About

This blog is a collective and collaborative project that seeks to bring to the fore the role/significance of food in each of our lives, as well as to reflect on theories and examples of food as it relates to identity formation, memory, autobiography, gender, sexuality, race, class and ecology. As we set out on this project, we came to realize the complexity and scope of the relationship each of us have with food. We wanted this process to be creative and exploratory; therefore we chose not to impose limits. Our main priority is to highlight the reality that there is always cultural, political, and/or emotional meaning attached to what we eat; it is never just sustenance. The context in which we eat (who cooks our food, our company, where our food is produced, class/cultural implications, our sense of control over the context, etc) strongly shapes the way we relate to particular foods, food in general, to each other, and to ourselves. Food consumption, therefore, provides fertile ground for feminist discourse and the genre of life narrative. While food has the potential to be ‘fruitful’ in terms of serving as a vehicle to discuss our personal and collective histories/ experiences, it can also be a ‘sticky’ topic to navigate. Our affective relationships with food may elicit a range of feelings from discomfort, shame and anxiety to pleasure and positive nostalgia. Even though, as individuals, we may not wish to publicly disclose some of these more personal experiences, we do acknowledge the value in situating ourselves amidst these food-related politics, as well as the richness food can lend to our personal stories.