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Pomona College Magazine is published three times a year by Pomona College
550 N. College Ave, Claremont, CA 91711
Online Editor: Mark Kendall
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Editor: Mark Wood
Phone: (909) 621-8158
Fax: (909) 621-8203
PCM Editorial Guidelines
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Phone: (909) 621-8635
Fax: (909) 621-8535
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Mind Food
Inside a first-year seminar: the culture
of food
By Jill Walker Robinson
And when he took a
kind of scimitar from the wall and with four
samurai passes transformed an insignificant
lettuce into a hearty salad, my knees buckled
and my head swam with lewd images. That
still happens a lot. It has kept our relationship
at a constant simmer.
When Chilean author Isabel Allende
wrote of her love affair with her husband’s
culinary skills in “Cooking in the Nude”
from Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses, the
words conjured steam off the pages—“There
are few virtues a man can possess more erotic”—
and the classroom discussion ignited.
 “When a man decides to cook, he kind of
lowers himself. He threatens his masculinity,”
said Catherine Cu ’09 of Hillsborough,
Calif., adding that she would be impressed
by a man who cooked a meal for her. She
wouldn’t care whether it turned out well.
“A man cooking for her (Allende) is victory
for her,” said Daniel Scinto ’09 of Santa Ana, Calif. “She’s finally
overcome domesticity. … A surprise for me would be a girl who could cook
because I know a lot of girls who can’t cook.”
The reading was one of many digested by the 15 students in the
first-year seminar
titled Food: A Course, taught by Assistant Professor of
Mathematics Ghassan Sarkis in fall 2005, cooking up discussions
on gender roles, socio-economics, cannibalism, fasting, oysters,
fast foods, obesity, cookbooks, food flavoring, food as expression,
and many other topics.
Michael Oster ’09 of Brookline, Mass., said, “(Cooking is)
still viewed as a very female thing,” and others—male and
female students in the class—agreed. Even Scinto admitted: “I
can’t stand being in the kitchen, but I know how to grill 25
things.” All the men in the class had fired up the grill, but only
a few of the women.
“The kitchen is for women, but the grill is manly,” said
Amanda Reider ’09 of Westlake Village, Calif.
Even with the evolving roles of women in society and the
technology that has revolutionalized the kitchen, gender stereotypes
held true in the lives of this group of mostly 18 year olds.
What quickly surfaced in the seminar was that food was a
universal language, something everyone had a personal experience
with, regardless of their involvement in its preparation.
Though their opinions were specific to their backgrounds and
often their culture, everyone shared in the common ritual of eating.
The entire class was made up of omnivores—no vegetarians,
according to a class survey.
Scinto admitted, “I don’t really know much about food.”
Oster talked of missing his meals alone at home, warmed in the
microwave, because he no longer had time to read the daily
newspaper. But most students talked of meals being a time to
get together with their families, and now at college with
friends—a communal time.
“As corny as it sounds, my mom always tells me I like the
food so much because she makes it with love,” said Carlos Almanza ’09 of Southgate, Calif. This sentiment was echoed in
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, as the fictional
cook’s emotions poured into her creations, causing diners to feel
her happiness or sorrow. “Not only in this book, but with my
mom,” said Almanza, who noticed his mom’s sauces were thinner
when things were not right at home. “If I get her pissed,
the food doesn’t come out right.”
 Food served as a connection—whether to emotions, to
people or to heritage.
“I’m very far way from home,” said Victoria Tan ’09 of
Singapore. “Every time I think of home, I think of food. ...
When people think of their culture, one of the main things they
bring up is food.”
For some, that meant more stereotypes.
Diana Chen ’09 of Cerritos, Calif., said her Chinese roots
have spurred comments like: “You’re so lucky, you can eat fried
rice every day.” She doesn’t. On the other hand, Almanza, who
is of Mexican descent, said he didn’t mind being pegged,
“People assume I eat rice and beans every day, and, damn it, I
do. That’s why I like being who I am.”
America has always had a love-hate relationship with its melting
pot existence.
To forsake one’s home cuisine in favor of plain American food
became a badge of the “assimilation” which qualified immigrants
for citizenship. In 1929 dining car franchisees on the Santa Fe
Railroad’s crack California Limited line found, when framing
their menus, that “Small Tenderloin, mushrooms” hugely outsold
“Filet Mignon, champignons.” The dishes were identical.
In another of the course’s reading assignments, Near a
Thousand Tables: A History of Food, Felipe Fernández-Armesto
detailed how transportation, war and economics moved foods
around the world, blurring cultural boundaries.
“Immigrants have not only exposed people to new foods,
they have also been exposed to new foods themselves,” wrote
Akana Noto ’09 of Chicago in an assigned essay. “The African
slaves who were brought to America brought some of the food
traditionally thought of as ‘soul food’ with them from Africa.
However, other aspects of soul food, such as hominy grits and
cornbread, were adopted once the slaves arrived in America.”
The Columbian Exchange transported foods from the New
World to the Old World and back.
It is difficult to think of Italian food without tomatoes, an
import from the New World, or the plains of the Midwest without
wheat, which was originally from the Old World.
Fernández-Armesto filled the pages with tales of traveling
foods incorporated into native dishes and today’s preference for
“fusion” cuisine—foods that have become a goulash of ethnic
varieties—and “international” cuisine.
