Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

Under COVID-19 social distancing regulations, this study investigated how individuals varied their dietary patterns and their vegetarian identity during this time. Some vegetarianism literature suggests that social interactions can be more influential on a vegetarian individual's eating behavior than external forces or individual willpower (Cherry 2006). Meanwhile, food environment literature suggests the environment plays the most significant role in an individual's dietary behavior (Zimmerman & Connor 1989; Shannon 2013; Pettygrove & Ghose 2016); however to date, such literature has not yet been applied to individuals identifying as vegetarians. Interviewed were University of Central Florida students and alumni who identify as vegetarian. Information about their feelings regarding their identity and eschewing of animal products were collected using an online survey following the Unified Model of Vegetarian Identity (UMVI) and Dietarian Identity Questionnaire (DIQ) (Rosenfeld & Burrow 2017; 2018). All individuals expressed they felt their designated place of quarantine was a positive environment. Nine out of ten reported an increase in cooking from spending so much time with "access to the kitchen" with the majority of the participants reporting that during their period of social distancing they felt their identity had either been "fortified" during this time, "gotten better" or had not changed at all. This study adds new knowledge to the vegetarian literature about key variables affecting dietary behavior associated with one's vegetarian identity and corresponding dietary patterns during a period of radical lifestyle changes and regulated social interaction. This project is unique due to the nature of the unprecedented time period of COVID-19 social distancing across Florida and the nation, limited restaurant options due to nation-wide closures, limited menus, and supply shortages due to statewide orders to remain indoors as much as possible (Executive Order No. 20-71, 2020).

This thesis seeks to understand the intersection of cultural identity and food security in a country that has had a difficult time feeding its people. The discourse on food in Guatemala, in the realm of development and international studies, maintains a focus on the lack thereof. Moreover, the author examines the food traditions and beliefs people in Guatemala feel are important as well as the obstacles they face in realizing food self-sufficiency. Many Guatemalans have an intimate connection with their land, and unequal land distribution hinders farmers’ abilities to access the foods they most value. In addition to this, the unfolding sustainable development agenda has resulted in biofuel projects that threaten the livelihoods of many rural farmers. Through interviews with chefs, agricultural workers, and agricultural commodity traders, the author pieces together the differing perspectives of various stakeholders to present a complex mosaic of Guatemalan foodways.

Cooking is mind, body, spirit work. What’s possible when we ‘drop in’ to our bodies when cooking? We begin noticing what we are energetically bringing to the food we make. This creative project practices a pedagogy that works with food to create healing space. Healing, as it is defined here, is not void of discomfort nor is it happiness all the time. Who haunts your domestic space? Who is at your back when you cook? This project finds information and sacred knowledge in the food we cook and eat; it reflects back to us deeply buried truths regarding our traumas, joys, and subjectivity. This pedagogy holds the potential for participants to bring “new meanings” to food, and thereby, be activated as cultural producers cooking up the next chapter in our peoples’ creation stories (Anzaldúa 103). This project is documented as an auto-ethnographic tale from the perspective of the practitioner, using erotic storytelling to keep fire in the pages and a methodology of refusal to “determine the length of the [academy’s] gaze” (Tuck and Ree 640).

In this thesis, I explore the phenomena of cheese production in Ontario, Canada. I initiated this project after learning that some cheese producers in Ontario that were struggling to stay in business, in part because of whey management issues, especially as they relate to the Ontario Nutrient Management Act O. Reg 267/03 (OMAFRA 2002). In this thesis, I utilize the Actor-Network Theory (Latour 2005) approach to examine how certain elements of cheese production in Ontario are organized, with an emphasis on whey management and utilization. Of interest are tensions that threaten to destabilize these relations, such as controversies over how whey should be handled, how identities such as “artisan” or “industrial” cheese producers are constructed and maintained, and how smaller producers sustain themselves in a market in which they compete with large- scale industrial cheese production were examined. Interviews took place with seven participants involved in government, agriculture, and cheese production. Participant/observation data were collected in six field sites (cheese factories, farms). I found that humans and nonhumans perform significant work in holding cheese production and whey management together, even in situations commonly understood as under human mastery or control. In particular, I found that the manner by which relations between entities both human and nonhuman are governed, through law or through informal expectations (e.g., "protocol"; Galloway and Thacker 2007), is responsive to, and emergent from, these relations. / Thesis (Master, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2013-09-20 09:12:33.559

