Online Master of Arts in Gastronomy (Food Studies)

At a Glance

Gastronomy and Food Studies Programs

Master of Arts in Gastronomy

Completion Time

12–20

Months

Credits Required

Tuition

$38,823–$40,575

Part-time**

Please note that most online Food Studies courses run on a 14-week schedule.

**Based on 2025–2026 Boston University tuition and fees. Merit scholarship may reduce cost.

Unlock Food’s True Meaning through Gastronomy

A unique, multidisciplinary program created in collaboration with Jacques Pépin and Julia Child, the Master of Arts (MA) in Gastronomy at Boston University’s Metropolitan College (MET) encompasses the arts, the humanities, and the natural and social sciences. Students in the program examine the role of food in historical and contemporary societies from a variety of perspectives, leading to careers in media, policy, enterprise, and academia, among others.

One of the only online master’s programs of its kind, BU MET’s MA in Gastronomy program offers a rigorous, interdisciplinary approach to food studies that hones the critical and analytical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills necessary to tackle today’s complex food issues, while developing a deep understanding of food in the context of arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences. You will engage with distinguished scholars and academic departments across BU’s many schools and colleges, as well as with renowned visiting faculty and notable food industry professionals and thought leaders—developing the practical and theoretical expertise required for working in food-related industries, governance, and non-profit organizations.

Additionally, BU MET’s Gastronomy master’s broad range of program electives can be combined to focus on specific areas of interest, such as Business & Entrepreneurship, Communication, Food Policy, or History & Culture.

BU MET is proud to be the only school in the country with a food studies master’s degree program that offers the unique option to gain hands-on experience through wine studies courses and a state-of-the-art culinary arts laboratory. Additionally, Boston University’s Programs in Food & Wine include a variety of seminars, lectures, and certificates, including: Cheese Studies; Culinary Arts; Pastry Arts; Seminars in Food & Wine; and Wine Studies.

The MA in Gastronomy is also available on campus in Boston. Learn more.

Curriculum

Boston University’s Master of Arts in Gastronomy consists of ten required courses (40 units): four required courses (16 units) and a choice of Electives (24 Units)

Please note that most online Gastronomy courses run on a 14-week schedule, with the exception of online cooking and baking courses, which follow a seven-week schedule.

Choose at least two courses from the following:

Degree Core Courses

(Four Courses / 16 Units)

MET ML 622 History of Food

4 credits. Fall and Spring

History is part of a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to food studies. Knowing where our food comes from chronologically is just as important as knowing where it comes from geographically. Historical forces bring our food to the table and shape the agricultural practices, labor arrangements and cultural constructions that make meals possible. We will read, research and write food history to explore the ways in which the history of food has shaped our world today, paying careful attention to structural inequalities that restrict food access. We will examine ways in which contemporary questions and problems inform historical inquiries and vice versa. Readings and projects in this course will typically focus on one geographic region but as a class we will be taking into account global connections and influences. The course material is organized both chronologically and thematically, with subthemes such as race, urbanization and industrialization. Students will learn about historical methodology and apply it to their own research.

Section E1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 10th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Elias	Independent	ARR	12:00:00 AM–12:00:00 AM

MET ML 641 Anthropology of Food

4 credits. Fall and Spring

Ethical Reasoning
Research and Information Literacy
Social Inquiry I

This course introduces students to the anthropological study of food and to the concept of food as a cultural system. In this cross-cultural exploration, we will examine the role of food and drink in ritual, reciprocity and exchange, social display, symbolism, and the construction of identity. Food preferences and taboos will be considered. We will also look at the transformative role of food in the context of culture contact, the relationship between food and ideas of bodily health and body image, food and memory, and the globalization of food as it relates to politics, power, and identity. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Social Inquiry I, Research and Information Literacy.

Section O1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 15th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Metheny	Independent	ARR	12:00:00 AM–12:00:00 AM

MET ML 701 Introduction to Gastronomy

4 credits. Fall and Spring

This course is designed to introduce students to current and foundational issues in food studies and gastronomy. Through this focus on central topics, students will engage directly in the interdisciplinary method that is central to food studies. Each week will introduce a unique view of the holistic approach that is central to a liberal arts approach to studying food and a new research technique will be presented and put into practice through the readings and course exercises. This course will give Gastronomy students a better understanding of the field as a whole. While providing an overview and methodological toolbox, it will act as a springboard in to areas of specialization of the course. 4 credits.

Section A1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 10th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Elias	Independent	W	06:00:00 PM–08:45:00 PM	FLR 152

MET ML 715 Food and the Senses

4 credits. Fall and Spring

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.

Section A1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 10th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Metheny	Independent	R	06:00:00 PM–08:45:00 PM	FLR 152

The remaining 24 units are completed with elective courses. Students may choose any of the courses offered below to fulfill the elective requirement, or may select approved electives from other schools and colleges at Boston University or from any of the 18 institutions in the Boston Consortium, with approval from the Program Director. Within the elective unit requirement, students may opt to complete one or more of the following 8-unit focus areas:

Electives

Business and Entrepreneurship
Select 8 units in consultation with an advisor. Suggested courses include

MET ML 655 Launching a Food Business

4 credits. Fall and Spring

Whatever type of food-related business you want to start, you will need expert advice to plan and launch. This course will guide you through the process of developing and realizing your business idea. Guest speakers from the food industry will share hands- on knowledge and insights. In this section you will focus on writing a business plan. Grading is based on attendance, participation and completing a business plan.

