SPRING 2021
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From the Editor Have you seen that TikTok trend where people showcase their weirdest food combinations? One that has stuck explicitly in my mind is pickles and Nutella. Pickles. And. Nutella. What a strange mix of flavors, one of which I don’t think I would enjoy. However, I do appreciate the simplicity and complexity of it all. The acidity of the pickle cutting through the sweet and nutty flavor of the Nutella. Again, this doesn’t sound all that appealing to me, but emulsifying these two foods, on some level, makes sense.
edition highlights the tumultuous state we find ourselves in: one filled with food videos that we watch but can’t taste or smell, the food insecurities we build as we grow up, and the discourse that a single avocado can hold. The concept behind emulsifying is a paradoxical one. While the coming together can be beautiful and balanced, the journey is forced. As Nico highlights in the last piece of this edition, it is similar to the roads we find ourselves on in the walk of life with the fixed sets of routes we see beyond us.
Emulsification is defined as the dispersing of two or more immiscible liquids together to form a semistable mixture. In more abstract terms, the emulsification in this print edition represents the coming together of two or more cultures, beliefs, and values (and we can’t forget food) that wouldn’t typically work together. This
Looking forwards and backwards, I hope this edition brings nostalgia, hope, and a sense of belonging to those who are reading. Ngan Tran, Gusto Editor-in-Chief
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gusto team SPRING 2021 ISSUE 5
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Ngan Tran
MANAGING EDITOR
Sofia Frias
FEATURES EDITOR FEATURES ASSOCIATE EDITOR ESSAYS EDITOR
Lauren Rabbottini Jen Lozano Lauren Blaser
ESSAYS ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Gillian Mahoney
MUCHO GUSTO EDITOR
Valeria Gutierrez
MUCHO GUSTO ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Prashanti Kodali
HEAD CODY EDITOR
Anna Costantini
CREATIVE MANAGERS MEDIA AND MARKETING MANAGER MEDIA AND MARKETING ASSOCIATE CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
CONTRIBUTING CREATIVE MEDIA AND MARKETING TEAM COPY EDITORS
MEMBERS-AT-LARGE
Maia Rosenbaum, Eileen Shelton Jackie Geller Claire Spielmann Saamia Bukhari, Rishi Das, Maya Floreani, Karina Kavanagh, Astrid Langoe, Maggie Leahy, Emanuel Louime, Antonio Mata, Lilly Mathieu, Alicia Ross, Anju Sadasivam, Logan Soss, Allison Vuono, Mary Wilkie Emily Finn, Darby Kim, Jamie Kim, Brandon Portillo, Julie Vu Analida Duran, Eleni Krupinski, Hadley Middleton Gianinia DiDonato, Katie Giordano Bella Greene, Gabi Prostko, Annie Pugliese, Ashley Trotter Nico Borbolla, Beatriz Gras, Mary O’Boyle
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Table of Contents
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A Fusion of Faces: Behind the Walls of Eagles Nest
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Avocados: Agriculture and Aggression
Mary O’Boyle Sofia Frias
12 Fusion of Flavor
Valeria Gutierrez & Prashanti Kodali
16 Mystery Basket: College Kitchen Jen Lozano
19 Telling Food Stories Lauren Rabbottini
26 On Settling an Unsettling Relationship Lauren Blaser
30 Look, but Don’t Eat Gillian Mahoney
33 On Knife’s Edge Nico Borbolla
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FEATURE
A Fusion of Faces: Behind the Walls of the Eagles Nest
Words By: Mary O’Boyle Photos By: Eileen Shelton 4
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Plexiglass barriers and airtight masks separate you from the cashiers who ring up your chocolate chip muffins every morning, making their name tags impossible to read. Although the men and women of BC Dining sustain this campus, we forget all too easily—especially as our physical and social distance increase—just how integral they are to our daily lives. 3:00 a.m. As you stumble home from the library, John and Clint fire up the six-deck oven behind the double doors of the Eagles Nest. The giant machine slowly climbs to the 325 degrees that make it the warm heart of the Boston College Bakery. As the sweet smell of sugar oozes out the second floor windows of McElroy Commons, John and Clint move about the bakery. After so many years of working together, they are effortlessly in tune with one another. Clint loads and unloads almost 100 dozen croissants, muffins, and Danish pastries from the oven while John starts mixing.
