Category: Assignments

Journal #7

What does Coca-Cola mean to you? Even if you don’t drink it, how do you think about it as a force in the culture? What do you associate with it?

Reading Response #5

Another sequential reading assignment. Your response to the reading below should be in your Journal by the start of class on Tuesday, October 8.

  1. Read this Food Republic Q&A with John Lasater, founder of Hattie B’s.
  2. Then read this Betsy Phillips essay in the Nashville Scene.
  3. Then read this Rachel L. Martin story in the Bitter Southerner.
  4. Respond with several paragraphs of thoughts about these pieces. How, if at all, did your perspective change as you read? How do these stories about a food trend touch on broader cultural issues?

Journal #4

Two steps to this one: 1) Think of something you love to eat and then write the recipe for it. Don’t look up recipes as reference. Just do the best you can and write it in your own words. 2) Once you’ve written the instructions for the recipe, go back and write an introductory headnote for it. Remember: The headnote is basically a place to tell the recipe reader/user some context that will help them better understand the history of, occasion for, and/or technique to produce the recipe. As you saw with the recent reading, the headnote can be any combination of personal history, food history, cultural history, ingredient context or technical detail. But it needs to flow. It can’t just be a hodgepodge of things. Like a story, it should have some internal logic.

Reading Response #3

Your response to the reading below should be in your Journal by 11am CT on Tuesday September 17.

The narrative introduction before a recipe is called a headnote. While headnotes often focus on the history of a dish or some practical matter related to the execution of the recipe, many writers use the headnote space to write a miniature personal essay. I would define some of the reading you’ve done as an essay-as-expanded-headnote (the excerpt from Kim Sunée’s Trail of Crumbs, for example). And some of the food memories and experiences you’ve written about in your journal could become headnotes for recipes. For your third reading assignment, I’d like you to read this packet of headnotes and this slightly personal thing about eggs.

What do you think? If you are a recipe user, do you like personal headnotes or do you prefer a more practical introduction? Could you think of your first story assignment as a headnote? Which of the headnotes did you like the most? Dislike? What are two passages that stick out for you?

Reading Response #2

Your response to the readings below should be in your Journal by the start of class at 11a.m. on Tuesday, September 10.

For your first story assignment (which we will talk about in detail during class on Tuesday, September 3), you will use food (or drink) as a vehicle to explore personal history. This week, you will read a bunch of stories that do this in different ways.

Please read:

Here’s a PDF of all this reading as one big packet.

It’s a good chunk of reading, so don’t wait till the last minute. In your Journal doc, tell me which one of these is/are your favorite(s) and why. What does your favorite story do that the others don’t? Did you not like one or more of these? If so, tell me why. What are you favorite passages? Record at least three passages you appreciate.

Journal #2

In your Journal, make a list of at least five foods about which you have strong feelings. The feelings can be good, bad, mixed, complicated. And for the purposes of this assignment, “food” can mean anything—a single food (eg, Red Delicious Apple), a category of food (eg, beans or chocolate), a dish type (eg, burger or salad), or a brand (eg, Amy’s frozen burritos). “Food” can even mean “drink” or “candy” or basically anything else that you can digest.

Once you have your list, pick one of those things and write about it for 5-10 minutes.

Thursday Active-Writing #1

It’s week one and I’m already cheating. Technically, this active-writing assignment is really three active-writing assignments, but I’m choosing to call it one active-writing assignment with three parts.

Part 1: Write about your first food memory (or an early food memory).

Part 2: Write about a memorable food journey you take (or have taken). What do I mean by “journey?” Whatever you want it to mean.

Part 3: Write about your saddest meal. Interpret “sad” however you’d like.

Aim for at least a longish paragraph on each. Your entry should be written in your Journal before class starts at 11am on September 3, 2024.

Reading Response: Week #1

Your response to the two readings below should be in your Journal by the start of class at 11a.m. on Tuesday, September 3.

Read this excerpt from John McPhee’s book, Oranges. What works? What doesn’t? Do you want to keep reading this book? Why? Why or why not? What’s your favorite sentence in the excerpt? Why is it your favorite sentence? Write at least a couple of paragraphs of thoughts in your Journal.

Also read Rosanne Cash’s The Most Human Sound, which was originally published in the Oxford American. In your class journal, tell me what you think about it and then be prepared to discuss it in class on Tuesday. What do you think? How do oranges operate in this essay? Can we call this “food writing?” Either way, do you like this essay? Why? What works? What doesn’t? What’s your favorite sentence? Why? Write at least a couple of paragraphs of thoughts in your Journal.