French Cuisine: Culture, Text, and Context

Catalog description

TAUGHT IN FRENCH: This course will use writing about food as a window into how French literature across the centuries broaches such topics as social class, politics, memory, and identity. We will consider how food often functions as a symbol of cultural concerns as well as its role in the economy. The course will map some of these issues across different genres, including fiction, drama, didactic texts, and cookbooks and will assess the similarities and differences in the way in which these genres handle the cultural, social, political, and economic issues that permeate the topic of food preparation and consumption.