4:00 a.m. The whirring of mixers and the voice of Billy Joel cut through the silence of an otherwise dead campus. The other bakers stumble in, jumping immediately into the longestablished rhythm of transitioning from breakfast pastries to cookie preparation. John rolls vats of freshly mixed cookie dough over to Scott and Bill, who stand ready and waiting. They feed the dough through the ancient cookie machine, which spits out perfectly portioned discs on the other side. Scott wheels the racks of dough into the walk-in refrigerator where they chill before baking. 6:15 a.m. The first pickup for distribution across campus comes precisely at 6:30 a.m., which makes for a mad dash to bake, cool, and package the thousands of freshly-baked products on time. Clint gives the chocolate croissants a quick
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chocolate drizzle and the apple fritters a fresh coat of icing. As the racks are wheeled out of the bakery, the aroma is enough to get anyone out of bed at this ungodly hour. Few, however, are there to enjoy it. Athletes and early-risers are the only students you might see at this hour. As they rush off to practice or the library, they don’t even notice the sweetened air outside of Mac. 8:00 a.m. Maybe by this time your first alarm goes off. You hit the snooze button, fully intending to get out of bed on the second alarm. Or maybe the third. Definitely the fourth at the latest. For the ovens, mixers, and bakers, the day is already halfway over. As the dining halls only just open, the bakery team takes its lunch break. For the first time since 3 o’clock in the morning, the machinery, radio, and half-asleep employees fall quiet. The silence is unnatural. 9:00 a.m. After the breakfast items and cookies are all set and shipped, John gets ready to mix a 50-pound batch of chocolate cake. Bill papers 14 dozen giant cupcake pans and greases 35 10-inch layer pans in anticipation. The cart of precariously stacked cake pans makes its way over to the oven master, Clint. At this point, the oven shelves have rotated an unimaginable number of pastries for 5 hours. Each tray of baked goods across campus offers a small glimpse into what the bakery produces daily. 9:34 a.m. After a prolonged internal debate, you pick up a chocolate chip muffin on your way to the 10 a.m. class that you considered skipping. The muffin will get you through this “early” morning.
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10:30 a.m
12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
When Scott isn’t weighing out batter, he is decorating one of dozens of specialty cakes. Even in the midst of a pandemic, birthdays and holidays still warrant celebrating. Elizabeth adds a personal touch to finish off bite-sized cheesecakes, tartlets, and flourless chocolate cakes for the Faculty Dining Room. Head Pastry Chef Tim experiments with chocolate and almond financiers in the hopes that VIP events will restart soon. Everyone is locked into their own task, and the bakery team dances around one another, each anticipating what moves will come next.
The first bakers to arrive are the first to leave, finishing their day before some students even begin. A few of them hang on a bit longer, prepping for another day of chaotic energy to match the last. The fully-risen sun is a welcome contrast to the darkness that colored the bakers’ walk to campus that morning. In the midst of the hustle to your next class, you and your chocolate chip muffin surely pass the bakers on their way home. While they don’t stand out among the crowd, they surely don’t blend in completely. You may still have a whole day ahead of you, but the bakers of the Boston College Bakery already have a whole day behind them.
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ESSAY
Avocados:
Agriculture and Aggression Words By: Sofia Frias Graphics By: Jamie Kim
Food and violence. One sustains life; the other preludes death. The avocado is a symbol of fertility, a sign of life. It nourishes the body. It breathes life into economic systems, prompting billions of dollars in yearly Mexican exports. It is the foundation for the livelihood of tens of thousands of Mexican farmers. 20 years ago, each American ate about two pounds of avocados per year. In 2018, yearly consumption skyrocketed to 7.2 pounds. In the past, farmers in California have produced a considerable harvest of avocados, but the recent explosion in demand has shown that consumers want more avocados year round. As temperatures in San Diego drop in the winter months and water sources have become unreliable, we’ve turned to our southern neighbors for a stable supply of avocados 365 days a year. The Michoacán State is home to 92% of Mexican production of the popular fruit. The rising call for the avocado has created a profitable industry, bringing economic relief to people once living in poverty.
Men in kevlar vests defend the coveted orchard land, armed with rifles in preparation for violent exchanges of bullets. The Michoacán state has become a target region for organized crime. Known commonly as “green gold,” drug cartels have taken extreme interest in avocado crop profit. Instead of mass-producing crystal meth, heroin, and marijuana, cartels are growing fruit. While this may appear to diffuse organized crime, the cartels’ seizure of the avocado industry threatens the quality of life of Mexican civilians. The dangers stem from the avocado industry’s comparatively low point of entry. Illegal drug trade involves smuggling large amounts of harmful and highly addictive substances across international borders. Drug traffickers operate under pressure from the DEA, Customs, and Border Patrol. The business is high risk and high reward, as substance abuse and addiction guarantees demand. Growth of avocados requires land, proper conditions, and a significant amount of labor. This, in comparison to the production and transport of narcotics, appears to be relatively accessible. The production of
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Food and violence form an unlikely pair, but the pursuit of money and power emulsify the two. Is the avocado I just purchased a symbol of life, or does it mark the danger of the current situation in Mexico? These issues, once fully independent of each other, are now inseparable.