Section A1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 10th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Cohen	Independent	T	06:00:00 PM–08:45:00 PM	FLR 121

Communication
Select 8 units in consultation with an advisor. Suggested courses include

MET ML 671 Food and Visual Culture

4 credits. Fall and Spring

An extensive historical exploration into prints, drawings, film, television, and photography relating to food in the United States and elsewhere. Examines how food images represent aesthetic concerns, social habits, demographics, domestic relations, and historical trends.

Section E1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 10th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Palmer	Independent	ARR	12:00:00 AM–12:00:00 AM

MET ML 681 Food Writing for the Media

4 credits. Fall and Spring

Students will develop and improve food-writing skills through the study of journalistic ethics; advertising; scientific and technological matters; recipe writing; food criticism; anthropological and historical writing about food; food in fiction, magazines and newspapers.

Section A1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 10th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Julian	Independent	M	06:00:00 PM–08:45:00 PM	FLR 123

Food Policy
Select 8 units in consultation with an advisor. Suggested courses include

MET ML 721 US Food Policy and Culture

4 credits. Fall and Spring

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.

Section O1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 15th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Messer	Independent	ARR	12:00:00 AM–12:00:00 AM

History and Culture
Select 8 units in consultation with an advisor. Suggested courses include

MET ML 629 Culture and Cuisine of the African Diaspora

4 credits.

The foodways of the people displaced from the African continent are interwoven with many societies, cultures, and cuisines across the globe. In this course, we will study five geographic regions of Africa; north, central, east, west and south. The list of the countries that encompass each region will follow. Cookbooks, maps, songs, poems, and even some folklore will be used as texts to analyze and add context to the history of the people of the diaspora. This course will have real, and courageous, and respectful conversations including race and power and how those two elements are embedded into the food systems in North America, Central America, South America, the Caribbean and Europe. We will trace ingredients that came with the enslaved people and track their integration into cuisines and cultures (agriculture, pop culture, aquaculture etc.) as a collective group and then independently as a capstone course project.

Section E1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 10th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
DaCosta	Independent	ARR	12:00:00 AM–12:00:00 AM

MET ML 630 Cookbooks and History

4 credits. Fall and Spring

What can cookbooks and recipes tell us about an individual? A community? A culture? What does the language of the recipe say about systems of knowledge and ways of thinking about the world? The movement of ingredients and food technology? The transmission of cooking knowledge? Does the analysis of historical cookbooks have contemporary applications? In this course, students will consider these questions through a survey of historical cooking texts and in-class exercises. We will examine cookbooks as a source of culinary history and a window into the changing material culture, practices, spaces, and relationships associated with food preparation and consumption. In addition, students will examine cookbooks and recipes as social documents that reveal the presence of social and economic hierarchies, networks and alliances, and political, economic, and religious structures. We will also examine these documents as cultural texts that reveal the construction of ethnic, gendered, and other identities. Students will study and analyze a selection of cookbooks from different historical periods and geographic regions leading to a final project and paper.

Section A1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 10th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Metheny	Independent	W	06:00:00 PM–08:45:00 PM	FLR 123

General Electives
Select 8 units in consultation with an advisor. Suggested courses include

MET ML 610 Special Topics in Gastronomy

4 credits. Fall and Spring

This course covers relevant topics in Gastronomy and Food Studies. The topic will vary by semester and course section. Refer to class notes in MyBU for individual course descriptions. Email foodma@bu.edu for more information.

Section E1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 10th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Lopez Ganem	Independent	ARR	12:00:00 AM–12:00:00 AM

MET ML 629 Culture and Cuisine of the African Diaspora

4 credits.

Section E1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 10th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
DaCosta	Independent	ARR	12:00:00 AM–12:00:00 AM

MET ML 630 Cookbooks and History

4 credits. Fall and Spring

Section A1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 10th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Metheny	Independent	W	06:00:00 PM–08:45:00 PM	FLR 123

MET ML 655 Launching a Food Business

4 credits. Fall and Spring

Section A1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 10th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Cohen	Independent	T	06:00:00 PM–08:45:00 PM	FLR 121

MET ML 671 Food and Visual Culture

4 credits. Fall and Spring

Section E1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 10th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Palmer	Independent	ARR	12:00:00 AM–12:00:00 AM

MET ML 681 Food Writing for the Media

4 credits. Fall and Spring

Section A1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 10th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Julian	Independent	M	06:00:00 PM–08:45:00 PM	FLR 123

MET ML 699 Bake Like a Pro

4 credits. Fall and Spring

In this introductory course in the pastry arts, students will learn the history and fundamentals of baking through lecture, demonstration, and full, hands-on participation. Topics covered will include, but are not limited to: the characteristics and function of ingredients; how to properly scale and measure ingredients; and preparing classic pastries such as puff pastry, Paris-Brest, kouign amann, brioche, pavlova, biscotti, roulade, clafoutis, chocolate babka, dacquoise, charlottes, fresh fruit galettes, Victoria sponges, and financiers.