Demon, allegory, exile, Scandinavian zombie—Grendel, the first of the monsters in the Old English Beowulf, has been called all of these. But lost in the arguments about what he means is the very basic question of what he is. This project aims to understand Grendel qua monster and investigate how we associate him with the monstrous. I identify for study a number of traits that distinguish him from the humans of the poem--all of which cluster around either morphological abnormality (claws, gigantism, shining eyes) or deviant behavior (anthropophagy, lack of food preparation, etiquette). These traits are specifically selected and work together to form a constellation of transgressions, an embodiment of the monstrous on which other arguments about his symbolic value rest.

This thesis highlights the distinct methods of persuasion employed by the National Restaurant Association and Restaurant Opportunities Centers United in their arguments related to tipping. Both parties limit the strength of their arguments by ignoring the opposition's case, selecting instead facts and evidence that construct a persuasive, yet incomplete picture of tipped wages, the tipped worker, and the restaurants that employ these workers. I propose a focus on dialogic interaction which I define as the obligation of the rhetor to respond to available counter-claims, to be open to questioning, and to be truthful. Reclaiming dialogic interaction between parties and will improve the quality of the individual arguments and the debate overall. It will point toward a more complete understanding of the data, arguments, and players involved in framing the issue of restaurant worker wages.

Food studies offers a powerful lens through which to consider the complexity of travel, given the ways in which food can bring multiple perspectives to the table. The merging of food studies with the well-established tradition of study abroad, then, provides a platform for incorporating critical thinking and fresh perspectives into the discourse surrounding study abroad. How does food studies abroad reflect the opportunities and reify the concerns posed by study abroad in general? I explore this topic through a case study of a University of Oregon food studies abroad program, Food and Culture in Italy, looking specifically at students’ motivations, on-site experience, and perceived outcomes. I employ the lenses of identity, consumption, and experiential learning to discuss the trends that emerge from the data and conclude with a series of recommendations for moving thoughtfully and critically forward with food studies abroad programming.

In the United States, the number of visually impaired and blind Americans will rise drastically as the population continues to age; and, yet little is known about how the impact of blindness affects an individual when it comes to the experience of food provisioning and preparation. This thesis presents the study of how the blind and the visually impaired experience food provisioning and preparation. It explores how modern technology and sensory training help these groups of people traverse kitchen and grocery store environments. In thematically organized chapters, this thesis examines sensory education, nutrition and food related obstacles. This is the first study in the United States in which the experience of food provisioning, preparation of food, and consumption of food are described from the perspective of Blind and Visually Impaired Americans. In this qualitative study, food experience and the eating choices of the blind and visually impaired Americans were examined. Influential factors on the experience of food were also explored.

Industrialization and rapid urbanization characterized the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in many aspects of domestic life. Scholars have used community cookbooks to document changes in domestic roles at the turn of the twentieth century. This study uses community cookbooks to look beyond domestic roles and to trace changing foodways during the period from 1870 to 1930 in the northern Central Valley of California. Nine cookbooks from Sacramento, California and five cookbooks from Stockton, California reveal changes in foodways during this time. Recipes, text, and advertisements in these cookbooks show changes in the manner of home food production; a loss of pre-industrial food knowledge; increasing standardization in recipes and cooking knowledge; and an increasing reliance on commercially processed and name brand foods. These changes indicate a growing population and shifting demographics. The results provide insight into differences between urban and rural foodways as urban populations grow. The intrusion of industrialized food into rural home cooking may provide a backdrop for contemporary understanding of urban foodways. Researchers seeking to understand how commercial foods become entrenched in modern foodways can use community cookbooks to trace back the introduction and assimilation of commercially processed foods in the past. Rewinding the process may provide insights into a variety of issues related to processed food. In addition, this study presents a method for using community cookbooks as historical documents to trace food and foodways over time including the unique role of advertising in this context.