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avocados doesn’t need to be done in secrecy or under the scrutiny of government organizations. These operations are low risk and high reward, and there’s nothing indicating a foreseeable drop in demand for avocados. Both of these factors make the cartels’ monopolization of avocado production especially threatening. Dozens of organizations are battling for control of the market, but one of the most dominant is the Viagras Cartel. The Viagras were once allied with the Mexican government, and joined cartel resistance groups funded by the Mexican state to protect themselves from punishment. After disbanding the operations of notorious crime lords, the Mexican Government changed their stance on their relations with vigilante defense groups (such as the Viagras), declaring their actions illegal. Once these groups shifted underground, they felt abandoned by the officials that previously supported them. Illegal drug trade
operations revived themselves, and their previous government relationships maintained close ties to local police forces. The revival of criminal activity conveniently occurred at the same time as America’s avocado obsession. As major cartels separated, smaller ones emerged, and they attempted to make money wherever possible. They targeted local, vulnerable populations with access to avocado crop. Cartels battle for control of civilian land. The Viagras forced residents of Uruapan to pay members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel $250 per hectare in “protection fees,” for their avocado orchards. When residents resisted, the cartel stormed the area, initiating several hours of near-deadly gunfire. In addition to initiating violence, the cartels are targeting residents’ means to life as they monopolize their land, water, and forests. Climbing trees to pick avocados is steady work, paying around $60 per day, but cartel members force teams of avocado-pickers to work for free, with guns trained on them as they scale trees. Cartels hijack
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trucks loaded with crates of fruit, and refusal to comply puts employees’ lives at risk. Entire packing plants have been burned down, and cartels have gone so far as to kidnap the children of prominent business leaders. On all levels, the avocado business has become increasingly dangerous to workers’ wages and lives. The Mexican Government has done little to solve the problem, despite the demand for action. As the main consumers of Mexican avocados, Americans must take action to address cartels’ participation in avocado agriculture. At first glance, boycotting the avocado seems like a simple fix, but ridding many Mexican families of their main source of income would create another problem. If the demand for avocados were to drop, the cartels would notice the decrease in value in the market, and seek another source of income. While this could potentially decrease direct violence between cartels and farmers, those who live off of avocados would be left with no work. Owners of farms would be left with a surplus of avocados that would not be sold. If this
hypothetical boycott were to end and the demand for avocados were to rise again, the cartels would be able to easily regain control over the industry. The best way for consumers to directly discourage the control of the avocado industry is to buy Fairtrade certified produce. Fairtrade avocados are marked with Equal Exchange stickers, which guarantee that they are grown and packaged by collectives that operate outside the cartels. While slightly more expensive, choosing Fairtrade produce guarantees that all employees receive a standard minimum wage and premium pay that they can reinvest into their communities. Food and violence form an unlikely pair, but the pursuit of money and power emulsify the two. Does the avocado lose its symbolic strength for life when we consider its current role as the driving force of certain deadly interactions? These issues, once fully independent of each other, are now inseparable.
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RECIPES
Fusion of Flavor “Fusion” describes the merging of distinct elements to create a unified whole. Fusion cuisine combines aspects of contrasting culinary traditions from different countries, regions, or subcultures to produce something entirely new. Not belonging to one particular cuisine, these recipes innovatively fuse different flavors and culinary techniques together into unique dishes. Our Asian Street Fries combine an infamous French snack, fries, with the classic flavors of East Asian cuisine—soy sauce, sesame seeds, and sambal oelek, among others. The chicken tandoori tacos masterfully integrate two distinct yet complementary dishes from two vastly different cultures. The Indian spices pair well with the cooling yogurt sauce and refreshing “salsa.” These distinct flavors are enveloped by a tortilla, which embodies the dish’s Mexican heritage and introduces a wonderful textural contrast. The tahini blondies expertly incorporate a Middle Eastern and Meditteranean ground sesame seed paste into a delicious American dessert. The tahini adds a richness and nutty taste, complementing the brown sugar in the blondies. Finally, the Jamaican Sorrel (Hibiscus) Moscow Mule combines hibiscus, an edible flower commonly used in West African and Caribbean cuisines, with a classic American drink, the Moscow Mule.
Jamaican Sorrel (Hibiscus) Moscow Mule Ingredients: Hibiscus Syrup ½ cup granulated sugar ½ cup water ¼ cup dried hibiscus flowers Moscow Mule ¼ cup ginger beer 3 tablespoons vodka ¼ cup hibiscus syrup 1-2 tablespoons lemon juice 2 lemon slices
Instructions:
Begin by making the hibiscus syrup. Combine the sugar, water, and hibiscus flowers together in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves. Remove the mixture from heat and allow it to cool. Once cool, strain the mixture to remove the hibiscus flowers and pour into a container and place in the refrigerator until ready to serve. Once ready to serve, add the ginger beer, vodka, hibiscus syrup, and lemon juice to a small bowl or cocktail shaker. Shake or whisk the mixture, then pour into an ice-filled glass. Garnish with lemon slices. Cheers! Recipe adapted from Hibiscus Moscow Mule
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Asian Street Fries
Ingredients: Fries 4 russet potatoes, cut into ¼ to ½ inch slices 2 quarts (64 ounces) canola oil Salt and pepper to taste Sauce 2 tablespoons sambal oelek 3 tablespoons rice vinegar 1 tablespoon white vinegar 1 tablespoon granulated sugar 3 green onions, finely chopped 1 ½ teaspoons soy sauce 1 teaspoon garlic, minced ½ teaspoon ginger, minced Garnish 1 teaspoon sesame seeds, toasted 1 green onion, finely chopped Yields 6 Servings
Instructions:
Begin by submerging the potato slices into a large bowl filled with iced water for about 30 minutes. This necessary step removes the excess starch from the potato wedges. While the potatoes soak, prepare the sauce. Combine the sauce ingredients in a pan over medium heat and cook until the mixture begins to boil. Let the sauce simmer until it reduces by half. Heat a heavy-bottomed pot with the oil until it reaches about 325 °F. Remove potatoes from water and pat dry. Carefully add two handfuls of potato slices to the hot oil, and cook for 5 to 7 minutes. Remove using a slotted spoon and place on a rack to remove excess oil. Repeat this with the remaining potato slices until all of them are par-cooked. Then, heat the oil to 350°F. Add two handfuls of par-cooked potato slices, and cook for two more minutes, or until golden brown. Use a slotted spoon to remove the potatoes from the oil, and shake off excess oil before transferring into a serving bowl. Repeat this method until all potatoes are fully fried. Season the potatoes with salt and pepper. Before serving, drizzle the sauce over the fries and garnish with sesame seeds and green onions. Recipe adapted from Guy Fieri’s Asian Street Fries
