understanding the power of dynamics that underlie both food and farming policy in domestic and international context.