Gastronomy

• MET ML 712: Food and Society
  Examines the role of food in society and how it shapes identity and structures our lives. Explores multiple contexts of food production, access, procurement, and consumption, including rural agricultural sites, urban homesteads, grocery shopping, CSAs, and food assistance programs, and the intersection of food practices with class, ethnicity, race, and gender.
• MET ML 714: Urban Agriculture
  Growing food in urban contexts raises interesting questions about food access, nutrition education, perceptions of public spaces and the place of nature in the urban environment. This course focuses on urban agriculture in Boston and a number of case studies from around the globe. Students visit gardens, learn basic cultivation skills through hands-on activities, and study the social and cultural sides of urban agriculture, as well as the political and city planning aspects of urban agriculture projects. 4 cr.
• MET ML 715: Food and the Senses
  This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of the sensory foundations and implications of food. We will study the senses as physical and cultural phenomena, the evolving concepts of terroir and craft, human nutritional and behavioral science, sensory perception and function, and the sensory and scientific aspects of food preparation and consumption. Understanding these processes, constructions and theories is key to understanding a vast array of food-related topics; cheese-making, wine-tasting, fermentation, food preservation, culinary tools and methods, cravings and food avoidance, sustainability and terroir, to name just a few.
• MET ML 716: Sociology of Taste
  Taste has an undeniable personal immediacy: producing visceral feelings ranging from delight to disgust. As a result, in our everyday lives we tend to think about taste as purely a matter of individual preference. However, for sociologists, our tastes are not only socially meaningful, they are also socially determined, organized, and constructed. This course will introduce students to the variety of questions sociologists have asked about taste. What is a need? Where do preferences come from? What social functions might our tastes serve? Major theoretical perspectives for answering these questions will be considered, examining the influence of societal institutions, status seeking behaviors, internalized dispositions, and systems of meaning on not only what we enjoy--but what we find most revolting.
• MET ML 719: Food Values: Local to Global Food Policy, Practice, and Performance
  Reviews various competing and sometimes conflicting frameworks for assessing what are "good" foods. Examines what global, national, state, and local food policies can do to promote the production and consumption of these foods. Participants learn how to conceptualize, measure, and assess varying ecological, economic, nutritional, health, cultural, political, and justice claims. Students analyze pathways connecting production and consumption of particular foodstuffs in the U.S. and the world. Emphasis is on comparative food systems and food value chains, and the respective institutional roles of science and technology, policy, and advocacy in shaping food supply and demand.
• MET ML 720: Food Policy and Food Systems
  This course presents frameworks and case studies that will advance participants' understandings of U.S. and global food systems and policies. Adopting food-systems and food-chain approaches, it provides historical, cultural, theoretical and practical perspectives on world food problems and patterns of dietary and nutritional change, so that participants acquire a working knowledge of the ecology and politics of world hunger and understand the evolution of global-to-local food systems and diets. Global overview of world food situations will be combined with more detailed national and local-level case studies and analysis that connect global to local food crisis and responses.
• MET ML 721: US Food Policy and Culture
  This course overviews the forces shaping U.S. food policies, cultural politics, diet, and nutrition situations in the twenty-first century. After reviewing the history of U.S. domestic food policy, course discussions consider globalization, new agricultural and food technologies, new nutrition knowledge, immigration, and "sustainable-food" ideology as drivers of American dietary and food-regulatory change. "Food systems," "food chains," and "dietary structure" provide the major analytical frameworks for tracing how food moves from farm to table, and the role of local through national government and non-government institutions in managing these food flows.
• MET ML 722: Studies in Food Activism
  In this class students will explore the work of anthropologists and other social scientists on food activism citizens' efforts to promote social and economic justice through food practices and challenge the global corporate agrifood system. The class will explore diverse individual and collective forms of food activism including veganism, gleaning, farmers' markets, organic farming, fair trade, CSAs, buying groups, school gardens, anti-GMO movements, Slow Food, Via Campesina, and others. It will address the questions: what is food activism, what are its goals, what is working and not working, and what are the results?
• MET ML 723: Sustainable Food Systems
  Sustainability, will examine the contemporary food system through a multi- disciplinary lens. The course will allow students to put readings and ideas into culinary practice. By examining the often-competing concerns from other domains, including economic (both micro and macro), social welfare, social justice and social diversity, health and wellness, food security and insecurity, and resiliency, we can begin to move towards solutions that treat the disease (our food system) and not just the symptoms (domain specific issues). Students will read widely in the topic area, engage in classroom discussion, and work together in the kitchen to understand hands- on culinary approaches to some of the most important issues of our time.
• MET ML 730: Pastry Arts Level 2
  PASTRY ARTS 2
• MET ML 731: Culinary Arts Level 2
  CULINARY ARTS 2
• MET ML 800: Master's Project
  Students nearing the completion of their degree requirement for the MLA in Gastronomy may register for the Masters Project. This graduation requirement is available for students who entered the MLA program during or after Fall 2009. The Masters Project must be completed under the direction of a full- time Boston University faculty member. The coordinator of the Gastronomy program must approve a topic, outline, bibliography and schedule for the project. Please contact the program coordinator for further details and guidelines. Students must also concurrently enroll in ML 802. 2 cr.
• MET ML 801: Master's Thesis I
  Graduate Prerequisites: For M.L.A. students only. - Students nearing the completion of their degree requirement for the MLA in Gastronomy may register for the Master's Thesis. The Master's Thesis must be completed under the direction of a full-time Boston University faculty member. The coordinator of the Gastronomy program must approve a topic, outline, bibliography and schedule for the project. Please contact the program coordinator for further details and guidelines. 4 cr.
• MET ML 803: Master's Thesis II
  Students nearing the completion of their degree requirement for the MLA in Gastronomy may register for the Master's Thesis. The Master's Thesis must be completed under the direction of a full-time Boston University faculty member. The coordinator of the Gastronomy program must approve a topic, outline, bibliography and schedule for the project. Please contact the program coordinator for further details and guidelines. 4 cr.