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Chicken Tandoori Tacos Ingredients: 6 mini tortilla taco shells Chicken 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces 2-3 tablespoons tandoori spice blend 2 tablespoons plain yogurt ½ tablespoon lemon juice 3-4 tablespoons vegetable oil Salt to taste Yogurt Sauce ½ cup plain yogurt ½ yellow onion, finely chopped ½ cucumber, shredded Cilantro or mint, finely chopped Salt and pepper to taste Cucumber and Tomato “Salsa” ½ cucumber, diced 1 tomato, diced 1 tablespoon lemon juice Cilantro, finely chopped Salt and pepper to taste Additional Toppings Romaine or iceberg lettuce, shredded Cilantro
Instructions:: Begin by marinating the chicken. Add the tandoori spice blend and lemon juice to the yogurt in a large bowl and mix until well combined. Add the chicken pieces to the marinade and mix, ensuring that every piece of chicken is coated. Let the chicken marinate for at least two hours, preferably overnight. Before cooking the chicken, prepare the toppings. To make the cucumber and tomato salsa, mix the cucumbers, tomatoes, lemon juice, and cilantro together in a bowl. Add salt and pepper as needed. To make the yogurt sauce, add the onion, shredded cucumber, and mint or cilantro to the yogurt in a mixing bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste and mix until well combined. Half an hour before serving the tacos, cook the chicken. Heat one tablespoon vegetable oil on medium-high heat. When the oil begins to sizzle, add a few pieces of the chicken to the pan. Cook each side for around 2 to 3 minutes, or until lightly charred. Repeat this step until all chicken pieces are cooked, replacing the oil each time. The cooking time will vary depending on the size of your chicken pieces. Now, it’s time to assemble the tacos! Heat the tortillas on mediumhigh heat for roughly 30 seconds on each side. Add a few chicken pieces, a spoonful of the yogurt sauce, a little bit of the salsa, and some shredded lettuce to the tortillas. Feel free to add as much or as little of each or to add additional toppings, like shredded cheese or carrots. Enjoy! Recipe adapted from Tandoori Chicken Tacos with Cilantro Cole Slaw
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Tahini Blondies
Instructions::
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 8-inch square pan. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, pepper, and sesame seeds until thoroughly combined. In a different medium-sized bowl, whisk the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until smooth. Using a spatula, fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until well incorporated. Then, fold in the tahini paste until the mixture is smooth. Pour the batter into the greased pan and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes or until the edges are golden and the center does not jiggle. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Once cool, cut into equal squares and serve.
Ingredients: ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour ¾ teaspoon baking powder ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon ½ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper 4 tablespoons white sesame seeds, toasted 1 ¼ cups light brown sugar 2 large eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract ½ cup tahini paste
Recipe adapted from Chewy Tahini Blondies
Words By: Valeria Gutierrez & Prashanti Kodali Photos By: Eileen Shelton & Ngan Tran 15
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FEATURE
Mystery Basket: College Kitchen Words By: Jen Lozano Photos By: Eileen Shelton 16
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The broken lamp in the apartment casts a dim light, setting the scene. The warmth from the heater engulfs you as if it were a flame beneath a skillet. Your roommate’s alarm clock rings, mimicking the sound of a buzzer. As you begin to open your pantry in anticipation, you try to recall the last time you went to the grocery store. You’re immediately transported to the Chopped kitchen, ready to take on the mystery basket ingredients. You wish your fridge still had leftovers from Pino’s, knowing very well that you’ll have to rely on scraps left behind from last week’s groceries. The squeak of the door brings you back to the reality of living off-campus as a college student. A trip to Wegmans, StarMarket or Trader Joe’s is a sobering reminder that you can’t swipe for a Screamin’ Eagle at Lower. Still, doing groceries is a last minute task for the weekend. Students will rarely venture far to fill up their kitchens
unless the food situation is dire. Making conventional meals becomes its own task. As the inventory dwindles, students are left with a hodgepodge of ingredients. You’ll have to make do with your leftover ingredients. Ingredients alone are not a direct indicator of taste or quality, especially for a college student. And if you’ve ever had Late Night, you aren’t one to judge leftover meals too harshly. Chips and packaged cheese may not impress a Michelin star chef, but for Danielle Rinaldi, MCAS ‘21, that’s the basis for all she needs. Running low on food is not uncommon for her or any of her roommates. After waiting almost two weeks to go grocery shopping, it’s a game time decision as to what she can create. Naturally, she channels her memories of Lunchables to create what is now trademarked as “Garbage Nachos.” Takis, plain grape tomatoes, avocados...anything and everything left in her pantry will work. At this point,
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taste and quality are simply a matter of quenching hunger. For Danielle, as long as she has chips and cheese, it’s a go. Five stars for this creation. A scarce pantry becomes a canvas for creativity, bringing ingredients together that simply shouldn’t work, but somehow, they do. Standing in the middle of her nearly desolate kitchen, Mary Santalla, MCAS ‘22, reimagines stir fry. If she can’t afford an order from her favorite Asian take-out and has no time for groceries, she has to think outside the box. With a couple drops of soy sauce, the last packet of ramen, crunchy peanut butter from last semester, some rice, and leftover frozen broccoli, Thai Peanut Stir Fry is served. This unlikely combination plus a little imagination evokes memories of her favorite type of cuisine. She is one of many students that have mastered the art of creating a meal out of a random assortment of ingredients. In all of its uncertainties and flaws, a mystery basket meal delivers a limitless freedom for imagination. Just like students can major in Economics and Philosophy, they are free to combine ingredients, creating an unplanned meal. Because when you’re a hungry student, you aren’t looking to win an episode of Chopped or make an elaborate meal you saw on Instagram. You’re looking for sustenance—just enough until the next trek to the grocery store. Sure you could ask that freshman from your Appa group to swipe for your meal, but where is the fun in that? So, you work with what you have and who knows? You might just surprise yourself.
