Game Day

University of Texas: 33 Iowa State University 7 Fans 3   I take pity on anyone who asks me to join them for a meal. It’s nearly impossible for me to suspend my intense occupation with food and sometimes, which must at times be almost unbearable, if not embarrassing.  My hosts at this weekend’s football game put up with my challenge to find healthy food at the stadium. At University of Texas at Austin Darrel K. Royal Stadium that weekend, the Longhorn football team emerged the victor Read more [...]

Michael Pollan at Austin’s Paramount Theater

Michael Pollan recently spoke to a packed house here in Austin, Texas. The audience included members of “The Food Movement,” as Pollan called them, as well as his many loyal readers. His message was simple, direct, and eloquent. Eat simply, know where your food comes from and ….. beware of capitalism. Six years ago, I attended a talk by Mr. Pollan in a small Cambridge, MA bookstore when his now award-winning book came out, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The audience was about a tenth of the size Read more [...]

in.gredients

In.gredients, a new Austin food startup, promises to change the way we shop for food. When the company’s founders announced its plan to eliminate wasteful packaging, foodies and the media celebrated the merits of the new enterprise, hopeful that in.gredients customers would arrive at the new store with reusable and recycled bags and containers. The founders announced they would provide package-free food that would begin the march towards a zero-waste food system. Major media outlets such as The Read more [...]

Farm Memories

During my food history class last week, I showed a video of Martha Stewart visiting our farm in Maine. The students were learning about the Agricultural Revolution in Britain. Late 18th century livestock improvers, such as Robert Bakewell, produced what we now call heritage breeds of livestock, such as Cotswold sheep and Gloucester Old Spots pigs. In 1994, I founded Kelmscott Rare Breeds Farm for the purpose of conserving these old-fashioned livestock breeds.  Apparently this endeavor piqued Martha’s Read more [...]

Guerilla-Made Food Maps

I've been working on a food-mapping project for the past several months called Food: An Atlas. The project is a non-profit venture launched by the CAGE (Cartography and GIS Education) Lab at the University of California at Berkeley. The project team intends to self-publish a map created by a network of content providers and cartographers over the web. The idea behind the project is to produce a food atlas in a short amount of time from a broad community of researchers. The Berkeley team, located Read more [...]

Cooks from Farm to Table in Austin

Texas peaches will soon disappear from the Hill Country roadside stands, removing star performers on local restaurant menus such as Peach Melba. Named after an Australian opera singer, Peach Melba was the invention of Auguste Escoffier, a nineteenth century entrepreneur who introduced the ice cream and peach dessert to the Paris Ritz. Demonstrating his creative culinary imagination, he convinced farmers in the Rhone Valley to grow thin-stalked, green asparagus for the British who paled at the white, Read more [...]

Food Riots, Then and Now

My students have just read about the bread riots in France leading to the French Revolution in 1789. My course is about the history of food in Europe and we explore the ways food connects with change over time. Lots of change begins with a revolution. While we were reading about the women who flung loaves of bread at the king in Versailles, the faces of angry men in Cairo were raging over the price of grain as the Arab Spring portended a new revolution. Egypt, like other countries in its region, Read more [...]

The Food Lab Office Hours Fall 2012

Brown Bag Lunch Office Hours   Got an idea for a food business? Come to office hours and join us for a brown bag lunch! Great way to meet other food entrepreneurs. Every Tuesday, Noon - 1pm Room 3.112, Sutton Hall Contact: Professor Metcalfe robyn.metcalfe@austin.utexas.edu Read more [...]

Walmart and South Africa

Critics of our global food system will find the recent news about Walmart in South Africa disturbing. The Wall Street Journal reports that South African food companies are working hard to transform their products and business practices so they can work with Walmart. While this may appear a form of American cultural hegemony, South Africans are anxious to join the global food chain by joining forces with the U.S. food company. One South African food company executive said, “We are desperate not Read more [...]

The University of Texas at Austin’s New Food Lab

The Food Lab (TFL) is based in the Center for Sustainable Development (CSD) of the School of Architecture (SOA) of the University of Texas at Austin (UT). The Food Lab provides undergraduate awareness of food issues, encourages and motivates students to engage with innovative food systems research, and provides support to startups that leverage University research. The Lab is a catalyst for scientific and cultural experimentation and innovation in the food system. We encourage the research community Read more [...]