Christine Folch

Category: Food Studies

Foraging Adventure: Brewing Yaupon at Duke

Proof that there’s no reason to suffer a caffeine-free life at Duke. We made yaupon (aka cassina tea) from foraged Ilex vomitoria leaves. It’s awesome. Yes, there’s video.

February 17, 2019
The Social Life of Stimulants

CulAnth290 Fall 2019 Register here. Be honest. The first time you tried coffee, did you like it? Why do you drink it now? How did bitter drinks come to be so popular? And what can we learn about society from the bitter things we consume? This course looks at legal stimulants and other “drug foods”…

January 22, 2019
Geoengineering to Save Paraguay’s Forests, Past & Future

Geoengineering saved Paraguay’s Atlantic Forest in the 19th century. It can do it again in the 21st, in the face of massive soy-led deforestation. The example of Swiss naturalist Moises Bertoni shows the way.

October 3, 2018
Edible Education: a tasty way to transform public schools & farming, to boot.

With the smell of fresh rosemary and the clucking of chickens in the background, food experts Alice Waters and Joel Salatin shared their vision for eating well to the Kitchen Sisters, at Charlottesville’s historic Paramount Theater. As part of the National Endowment for the Humanities 50th anniversary, the event “Farming the Earth, Cultivating Humanity” made…

September 21, 2016
What we eat & why. The legacy of famous food scholar Sidney Mintz

Today’s post is excellent fodder for smart cocktail party conversations. The late Sidney Mintz, who taught anthropology at Johns Hopkins, was one of those academics who had a great answer to the polite question “what do you study?” Mintz studied food. The past and present of Caribbean food, to be precise. The way he connected…

January 21, 2016