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FEATURE
Telling Food Stories The Impact of Food Documentaries 19
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With only five senses, each experience heavily utilizes just one or two, making different actions deeply associated with the dominant sense. From savoring the last bite of a homemade chocolate chip cookie requires the activation of your taste buds to watching a murder documentary that relies on your eyes and ears to stay open and alert. With distinct mediums utilizing such specific sensations, producing content that centers around taste but caters only to visual sensory experiences seems counterproductive and wildly uninteresting. Yet, documentaries about food and their success challenge that sentiment. Food documentaries provide people with the opportunity to learn about nutrition, new cuisines, and places. Although the consumption of film and television seems like a passive and casual endeavor, food documentaries—both travel and food-science documentaries—offer the unique opportunity to actively learn more about something that perpetually permeates our world. Films and short videos explaining an educational topic are frequently used to teach a particular topic or provide an example of an event. Documentaries infiltrate daily life consistently and have begun to do so at a higher rate, given the rise of accessible
digital cameras. “Camcorders and cell phones have also been used by activists, journalists, and citizens, as well as issue-driven documentary filmmakers. Popular and revolutionary movements around the world are being documented with digital video”, Nancy Kalow stated in a documentary studies course at Duke University. The increased production of documentaries has been met with increased consumption because of their ability to go beyond the expectation of educating and elicit an emotional response in the viewer. Because of the story-telling nature involved in documentaries, their impact on society is determined through unique and subjective perspectives. “I argue that an adequate model … must consider the role of films in the efforts of social movements to create and sustain alternative spheres of public discourse”, Amma Marfo states in a paper on the impact of documentaries. The applicable real-world nature of documentaries has the potential to elicit change on an individual level through the viewer’s experience. Documentaries’ ability to elicit emotional responses in viewers has been a stable aspect of the film industry, but audience’s access to media has
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dramatically shifted in the last twenty years since the introduction of the internet. Websites and streaming services have opened the door for more people to access niche information. Around two thirds of people said they consumed new information on food science, according to a recent study done by the Pew Research Center. This finding corresponds with the increased production of media; people are making more media than ever, so people who are not researchers have more access to new information on what they eat. Professor of media studies at Boston College, Anthony Tran, sees a direct correlation between the introduction of streaming media and food media production. “We have to create so much content, and I think people just found food,” Tran stated. The introduction of cable television in the early 2000s and then the introduction of streaming platforms in the late 2010s created the space for so much more content.
“We have to create so much content, and I think people just found food.” - Anthony Tran
Alongside the aforementioned rise in documentaries, food as the main subject of the media has risen as well. Yet this influx of food addressing food science and consumption may have little impact and poorly reflect food habits of Americans. Rebecca Franckle is a professor of public health at Boston College with research interests in nutrition, behavioral science, and social determinants of health. Although these documentaries may discuss important aspects of nutrition and food, many ignore factors like cultural, economic and environmental influences when discussing different diets, x said. “It is really really challenging to change what people eat,” Franckle also said. Communicating and educating people is not enough to elicit changes in their food habits because of many other social factors. If the films are only aimed at a less diverse audience who have higher socioeconomic statuses, Franckle does not think that documentaries cause any change in peoples’ diets at the population level but rather that they merely act as a vehicle for communicating food science information.
Words By: Lauren Rabbottini Photos By: Eileen Shelton & Ngan Tran
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“If you see that shift, there will be a trickle-down effect on the consumer, even if they were not interested in that documentary. You could actually see tangential effects on the population.” - Rebecca Franckle
However, these documentaries may have a large impact on the other side of food consumer culture: the food industry. Franckle said that just a small portion of the population consuming these specific food documentaries can shape the food industry and its landscape. As people change their behavior in a specific way, “the food industry is going to match that,” Franckle says, because of the supply and demand nature of the consumer and food industry relationship. “If you see that shift, there will be a trickle-down effect on the consumer, even if they were not interested in that documentary. You could actually see tangential effects on the population.” Impacts on an individual documentary viewer, therefore, could result in large changes at the business level, due to supply and demand. Super Size Me is a fantastic, albeit extreme, example of this individual behavior change on society. Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock documented his experience from eating only McDonalds food for thirty days. While his radical diet change was not done to shape individuals’ habits, the
aftermath of the documentary was monumental. McDonalds in the United States stopped selling its “supersize portions,” and sales in England decreased throughout the year following the film’s release. Aside from food science, people utilize food documentaries to “travel” to far off locations and explore local cuisines that may not be at the fingertips of viewers. Anthony Bourdain’s television show No Reservations functioned as a docuseries that featured a new location and new local cuisine each episode. As a chef and journalist dedicated to educating people on all aspects of the culinary experience, Bourdain created the blueprint for how travel food documentaries need to be produced to be successful in highlighting the food and the culture. “[Bourdain] was very well aware that he needed to be talking to people, that it was their story. It was theirs. He was asking the questions, but he was not the authority. They knew more than he did,” executive producer, Sandra Zweig, stated in an interview reflecting on Bourdain’s career. Bourdain facilitated an unfiltered look at the interactions between the food and the local culture.