Section A1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 10th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Palmer	Independent	T	06:00:00 PM–08:45:00 PM	FLR 128

Section E1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Oct 20th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Sciarappa	Independent	ARR	12:00:00 AM–12:00:00 AM

MET ML 716 Sociology of Taste

4 credits. Fall and Spring

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.

Section O1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 15th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Fitzmaurice	Independent	ARR	12:00:00 AM–12:00:00 AM

MET ML 721 US Food Policy and Culture

4 credits. Fall and Spring

Section O1, FALL 2025 Sep 2nd to Dec 15th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Messer	Independent	ARR	12:00:00 AM–12:00:00 AM

MET ML 730 Pastry Arts Level 2

4 credits. Fall and Spring

PASTRY ARTS 2

Section E2, FALL 2025 Oct 28th to Dec 15th
Instructor	Type	Days	Times	Location
Sciarappa	Independent	ARR	12:00:00 AM–12:00:00 AM

Dates & Deadlines

View BU MET’s academic calendar for online programs, including important dates and deadlines.

Application Requirements

Learn about application requirements for BU MET graduate degree and certificate programs.

How You Benefit from a
Boston University Education

A BU credential can help lay the foundation for career advancement and personal success.

Enjoy an average 24:1 student-to-faculty ratio in courses that are 100% online, while tackling complex issues alongside peers with solid academic and practical experience.
Food Studies courses offer interplay between academic research and critical thinking as well as exploring food through the senses—providing rare and exceptional range and depth to food studies scholarship. Courses are enhanced by regular guest lectures and special events.
Benefit from working closely with highly qualified Boston University faculty who draw from active research and extensive field experience in all aspects of food studies: policy, history, anthropology, marketing, entrepreneurship, hospitality, journalism, and science.
Experience one of the only programs in which you can earn academic credit by completing hands-on culinary courses in Cheese Studies, Pastry Arts, and Wine Studies.
In honor of the late Julia Child, up to three awards per semester are given to enrolled Master of Arts in Gastronomy students for outstanding work in a course.
BU MET’s legacy in food studies goes back to 1991, when the Gastronomy Master’s degree program was founded by Jacques Pépin and Julia Child, two legends of the culinary world.

All graduate students are automatically considered for merit scholarships during the application process and nominated based on eligibility. Learn more.

Rankings & Accreditations

America’s Top Online Colleges

Graduate with Expertise

Students who complete the Gastronomy master’s degree will be able to demonstrate:

Advanced knowledge of social theory applicable to the study of food.
An ability to critically analyze current and foundational issues in food studies and food systems.
Proficiency in qualitative and quantitative methodologies for interdisciplinary food studies research.
Competence in the written and oral presentation of complex ideas and arguments in scholarly and professional contexts.

“I chose the gastronomy program because it is one of the few food studies programs in the country. The Gastronomy program has been central to my entrepreneurship journey.” Read more.

Kimi Ceridon (MET’15)
Founder and Head Cheese, Life Love Cheese
MET ‘15

Advance Your Career

BU MET’s Gastronomy master’s degree program prepares graduates who are insightful, adaptable, and creative. BU’s Gastronomy alumni hold positions in academia, food writing and publications, media and communications, policy, tourism, marketing, food enterprise and distribution, and many other areas. Their range of professions and endeavors is as unusual,exciting, and diverse as they come.

Recent graduates have found job opportunities and career paths at companies such as:

Johnson & Wales University
America’s Test Kitchen
The Pioneer Woman and Food Network Magazines
Food Tours at Intrepid Travel
PepsiCo
Oceania Cruises
Legal Sea Foods
Amazon
Oldways Trust
Culture Brewing Co.
The Boston Globe

Allrecipes.com
Datassential
culture: the word on cheese magazine
Clean Plates OmniMedia
Aramark
Whetstone Media
Cornell University
Oxfam America
New England Culinary Institute

Take Advantage of Career Resources at BU MET

You will find the support you need in reaching your career goals through MET’s Career Development office, which offers a variety of job-hunting resources, including one-on-one career counseling by appointment for online students. You can also take advantage of tools and resources available online through BU’s Center for Career Development.

Food Studies Faculty

Megan Elias

Associate Professor of the Practice and Director, Gastronomy

Karen Metheny

Master Lecturer, Gastronomy

Master Lecturer, Archaeology, Boston University College of Arts & Sciences

Interested in Learning More?

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Online Master of Arts in Gastronomy

At a Glance

Unlock Food’s True Meaning through Gastronomy

Curriculum

Degree Core Courses

Electives

How You Benefit from a Boston University Education

Rankings & Accreditations

Graduate with Expertise

Advance Your Career

Take Advantage of Career Resources at BU MET

Food Studies Faculty

Interested in Learning More?

Recent News

Area of Study

How You Benefit from a
Boston University Education