Category Archives: Community

If there exists a defining factor of inequality that can make the most difference in our lives separately and together, it is food. Second only to air on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, food marks our class and our bodies more permanently than any other status symbol – from the genome out. Our lives, our robustness, are affected by the foods we eat – and by the foods our mothers ate before we were born.

On another level, food is a powerful tool for building community and awareness, for removing barriers, for erasing otherness and for building compassion, mutual respect and an inclusive culture. Cooking for each other, sharing food, nurturing each other, is one of the most profound connections we can have to each other as humans.

Shared dinners and shared food experiences are academic tools that build awareness and partnerships with students, faculty and staff, adding deliciousness and community across science, engineering, arts and the humanities.

Rozalie’s Recommendations for Campus Dining 9/21

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Rozalie Czesana '18, your guide to the best of Campus Dining.

Rozalie Czesana ’18, your guide to the best of Campus Dining.

Hungry? Craving something different on your plate? Wishing you could know which residential college is cooking up the best food today, for lunch and dinner? Rozalie Czesana ’18, a founding member of Princeton Studies Food, has the answers. Today, we introduce her weekday recommendations. You need this before coffee.

And let us know what you think. Agree? Disagree? Send us pix of your meal with details (where, what & when) & we’ll post the most interesting of the lot…

LUNCH

  • Yogurt Bar; Beet Salad with Oranges @CJL
  • Thai Coconut Soup; Fruit Salad with Grapes, Cranberries, Figs & Greens @FORBES
  • Seafood & Grain Burger; Chicken, Artichoke, Fennel & Fava Tagine with Almonds @ROCKY
  • Roasted Beet, Potato, Walnut & Goat Cheese Salad; Indian Curry Lamb @WHITMAN

DINNER

  • Lemon Pepper Fish, Cauliflower Puree with Asiago and Roasted Garlic @BUTLER
  • Linguini & Shrimp Scampi @FORBES
  • Roast Pork over Quinoa @GRAD COLLEGE

Just Food conference at Princeton Theological Seminary

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5zP4WPgcqY

The upcoming Just Food conference at Princeton Theological Seminary is aiming for “an essential conversation about food justice, sustainable agriculture, food insecurity, and innovative ways to change the way we relate to food.”

The lineup is promising. Featured speakers for the Sept. 24-26 event include Will Allen, recipient of the John D. and Katherine T. McArthur Foundation Genius Grant and founder of Growing Power, the Milwaukee-based nonprofit urban farm; and Norman Wirzba, author of “Food and Faith,” and professor of theology, ecology and rural life at Duke Divinity School.

Workshop subjects include community gardens, using story and art, and human rights in agriculture. Field trips to the Seminary’s new 21-acre Farminary, directed by Nate Stucky, are also on the schedule.

Showing community connections, the conference will close with a food market on the campus green and will feature The Feed Truck – the Kingston United Methodist’s mobile experiment in radical hospitality, that already makes regular stops at Trinity Church, 33 Mercer.

Registration for the conference at the Seminary, 64 Mercer St., costs $195 and includes the program, a Thursday coffee break & dinner, the Friday coffee break, lunch and dinner. The Friday dinner is provided as part of the Farminary field trip. For information, call (609) 497-7990 or write coned@ptsem.edu.

 

21 acres and a new Farminary program

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The Princeton Theological Seminary, our neighbor on Mercer Street, has launched Farminary, a program centered on its 21-acre parcel of land in Lawrenceville that combines theological education and sustainable agriculture. Nate Stucky is the Farminary’s founder and full-time director.

Excerpts from the TakePart story by Steve Holt:

“Stucky grew up in Kansas, on a farm outside Wichita, and farmed full-time for two years before coming to Princeton to pursue his Ph.D. He and a Princeton [Theological Seminary] alumnus first discussed the concept of a Farminary several years ago, but the seedling of an idea didn’t break ground until a mentor encouraged him to pursue his dream of taking seminary into the fields. He discovered last year that the Princeton seminary owned a 21-acre farm a few miles from campus that it had purchased as an investment a few years earlier, so Farminary was pitched to the seminary president, who loved it.