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Each episode of his multiple series encapsulated key parts of the specific region’s culture and food, combining the art of documentary-making with food. This unlikely fusion of a television show was ultimately incredibly successful and won Bourdain twelve Emmys Awards. The various achievements of Bourdain’s TV shows opened the floodgates for famous chefs, TV personalities, and other hosts to try achieving that level of success in following similar models of travel food documentaries. One of the driving factors causing this style of media to grow in popularity is the principle of vicarious consumption: one person benefits from watching another person’s productivity. In this case, the viewer can watch the host galavant around the world, experience novel foods, and interact with local chefs all from the comfort of their couch. The productivity emerges from the viewer’s ability to quickly educate his, her, or their self on a topic that increases their cultural and worldly knowledge. Tran said that the success of these shows are having both negative and positive impacts on American food culture. In order to sell a show or product, creators advertise the meal as an extreme, being the best or the most authentic. Tran stated that this reduces foods from different cultures to having to meet those high, extreme standards. However, these documentaries centered on different cuisines have
begun to feature more diverse hosts and have allowed a diverse group of people to tell their story through food. Documentaries and docuseries centered around traveling for most viewers introduce new cuisines, techniques, or dishes to the viewer. In doing so, the viewer’s options or variety of what food they would be interested in eating increases. “Variety is related to newness, which appears to be an inducement to consumers to at least try a product”, a book on determinants of food states. So in indulging oneself in the passive consumption of watching a documentary on a different culture’s cuisine, the audience is gaining beneficial, applicable information that they can apply to their own diet. By no means are food documentaries, whether science or travel, revolutionary or groundbreaking. However, they do capture the changing sentiments around food within American food culture. People want to be entertained and be educated, and food is the happy medium between those two desires. Big media companies are catering to this desire by creating documentaries that are more diverse and include a range of stories and foods. These efforts of inclusion are very new and have only recently become apparent in food documentaries. As documentaries continue to be released and more food stories are told, individual viewers will learn more about the world around and beyond them.
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ESSAY
On Settling an Unsettling Relationship Words By: Lauren Blaser Photos By: Lauren Blaser & Jamie Kim “People who love to eat,” the prophetic Julia Child once wrote, “are always the best people.” I do love to eat, but I don’t always like it. For those with the privilege of stable access to food, eating is inescapable. The average day offers a minimum of three opportunities for food-related thoughts to consume a person. Allergies play a role in deciding what, when, and how to eat—someone with lactose intolerance knows to opt for Lactaid or Oatly over dairy milk. Culture and palette have an impact, too, of course. But none of these considerations hold as much power as the way each of us personifies eating. Food might be a friend and a source of joy, or a cunning adversary of whom one needs to be wary. When I was eight years old, I played recreational basketball, and I was awful. The only baskets I scored were two consecutive free throws, made with shaky elbows and met with pure shock from all involved. I was so flabbergasted by the entire experience that I wrote a short story about it for my language arts class. On the worst nights, all that got me through our trying, mid-evening practices was the late-night snack I anticipated afterwards. I used to smear cold slivers of butter onto a slice of (also cold) wheat bread that my mom kept in our fridge. This was Arnold Whole Wheat, the kind of bread that smushed into a thin line if you pinched it. Not extra crusty, or textured, or flavorful. The post-practice ritual of mine began randomly. Standing in the local high school gym one night, I let my mind wander from the drill being run in front of me, and serendipitously, bread and butter slipped into my head. It sounded good, and I began to crave it. When I returned home, I ate it.
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The older I grew, the further I wandered from the intuitive, playful way I approached each meal as a kid. This was a subtle yet powerful shift, and it slowly began to take over my life. “Craving” became a tainted word. Eating what I wanted was an inclination I started to shy away from; what genuinely sounded good wasn’t nearly as valid as what should sound good. Certain moments marked timestamps (tombstones) in this process of psychological rewiring. The last time I ordered a cheesy, soup-filled bread bowl at Panera. The first time I stalled while ordering at a café. My sister’s matcha latte was paid for and halfway finished while I stood tapping my feet in front of the register—not because the drink descriptions were tripping me up, but because the printed calorie content had me too overwhelmed to make a decision. The simple, overwhelmingly pleasant way I viewed food as a child began to clash with a new perspective which proved more conflicting, more weighty. Thus, my teenage years were
spent trying to reconcile two approaches to food, completely at odds and stacked stubbornly atop one another like oil and vinegar. To make matters worse, as I became older, more and more layers accumulated. Some of the most lovely foods form as the child of two polar liquids which firmly resist one another. The beauty of emulsification is the magically transformative reaction that occurs each time it happens. Lackluster ingredients which are too different to make any sense together are suddenly— literally—whipped into creamy sauces, custards, and condiments. Pesto and chocolate ganache would not exist without the coalescing of ingredients which initially refuse to mingle. Contact with a catalytic emulsifier separates the molecules of each substance and keeps those of the same content from gelling together. A uniform mixture is the delicious result.