To borrow from “Ethnic Foods in Contemporary Cuisine in
America” by Oster, “America’s cuisine is not its own. … The
present trend in American food is, ironically, the shift toward
many culturally un-American dishes.” Even the fast-food chains
have caught on: “Taco Bell has the Burrito Especial, McDonalds
has the Fruit ‘n Yogurt Parfait and Burger King has the Dutch
Apple Pie,” Oster wrote.
Indeed, to delight in the dishes of another’s cuisine tendered
a taste into their world.
Because food studies has been an emerging field academically, Sarkis explained to the class: “We’re walking a new path.” There
was no textbook for the course. Instead, Sarkis pieced together a
banquet of historical readings, articles and books by famous
food writers and noteworthy essays to whet the palette. “We
really can’t do anything but sample the surface,” he said.
M.F.K. Fisher was considered the trailblazer in the late 1930s
when she celebrated the senses and wrote about food as a way of
sharing the story of her life, savoring the places she had been
and the people she encountered along the way.
In her foreword of her autobiographical The Gastronomical
Me, Fisher wrote:
People ask me: Why do you write about food, and eating and
drinking? Why don’t you write about the struggle for power and
security, and about love, the way others do?
They ask it accusingly, as if I were somehow gross, unfaithful to
the honor of my craft.
The easiest answer is to say that, like most
other humans, I am hungry. But there is
more than that. It seems to me that our
three basic needs, for food and security and
love, are so mixed and mingled and
entwined that we cannot straightly
think of one without the others. So it
happens that when I write of hunger, I
am really writing about love and the
hunger for it, and warmth and the love
of it and the hunger for it … and then
the warmth and richness and fine
reality of hunger satisfied … and it
is all one.”
Fisher led the way for food writers
who embraced life, recalling the foods
they ate. Many, like Esquivel, were so
passionate about their meals that they
offered recipes to readers. Like photographs,
the favored dish conjured up
aromas that brought the place, the
memory, the time alive.
Raised by a mother who taught
him the value of home-cooked meals, Almanza said: “Though it doesn’t last
physically, you can keep that moment
with you for a lifetime. Not only the
look but the smell goes into the cerebrum.
It really means something to
you. When you smell it again or see it
again, it becomes reminiscent.”
In Comfort Me with Apples: More
Adventures at the Table, food writer Ruth Reichl described one
night’s dinner as a dance.
Colman and Monsieur Terrail were moving in perfect time to the music,
and I floated along between them as they dipped and swayed. What would
we drink with the foie gras frais? Colman thought perhaps a Meursault,
an older one. Ah yes, Monsieur Terrail was in perfect agreement …
The foie gras was molten velvet in my mouth, and when I took a sip of
wine the flavor became even more intense, richer and rounder than it
already was.
Chen posed the question: “How much do you think we
judge new places by their food?”
Though food writers often turned to their palettes to recount
their memories, students had mixed feelings. Savoring the food
didn’t mean they relished the place, and vice versa.
Hannah Dietterich ’09 of Corvallis, Ore., said, “I really liked
England but I really didn’t like their food at all.” Ciera Divens
’09 of Whittier, Calif., recalled being bored at a casino “but I
remember the buffet.”
Oster, on the other hand, remembered the meal at Disneyland
in the eighth-grade but not the rides. Said Oster: “I can
remember meals I ate and places I ate them but not so much
the experience associated with the food.”
“It’s the experience that’s more valuable
than taste,” said Chen.
No future food writers here.
From Ghassan Sarkis
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Tilapia Steamed in Grape Leaves
For the paste:
1 roma tomato
1 medium shallot
3 garlic cloves
½ teaspoon allspice
1 tablespoon pomegranate syrup
1 tablespoon olive oil
For the fish:
4 tilapia fillets (about 1 pound)
15-20 grape leaves
For the couscous:
1 cup couscous
1 medium onion
2 tablespoons pine nuts
1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Paste: Dice shallots and mince
garlic. Cook the shallots with some salt in 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a nonstick pan over medium heat for two minutes. Add the garlic and saute for another minute. Add the tomatoes and allspice; salt to taste. Cook until the tomatoes give up their juices and thicken, about 5-10 minutes. Add the pomegranate syrup. For a smooth paste, run the mixture in a food processor until blended. Return to the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes longer, stirring constantly. Let the paste cool.
Couscous: Boil water. Cut onion into thin slivers. Heat 1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil in a 2-quart saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion with some salt to taste. Stirring often, cook until the onions start to caramelize. Add the pine nuts and toast for another minute. Add the couscous, salt to taste, and a tablespoon of butter. Continue to stir frequently until the butter melts and the couscous absorbs the oil, around 2-3 minutes. Turn off the heat, add 1 cup of boiling water (or more if the couscous directions so dictate), stir and cover for 5 minutes. Fluff the couscous with a fork and add more salt if needed.
Fish: Ready vegetable steamer, with water at the bottom. If your grape leaves came in a jar, rinse off the brine; if fresh, blanch them for 1-2 minutes, until they soften and darken in color but not mood. Cut off any stems. Lay the grape leaves vein-side up, 3-5 at a time, on a flat surface to form a megasheet large enough to receive the fish. Salt the fish and place in the center of the grape leaves. Spread ¼ of the paste mixture on top. Wrap with the grape leaves. With the water boiling, carefully layer the fish on the steamer. Don’t overcrowd the school. Cover and cook for about 7 minutes. The fish can be eaten with or without the grape leaves. Serve with a herby salad or with a cucumber-mint-yogurt tzatziki. |
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