Food Journalism

For your third and final story assignment, you have three options. Do one of the following:

• A reported story that explores something at the intersection of food + commerce
• A reporting plan for a story that explores something at the intersection of food + commerce
• A reflection on something you’ve read or written or that we’ve discussed this semester

See details for each option here.

On Tuesday, you worked in groups to come up with responses to some food + commerce prompts. For today, I’d like you to take one of the ideas and expand on it. It doesn’t have to be one of the ideas that you or your group came up with. You can steal someone else’s idea if it spoke to you. Try to build off of the basic idea and the class conversation around it to flesh out a more complete vision. (If you missed class on Tuesday, you can ask someone in the class about some of the ideas or just come up with your own.) Write your expanded idea in your journal by class time on Tuesday, November 19.

Your response to the reading below should be in your Journal by class on Tuesday, November 19.

1. Taco Bell’s Innovation Kitchen, the Front Line in the Stunt-Food Wars, by Antonia Hitchens (The New Yorker)
2. Special Sauce, by Charles Bethea (The New Yorker)

What do you think of these? What works? Doesn’t? Surprising? Not?

For class on Tuesday 11/12, we’re going to brainstorm ideas about food + commerce. Here are our prompts:

• Choose a type of candy and brainstorm what a “premium” version of it might look like.
• Think of a food or brand that feels targeted to a specific age demographic. Now imagine how it could be rebranded to appeal to a different age demographic.
• Imagine the most ridiculous food subscription service you can think of. Now come up with the ideal influencer/spokesperson for that service.
• Think of a food you cannot get but would like to get at an Alabama football game. Why is it not available? How would it be offered/served?
• Choose a fast-food chain and think about how it could reinvent itself in a healthier direction.
• Name a food product that could benefit from a packaging redesign. What changes would you suggest?

Your response to the reading below should be in your Journal by class on Tuesday, November 12.

1. Read How Women Used Cookbooks to Fight for Their Right to Vote, by Aimee Levitt (Eater)
2. Read Christ in the Garden of Endless Breadsticks, by Helen Rosner (Eater)
3. Read Why Does It Feel Like There’s Listeria in Everything, by Jaxa Saxena (Eater)

What do you think of these stories?

Talk to me about your relationship to Halloween candy. What’s your favorite? How, if at all, did you sort your Halloween candy haul? Did you trick or treat in the same place every year? What non-candy Halloween food traditions did/do you have? You don’t have to answer all of these? Just riff on your food/candy relationship to Halloween.

Your response to the reading below should be in your Journal before class on Tuesday, October 29.

Please read the following stories:

• The Flavors That Unite Syrians, by Dalia Mortada (NYT)
• My Greek Fathers Simple Comforting Bowl of Chickpeas and Spinach, by Alex Moshakis (NYT)
• Abuela Chef Boss Vladimir Guerrero Jrs Grandmother Feeds the Majors, by James Wagner (NYT)

Throughout the day, try to keep track of everything you smell. Make a list in your Journal doc, and as you catalog a smell, try to attach to it some brief memory, association, feeling, impression, question, or thought. Aim for at least 10-15 smells.

Write about your relationship to chocolate.

Write about a place you wish you could go for the food. It can be a specific event (the Maine lobster festival) or a specific place (a certain restaurant in New York or whatever) or a place and a time (for example, your grandmother’s house at Thanksgiving in 2019) or a region/country (Provence or Indonesia or whatever). Why this place? What do you imaging eating?