Bring Two Things: An Intro To Food & Pop Culture

One of the classes I’m taking this semester in school is an English course entitled, “Studies in Popular Culture.” I didn’t really even need to read the course description to know that it sounded like it was right up my alley. When I found out that 20% of our course grade would come from weekly blogs that we would right, I knew I was in the right place. Although I have started a new blog (per the professor’s request) — Eat. Blog. Eat. — which you can find here, I will be cross posting all the new entries here as well. Here’s the first of several. Enjoy.

While food is one of the basic essentials to all human life — indeed life in general — it is also so much more. Food is an incredible experience, especially when the right food is involved. In fact, I believe, if you can’t eat good food, what’s the purpose in eating at all?

Over the next few months, I’ll attempt to link popular culture and food together, hopefully in a intelligent, articulate, and thoughtful manner. Although this is a class assignment, and for a grade, I take no chance to talk about food for granted — you can ask anyone who knows me.

One of the greatest things about food is that it is meant to be shared. If you’ve ever eaten a meal alone, you know it’s just not the same. There’s no one to converse with, no one to dissect the deliciousness with, no one to get something different so you can test it out with , no one to moan with enjoyment with. It’s just not the same. At all.

One of the first ways I can think of where food and pop culture intersect is in their study. To study pop culture and to study food, in many ways, are to study very fluid things. They both change, grow, and progress in a myriad of ways. Chefs are constantly experimenting, trying new recipes and pushing the creative envelope. And pop culture changes about as often as the people who make it, love it, buy it, fuel it, and fund it, change their underwear. Perhaps not that quickly, but you get the picture — studying and loving food and pop culture requires a great degree of flexibility and adaptation.

The advantage of the fluidity we find in discussing both food and pop culture is that you never know what you might get on any given day. Writing about it (or, in your case, reading about it here) will be the same way. One day we might discuss how diets and cutting out certain types of foods from our diets reflects on our collective social identity, or we might debate whether or not food should be eaten for pleasure or strictly for purpose (you already know where I stand on that last question).

As you journey with me, on this discussion of food and pop culture, prepare for anything — especially the unexpected — and bring only two things. And open mind. And your appetite.