Hi Everyone,
I need a little research help. I’m starting a food blog. I know, not another one, but hear me out. The point of the blog is not to review restaurants or make anyone despise me due to a superiority complex, but to do an anthropological survey of food. Not an all-encompassing history, but to once or twice a week pick out a dish (macaroni and cheese), ingredient (cinnamon or hot sauce), or holiday (Thanksgiving) and do some research. I want to find out where those foods originated, their history, their use, urban myths, use in the media, religious significance, and WHY people eat/use them. The who, what, when, where, why, and how’s of food.
It’s going to be a huge project and incredibly research heavy. I’m still working out the details right now and I have a few ideas for posts, but I wanted to reach out to see if there was anything you wanted to know about. Maybe there’s something in your culture you eat and you’d like to know why. A great place to start would be what do you eat on certain holidays in your particular religion. A holiday example for you: why do we eat turkey on Thanksgiving? How did turkey get to the United States? What’s it’s origin? Does it really make you fall asleep? (Side note, it doesn’t. The amount of turkey you’d have to eat to get enough tryptophan to get tired is ridonkulous. It’s the sheer gluttony of the occasion. Wasn’t that interesting?) Or even just regular old suggestions or questions.
Like “What the hell is SPAM anyway?”
SPAM - Hawaiian Collectors Edition. Who knew?
Or “Wouldn’t it be awesome to find out why milk takes away the sting of spicy food?”
Use the milk. Duh.
Or “Whose great idea was it to make cake decorating so damn trendy?”
It's getting old, guys.
So that’s what I’m asking for. It’s a daunting task and something I’m excited about. My hope is to continue to develop this project and have it last for several years. So if you’re interested in giving me ideas or anything, leave a comment. It’s one big search for knowledge. Let’s share it!
Thanks for reading this (if you did) and thanks even more for any feedback. I do have a Facebook event set up and will eventually have a group or page or something. Twitter too. I’m also looking through flickr for food pictures to use (with permission of course) so if you know anyone into food photography that has some neato pics, hit me up. Isn’t social networking awesome?.
This is just a preliminary post and it’ll take a little while to get going, but once it’s going, well, then it’ll be active. Whatever.
