Food in Literature and Film, Five Meals: Lessons in Cultural Communication

In the Spring of 2016, English Professor Thomas Fox Averill, who teaches a course in Food in Literature and Film, decided to do an exercise in cultural communication. Joined by Social Work Professor Bassima Schbley, they taught a Food in Literature and Film: Five Meals, urging students to understand the relationship between food and the cultures they are part of (family, regional, ethnic, religious, class and nation). From this initial preparation, students and professors watched films, read literature, and cooked together four more meals--Lebanese, Persian/Middle East, Chinese, and Japanese. Students were fascinated to truly experience, with all their senses, the taste as well as the cultures studied, and felt almost as though they had traveled. This essay reflects on the process, and hopefully urges others to taste as well as study the world's diversity of peoples and cultures.