Besides the personal theological implications of studying scripture on a farm, Stucky says it doesn’t make sense to train faith leaders who are not conversant in the areas of ecology, sustainability, and food justice….At first, the harvest at the Farminary will likely be modest enough to feed only the students and faculty, but organizers are discussing long-term uses for the food, such as donating it to local food pantries, using it to source Princeton’s seminary dining hall, or even donating it to be used in Trenton public schools.”

Exploring food & America’s racial dynamic

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Neopolitan-style pizza: From left, Chelsea Johnson, Class of 2018; Alexander Schindele-Murayama, Class of 2016; Dominique Ibekwe, Class of 2016; and Cordelia Orillac, Class of 2015, get a lesson in making traditional Neapolitan pizza dough from Chef Rick Piancone in the kitchen of Rockefeller and Mathey colleges. "We wanted to do pizza because it's a familiar comfort food that has been very commercialized. The chefs taught us how the art and craft in traditional Neapolitan pizza compares with the U.S. version and how the taste changes," said Ibekwe.

Neopolitan-style pizza: From left, Chelsea Johnson, Class of 2018; Alexander Schindele-Murayama, Class of 2016; Dominique Ibekwe, Class of 2016; and Cordelia Orillac, Class of 2015, get a lesson in making traditional Neapolitan pizza dough from Chef Rick Piancone in the kitchen of Rockefeller and Mathey colleges. “We wanted to do pizza because it’s a familiar comfort food that has been very commercialized, said Ibekwe. “The chefs taught us how the art and craft in traditional Neapolitan pizza compares with the U.S. version and how the taste changes.” – Photo by Danielle Alio, Office of Communications

Professor Anne Cheng '85

Professor Anne Cheng ’85

With “Literature, Food, and the American Racial Diet,” in the spring 2015 semester, Professor Anne Cheng ’85 encouraged her 133 students to research the relationship between food and America’s racial dynamic across society, culture and history, but the students’ final projects weren’t limited to research papers. They also included a food lesson and a tasting.

As Jamie Saxon from the Office of Communications writes:

“Assignments included writing analytical essays, experimenting with food writing, and conducting research into the history of food, which, noted Cheng, is often a history of imperialism and colonization. For their final project, students went food shopping, rolled up their sleeves and created dishes that illustrated some aspect of how food interacts with racial identity.

Divided into 30 small teams, the students discussed readings and shared their own experiences with culture and food. As part of a new Campus Dining initiative led by Executive Director Smitha Haneef to support students’ academic experience, each team was paired with a chef who advised them on food ingredients, preparation and presentation. The dishes were presented and tasted at the “Princeton Feast” held April 30 in the Frist Campus Center.”

See the Princeton Alumni Weekly feature here and Campus Dining’s account here.

 

Reunions: Food Obsessed in America?

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Roberta Isleib ’75, Author, alias Lucy Burdette, will join Jill Baron ’80, Integrative and Functional Medicine Physician; Beth Quatrano Diamond ’85, Founder, Cooking for a Change; Lydia Itoi ’90, Food and Travel Journalist; Kerry Saretsky ’05, Corporate Strategy Director-Global, HarperCollins Publishers, and Blogger at FrenchRevolutionFood.com; Katie Seaver ’10, Intuitive Eating Coach for a forum, “Food Obsessed in America?” on Saturday, May 30, from 10:30 a.m.- 11:30 a.m. at Frist 302. Smitha Haneef, Executive Director, Campus Dining, is scheduled to moderate.

Finding quinoa on campus

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Julie Goldstein writes about quinoa (keen-wah), which she has found in good supply at dining sites across campus:

“Quinoa has proven to be one of the biggest food trends of the 21st century. Although its popularity may be associated with the recent decades, this grain has been around for quite some time. The cultivation of quinoa can be traced back to the ancient civilizations of Andes in South America, with its use as a food source starting around 4000 BCE….The grain is known to have a high nutritional value, containing all the essential amino acids along with particularly high concentrations of protein. Quinoa also has significant amounts of iron and zinc, and is a good source of dietary fiber.” Read more, and see pictures of quinoa dishes here.

– Julie Goldstein, Spoon University