Writing About Food & Culture

Lobo Garden Field Day Groups     We formed four Lobo Garden Field Day Groups (the Pluots, Herbologist, Cultivators, and Pollinators).  Each group has stewardship responsibilities for watering and caring for their own planter boxes, flower pots, and garden beds. Because New Mexico has a long growing season with sunny days and monsoon rains throughout the autumn, we are hoping to see new sprouts from our garden areas through November.     

We have spent the first five weeks of the semester working in the Lobo Gardens at the University of New Mexico, weeding, watering, conditioning the soil, and planting seeds. 

  Unit 2: Cultivation of Food     After just ten days, the seeds we planted at the Planter Beds at the Lobo Garden Herb garden are beginning to sprout.  The full moon of the autumnal equinox filled the night sky on Sunday, September 23. Tiny green sprouts of arugula, spinach, dill, and sweet peas are beginning to appear with the first days of autumn in New Mexico.   

      ¡Que Rico!           

      Unit 1: Cultures & Communities of Food   We spent the  first five weeks of the semester exploring and enjoying cultures and communities of food, beginning with Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert's The Good Life: New Mexico Traditions and Food (1949) and closing the unit with a shared meal at Albuquerque's own El Patio Restaurant.     Other readings for this unit included Gustavo Arellano's Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America with rhetorical analysis of tropes and images in this vivid examination of food, culture, and politics.     

Professor Cheo Torres guest lecture to our ENGL 320 Writing About Food & Culture class on Wednesday, September 19, 2018.  He offered us this glossary of medicinal herbs, many of which are growing at the UNM Lobo Gardens. A brief glossary on herbs Compiled by Eliseo “Cheo” Torres, University of New Mexico   1.         Aloe Vera Zabila, Sabila – It is possible to buy the extracted gel in bottles for use on cuts, burns rashes, insect bites, acne, or as wrinkle-preventative. Mexican-Americans mix the gel with water and drink it to treat arthritis, rheumatism and stomach disorders. 2.         Arnica – As a tincture, rubbed for inflammation, bruising, sprains and arthritis. 3.         Basil (Sweet Basil) Albahaca - Basil tea can be used as a gargle for sore throat or to heal sores in the mouth. The same tea can also be used externally on insect stings....

Our ENGL 320 Writing About Food & Culture class at the University of New Mexico Lobo Gardens after planting new seeds at the Medicinal Herb Garden on Friday, September 14, 2018.

  Writing About Food & Culture Dr. Michelle Hall Kells “The world begins at a kitchen table; no matter what, we must eat to live.” Joy Harjo   Food as a cultural, social, and rhetorical trope speaks to us across communities, place, and time. Good food feeds the body and the soul. The purpose of this class is to create a community of environmental thinkers and to cultivate opportunities for considering our roles as citizens, activists, scholars (of place) through the study of local and global food cultures. The rich literary and rhetorical legacy of food culture and environmental discourse will be examined through diverse textual artifacts (and genres) including the everyday rhetoric of menus and recipes, film, poetry, speeches, essays, letters, creative nonfiction, food reviews, and the multiple forms of food rhetoric in public culture.   This course will also focus on literary and rhetorical texts representing the ecology of place with special emp...