There’s more to food than what we eat. Through Food Studies, which Boston University Metropolitan College students can pursue full- or part-time through the online and on-campus MA in Gastronomy and Food Studies Graduate Certificate programs, we illuminate the many lasting truths housed within what we consume. More than anything, the study of food possesses the power to tell us rich details about ourselves and the world we live in.
In the newest installment of Metropolitan College’s Faculty Angle series, where BU MET faculty offer big-picture insights into their specialized field, Associate Professor of the Practice and Food Studies Director Megan Elias explores the topic of queer food. Dr. Elias, co-editor of the recently published Queers at the Table: An Illustrated Guide to Queer Food (with Recipes), tells The Faculty Angle that she’s less interested in locating a strict definition of queer food than she is in recognizing it for its eternal existence.
“Queer food has always been,” Dr. Elias says. “Queer people have always been cooking, they have always been eating, they have always been part of the food landscape. And so to acknowledge that is really to show us a new way of thinking about food.”
In all, it’s a topic Dr. Elias explores in a course she teaches, Food, Gender, and Sexuality (MET ML 706), where students interrogate the role social norms play in our food culture. In this way, queer food provides a revealing inroad to just what is compelling and powerful about food study overall.
“We really feel that talking about queer food is a way to disrupt ideas about food that really obscure [the] human experience,” she says. “That is what we do in food studies—we use food to understand the bigger picture of human experience.”
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