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If only an egg yolk was able to do for my complex understanding of food what it does for lemon juice and butter. Shake things up, bond them, make them better. I never got a rich sauce out of my experiences—I got a bitter mess and an unshakable sense of confusion. Perhaps the issue was—is—that in an emulsification, each layer vanishes from the final product. The perfect hollandaise, for example, doesn’t taste anything like lemon or butter. In the end, the sauce has a full-bodied flavor that’s undeniably all its own. Diet culture, in all of its cunning forms, sauntered onto the center-stage of my already rocky relationship with food during senior year of high school, and it stole the show. Six years of Instagram use, an active Pinterest board
titled “prom bod,” and the general anxiety of an eighteenyear-old all came to a toxic tipping point. Every day I was either consciously seeking—or subconsciously being fed—messages about food and appearance and how the two were supposedly inseparable. I put a sign inside our pantry with a quote from Mulan that I hoped would remind me to think about food choices often and carefully: Reflect before you snack! The words actually come from a scene in which Mulan misreads a note on her arm, intended to say “Reflect before you act.” As the absolute badass that Mulan is, she would likely be disappointed with my appropriation of her film as fuel for an increasingly problematic relationship with food.
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At this point, I was looking at a dull rainbow of different approaches to eating. No longer was I able to instinctively identify what I loved, what I wanted, what would satisfy me. My voice (and my stomach) was the last priority. First, I had to consider each annoying perspective that wormed its way into every choice I made. What would a doctor say about this meal? My parents? My friends? The anonymous creators of healthy Pinterest recipes I’d so quickly become addicted to saving? I have only just begun to grasp that living in a world with this many perspectives on food requires not a balancing act, or even a separation, but rather a transformation. Selecting an entrée—or ordering a latte, or making a grocery list—requires me to silence the chorus of voices that hurl in from every direction. I might taste notes or hear distant echoes of external opinions. But in order to survive, and to eat with the same relish I did as a kid, all of these voices must fade to the background as I lift a fork, straw, or spoon to my mouth. The only one left is my own.
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ESSAY
Look, but Don’t Eat
Stirring Up Inspiration Within People of All Cooking Levels Words By: Gillian Mahoney Graphics By: Jamie Kim 30
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Everyone loves a good cheese pull. The warm, melted dairy stretches as far as it can go before the delicate strands break away. It’s a common occurrence with pizza or mac and cheese. In Sohla El-Waylly’s case, it’s strata. I watch closely as the professional chef and YouTube sensation gently prises a piece of the frittata and bread pudding fusion away from the baking dish. The gooey cheese clinging to the strata grabs my attention from the beginning of the video, another episode of “Off-Script with Sohla.” Hers is a series that teaches the audience to improvise in the kitchen. There are no strict recipes here. You can customize the dish however you want to. Sohla begins by drizzling cubes of garlic bread lightly with oil. She toasts them in the oven until golden brown. After preparing a custard mixture of eggs and milk, she tosses the bread cubes into a large bowl. Then, she seasons the custard with salt and spices and adds pockets of pepperoni and mozzarella. The final product is a landscape
of browned, bubbling cheese, crisp and hot pepperoni, and fluffy, egg-soaked bread. It would make any viewer want to dig in. I don’t often go straight to the kitchen after watching a cooking video. If you think about it, cooking and videos don’t seem to make sense together. Something in the back of my mind reminds me that some things are meant to be watched and not attempted. Maybe I don’t have the resources or the skills to even know where to begin with some recipes. So why do I keep watching if I’m not going to cook anything? But the passion and knowledge with which Sohla talks about food makes me want to get out my apron right away. After all, she makes it seem a lot easier than it is to cook at the professional level. She demonstrates each technique with ease. And after the strata video, I even went so far as to make a strata of my own: garlic-infused ciabatta, egg, spinach, and mushroom. It was delicious, by the way.
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But there are always times when the techniques really are too complicated for my amateur skills. Or it’s just that I’m too lazy to attempt anything. And those things are part of my obsession with cooking videos. I love watching people cook things that I would never dream of attempting. These crazy concoctions are all over the internet: Sohla’s series on Food52, Babish Culinary Universe, Tasty, and of course, food TikTok. I watch in awe as people artfully make beautifully frosted cakes, buttery bread, wild flavors of ice cream, and gourmet snacks. Who would want to eat marinara ice cream? It doesn’t seem appealing, but when the sweet, tomato flavor is layered with creamy ricotta-flavored ice cream in a stunning ice cream lasagna, the visuals make all the difference. But as weird or appealing as the food looks, what’s the point of watching someone cook if you don’t get to eat? How can people sit and watch as yet another TikTok chef gently breaks a chocolate chip cookie in half, letting the melted chocolate ooze out right in front of the camera? Looking at food through a screen cuts off the most important senses: taste and smell. It’s hard to watch the production of such delicious food when all you can do is stare longingly at it. The videos clash with the main purpose of food—eating it. Somehow, people are still obsessed. Myself included. I could spend hours scrolling through food TikTok without even stepping foot in the kitchen. The factor that keeps everyone coming back can’t be solely based on a sudden inspiration to cook all these extravagant dishes from scratch. Maybe, as Julia Slisz from Spoon University suggests, it’s all about aesthetics. After all, these videos must be visually appealing to fuel the obsession. If we can’t eat the food,
it has to look good. It’s always mesmerizing to watch talented people create something special. The aesthetic aspect is just one of the many ways in which cooking videos serve a purpose. Even if I’m not always motivated to get cooking right away, they deepen my passion for food. They provide tips for home cooks, useful cooking techniques, and best of all, a community of people who love food and just want to get better at making it. Not everyone has to be a
professional chef or even want to try to make something edible. But these videos have something for all cooking levels. Sometimes we want to break the little glass barrier between observing and creating. And sometimes it’s fun to sit back and watch the professionals do all the work. That way, we can embrace all these videos have to offer. Cooking videos create a platform that makes cooking accessible to everyone and lets people enjoy all the aspects of the chefs’ passion. Whether it’s a cheese pull that goes on for miles or a cookie recipe that has you reaching for the chocolate chips, these videos bring everyone together.
