Boston University
To observe the city’s changing cuisines, Anthropology Professor Merry White White and her students travel to some of the best-known and least-known ethnic neighborhoods in the city, where they have a chance to study food as it relates to migration and community-building. They visit the North End, of course, where Italian food has become enmeshed in the promotion of Italian culture, and Chinatown, less of a tourist destination, but a neighborhood with a strong “food identity,” White says.
For White, it is a sign that her studies of cooking and culture have finally been deemed a legitimate and important part of academia. “It’s a matter of how food has come into acceptance in the curriculum in general,” she says. “In the late 1980s, I think the world wasn’t ready for it yet.” changing food trends reveal a lot about changing cultures >> continue