Many Italians characterize their food culture as respectful of tradition, favoring fresh, regional ingredients, prioritizing commensality and the group identity, and treating food as an aesthetic good. Many describe American food culture as one of speed and convenience, favoring quantity over quality, nurturing independence, and regarding food merely as a material good. Through in-depth interviews with a group of Italian Americans, this research explores the intersection between Italian and American food cultures, questioning how Italian Americans living in South Florida construct identity given the influence of the modern food system. Participants demonstrate that while a dichotomy exists between Italian cultural ideals and the reality of everyday life in the South Florida food system, many Italian Americans find ways to incorporate traditional culture into their modern lives. The results of this research offer perspective on the spaces where ethnic groups access the cultural value of food in an increasingly modern world. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This thesis is about researching methods/testing approaches to inhabiting/existing in a post-growth Norrland, the collective term for Sweden’s most northerly counties. With neo-liberal capitalism lurching from crisis to crisis, modernity, progress and the state are in trouble. Small shops close, iconic buildings are constructed, agriculture, the most vital of industries, is collapsing and competition is the watchword. If peak-oil, the consumer culture and individualism combine to lead us into a dystopian slough, what is the alternative? This work aims to investigate and show the existing conditions that are producing the current state of affairs in Norrland, with emphasis on Röbäck, one of Umeå’s agricultural satellites cum dormitory suburbs. This research will provide the necessities for dreamed proposals about a possible post-growth future, integrating alternative views of technology and modes of living with the ethos of the common and our use of shared resources.

“Comfort Food – Comfortable for Who?” – Questions the true comfort of our eating habits, critically addressing our prevalent unsustainable animal-based food cultures by exploring genuine comfort food through design. In my process I have researched why our eating habits are so hard to change, from our psychological attachment to meat to the patriarchal foundation of our food cultures. By exploring the medium of food and cooking as design practice, I have encountered how essential the element of comfort is to human’s eating experience. Resulting in an approach to plant-based eating where the essential comfort factors of our food cultures meet the beyond-human comfort needs.