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ESSAY
On Knife’s Edge Per aspera ad panis Words By: Nico Borbolla Photos By: Eileen Shelton & Julie Vu
It’s 6:17 on a Tuesday night. If I’m lucky, there’s snow falling outside, tinted amber from the light fixtures on the side of each Mod. Or, if I’m even luckier, the orange is in the sky, where the setting sun dismisses Gasson Tower of its daily duty. I grab a handful of trail mix—my reward for surviving a two-and-a-half-hour seminar—and watch Hal make some pasta. He’s usually the first to cook his dinner, because he’s also usually the first to have somewhere to be at night. His two meals on rotation are chickpeas and onions on pita bread, or pasta with red sauce. The alimentation fills the kitchen with steam and the aroma of alliums, but given his tight schedule, no more than fifteen minutes pass before we’re on the couch watching Jeopardy. I’m going to miss it.
Lately, the moment of the present, that knife’s edge between the past and the future, has been harder and harder to grasp. There are moments, like when watching the snow or the sunset, in which the past and future become thinner, and the present more plump, more rich, more full. It becomes impossible to not savor. I sense all past, present, and future come into each other, fitting like congruent triangles. It’s a special feeling of unity of time, in which the fullness of the moment brings every version of me into focus, brings them all back into the Me that I am. There is no high school Me, no California Me, no Boston College Me; there is only the me looking out and admiring. In the year 2031, when I am a routine-ridden 30 year-old, I hope that the mixture of mirin, soy sauce, sesame oil, dashi, and honey makes me remember the days in that kitchen, flanked by empty bottles of wine in the recycling
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bin and unwashed coffee mugs in the sink. I hope the feeling yanks me out of my present and against my will brings the smell of Hal’s onion spiraling into the Pandora’s box of my olfactory system. I have every reason to believe it will, since it’s the sauce that I coat pretty much anything with these days. My go-to is chicken and egg to make oyakodon, one of the favorite things I’ve made myself and probably the most tender way I show myself care. The dish, like the sauce itself, is a blend of the past and the future that I interrogate in the present. The oil and the mirin, mortal enemies opposed by nature, find synthesis through the honey and the heat and become indistinguishable in the thick of the dish. Such is also the way my dog-tired past and buoyant future find themselves eyes-locked in each present moment. They make amends despite their antithetical natures, and in the present give me everything I need to keep existing. Unlike the sauce for my oyakodon, though, the past and the future are at every waking moment coming together and breaking apart. That’s why time flows for me. I am temporary, but oyakodon is forever.
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For most of us, though, there are big markers in time that cleave us from a prior version of ourselves. They shove us into the future unapologetically demanding we adapt, and, to our surprise, we always do. Surely, March 11 of 2020 is one of those days. Or, my high school graduation. I anticipate my college graduation will be that day as well, as will the first day of my first job. But the idea of so many versions of myself existing in the world terrifies me. There already exist the disparate images of myself within other people, but you’re telling me there’s different ones within myself throughout time? It’s simply too much to keep track of. There’s no way I could ever come close to knowing who I am if there’s an infinite amount of Mes floating around out there! Unlike my cherished dinner sauce, my self-image doesn’t emulsify so neatly. How can what’s always changing ever become one? I don’t actually have an answer. I know that, whether I like it or not, the world is emulsifying everything about its past and future into one imperceptible moment called the present. I know that the world is changing at every turn, and that the versions of me I leave behind in time or in people I’ll lose touch with are out of my control.
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I also know that that’s okay. As I shoot forward through time, the truth about who I am and who I was in these extraordinarily dynamic months is going to illuminate, and that each moment makes the next more clear. Maybe it’ll be the sounds of the guitar on Waltz for Zizi and their reminders that carrying the weight of the past only makes you a stronger person for the future, and that the present is the moment of pain in which that strength is tested. That each
sunset, each snowfall, each time Hal cooks onion is what it is that day, gone forever but electric in my mind. Everything will always be different, though it’s a difference rooted in unification. I hope that a 30-year-old me looks back fondly on the multitude of things he has to be thankful for, from the hard-working people at this magazine who made his dreams come true to the sound of lofi hip-hop beats to study/relax to playing as snow fell outside. I hope the act of cooking can serve as a reminder that, if we look for it, we can find the richness in every single moment, and hopefully prolong the instant decay of the present moment. That is what I’ve found here.
Thank you, and see you.
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