Brown University Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity

and

The Culinary Arts Museum at Johnson & Wales

present

Eating Chinese:

Comestibles, Cuisine, Commerce and Culture

Thursday April 23

Keynote Forum

6:30 pm:

"Thinking About Food in a Globalized Century"

A conversation with the founding editor

of the award-winning food journal, Gastronomica

Darra Goldstein (Gastronomica and Williams College)

with Mark Swislocki (Brown University)

location:

Pembroke Hall.

172 Meeting St., Brown University, Providence, RI

Friday April 24

Comestibles

"Garlic eater," "fish eater," and "pie eater" are all pejoratives that show how foods converge with identity. Food choices signal values as well--what you eat may suggest you are an adventurer, a gourmet, a slow food enthusiast, or an ethnic food homeboy. In these sessions a discussion of specific comestibles leads to related issues of food, identity and social values.

location:

John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage

357 Benefit St, Brown University, Providence, RI

10:00 am:

"Seasoning Modernity,

or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love MSG"

Robert Jisong Ku, (SUNY-Binghamton)

11:30 am:

"Cross-cultural pigs: Myths, meals, and tastings"

John Eng-Wong (Brown University)

12:30 pm:

Intermission

1:30 pm:

"Tofu: an ethnographical portrayal"

Chee-Beng Tan (Chinese University of Hong Kong)

3:00 pm:

"The Social Life of American Crayfish in Asia"

Sidney Cheung (Chinese University of Hong Kong),

Wei Ying Wong (Connecticut College), commentator

4:30 pm:

Summary Q & A

Evelyn Hu-deHart (Brown), moderator

Saturday April 25

Cuisine, Commerce, Culture

location:

Culinary Arts Museum at Johnson & Wales

Harborside Campus, Providence, RI

10:00 am:

"Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore:

Cuisine: Memory, Locality and Nation"

Mark Swislocki (Brown University), Sidney Cheung (CUHK),

Chee-Beng Tan (CUHK), and Darra Goldstein (moderator)

Does a honey peach taste like Shanghai? Does memory constitute food? Does food constitutes place? How do foods and identities entwine themselves in places and a place's inhabitants, and what do these connections mean?

"The Eskimos, so they say, have 12 different words for snow. Well, in Hong Kong, we have a dozen or more ways to say, 'Eat Here!'" (New York Times, January 30, 2008) Hong Kong citizens obsess about food; some say there is even a Hong Kong cuisine.

11:30 am:

"Restaurants and Cultural Identity: Food Group Shadows"

Yong Chen (University of California, Irvine)

Chinese Restaurants: sites of cultural production

If the owner or cook is Chinese, and the cuisine is steak and potatoes, is it Chinese food?

If the owner is named Grichten or Puck, can the restaurant be Chinoise?

12:45 pm:

Q&A over Lunch: Evelyn Hu-deHart, moderator

Food Service from the Iron Wok Food Truck $6.50/plate

1:45 pm:

"Chow Mein, Chicken Wings, and Cheeseburgers:

Recalling Downcity Chinese in the Postwar Era"

Exhibit Welcome and Comment

Heather Lee and Amy Jin Johnson, curators

2:30 pm:

"Cooking Identities"

Chef Neath Pal (Johnson & Wales Culinary College)

Robert Lee (Brown University)

Chef Pal talks with Robert Lee and cooks for the audience

Refreshments

Made possible by the generous support of:

Johnson & Wales University

- Culinary Arts Museum

- College of Culinary Arts

- Culinary Events Department

Brown University

- CSREA

- Office of the Provost

- John Nicolas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage

- East Asian Studies

- Anthropology

- History

- Graduate Student Council

- Cogut Center for Humanities