I was a bit skeptical that the Witten Center for the Core Curriculum had decided to add yet another course to the already hefty Core Curriculum. Art hum, music hum, and now food hum? Let's be serious.
When Professor Perez assigned the first paper, however, I realized how much more exciting a topic food is than literature, art, or music. The assignment was to write a six page paper analyzing the interactions of one key ingredient in a recipe of our choice from The New Basics Cookbook. I wrote mine on the way heavy crème fraîche in gratin dauphinois, while providing substance to the dish, depresses the dish's existential themes, invoking in the eater a sense of profound admiration for both the cook (the interpreter of the recipe) and the author of the recipe itself.
The midterm and final were a little strange, I have to admit. The TAs blindfolded each student and we had to identify individual spices and dishes, which were spoon-fed to us in different contexts.
Waxima Perez, being a professor of food studies, was surprisingly skinny! She attributed her good bodily shape to her superior genetics - she is a quarter eskimo.