LibGuides: Agriculture & Food: Food: DVD, Web, etc.

Documentaries

Food: Delicious Science by Helen Thomas Dr. Michael Mosley and botanist James Wong celebrate the physics, chemistry, and biology hidden inside every bite of a next meal. Learn how the hidden chemistry of food keeps bodies fit and healthy; take a global culinary adventure to reveal the science that makes food taste delicious; and discover how the chemistry in food affects the brain and creates the deepest cravings.
Call Number: DVD TX541 .F66 2017

ISBN: 9781531701918

Publication Date: 2017
In Defense of Food by Michael Schwarz (Producer) "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." These simple words go to the heart of food journalist Pollan's thesis. Humans used to know how to eat well, he argues, but the balanced dietary lessons that were once passed down through generations have been confused and distorted by food industry marketers, nutritional scientists, and journalists. As a result, we face today a complex culinary landscape dense with bad advice and foods that are not "real." Indeed, plain old eating is being replaced by an obsession with nutrition that is, paradoxically, ruining our health, not to mention our meals. Pollan's advice is: "Don't eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize as food." Looking at what science does and does not know about diet and health, he proposes a new way to think about what to eat, informed by ecology and tradition rather than by the nutrient-by-nutrient approach"
Call Number: DVD RA784 .I53 2016

ISBN: 9781627895743

Publication Date: 2016
King Corn: You Are What You Eat by Ian Cheney Fueled by curiosity and a dash of naiveté, college buddies Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis return to their ancestral home of Greene, Iowa, to find out how the modest corn kernel conquered America. With the help of real farmers, powerful fertilizer, government aid, and genetically modified seeds, the friends manage to grow one acre of corn. Along the way, they unlock the hidden truths about America's modern food system.
Call Number: DVD SB191.M2K56 2008

Publication Date: 2008

Podcasts

Eat My Globe Eat My Globe is a podcast created by TV personality, author, and cook Simon Majumdar and produced by April Simpson, in collaboration with the UCLA Department of History and its Public History Initiative. Five seasons of the podcast are available online, dating from October 2018 through the present. The show is an especially pleasant listen for anyone longing to travel, but prevented by the pandemic. Most episodes start with some jokes and puns between Majumdar and Simpson. Then, they dive into content. Topics from season 5 include "Plaice & Thyme: The History of the Cookbook," "Not Despised at the Best Tables: The History of Caviar," and "The History of Curry" in two parts (which, among other things, tells the story of how curry became the most common take out food in the United Kingdom). While it is not easy to tell the running time of individual podcasts at the link above, listeners will find free transcripts (annotated transcripts, which include all the references and resources cited, can be purchased as PDFs). Eat My Globe is also available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and the iHeartRADIO app.
The Food Chain Tune into The Food Chain for mouth-watering and mind-boggling insights on all things food and food systems. With more than 200 episodes as of this write-up, the podcast has explored food through several lenses, from "the business, science, and cultural significance of food," to "what it takes to put food on your plate." For example, the "How to tell a food story" episode weighs in on "how food can be used as a narrative device," while "The tipping point" episode explores cultural and psychological effects on "tipping norms." The reoccurring episode theme "My Life in 5 Dishes" features culinary celebrities (including Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Samuelsson) who invite listeners into their lives through their plates, "shar[ing] their thoughts on the five dishes that mean the most to them." While the topics covered are wide-ranging, the length is manageable; most episodes are less than 30 minutes long, the perfect listen for your lunch break. The Food Chain is a project of BBC World Service and can be found on BBC's website (at the link above), as well as popular podcast platforms such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify
Gastropod
Milk the Funk What beverage is created by processes including wort souring, Brettanomyces fermentation, and turbid mashing? If you guessed beer, you are right! Those interested in learning how beer is brewed may enjoy Milk the Funk: The Podcast. Launched in 2013 as Wiki page and Facebook pages for home-brewing enthusiasts, Milk the Funk has since become "a communal authority on alternative yeast and bacteria fermentation with an emphasis in alternative brewing techniques." Due to the large following garnered by the pages, the group expanded their offerings to include a podcast in 2017. The Milk the Funk: The Podcast features "the most up to date discussion on the science and techniques of mixed fermentation" (think, Microbiology: The Miller Lite edition). Listeners learn from experts in the field, including researchers, brewers, and even "beer historians," who cover topics such as brewing yeasts and fermentation techniques. The podcast is hosted by Art Whitaker, Dan Pixley, and Dr. Matt Humbard, all of whom have impressive experience in the brewing industry. As of this write-up, the team has released 16 episodes, which vary in length from about 20 minutes to 2 hours. These podcast can be streamed at the link above and is also available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Stitcher.
The Splendid Table The Splendid Table got its start as a call-in show on Minnesota Public Radio in the 1990s. Today the show is hosted by food writer Francis Lam, who took over from Lynne Rossetto Kasper in 2018. Recent episodes are featured on the front page of the website. For a full archive dating back to 1999 check out the Episodes page. Weekly installments cover topics such as safe practices for buying and preparing food during the COVID-19 pandemic (see "Episode 704: How to Shop and Eat Safely Now") and the finer points of alcohol (see "Episode 701: The Culture of Drinking"). The site also has a Stories section with hundreds of interviews and culinary insights, as well as some culinary lessons in video format. And, of course there is a searchable and browsable database of thousands of recipes. At the top of the Recipes page, users can filter by category, such as Cheap Eats and Comfort Food. Visitors can also sign up for an email Newsletter, promising "an easy weeknight recipe and more, delivered once a week." Episodes are available to stream at the link above, as well as on most major podcast platforms.

Websites

Cheese Science Toolkit If you're curious about cheddar, you've gouda check out Cheese Science Toolkit. The website is the passion project of Pat Polowsky, who is both a food scientist and a web front end developer, the perfect skill set for creating this web-based science guidebook about cheese. Polowsky says the audience for the Cheese Science Toolkit is anyone who interacts with cheese after it is made, including cheese sellers, buyers, eaters, and "all-around curd nerds". The main content on the site is a series of posts on all topics cheese. Dear to those of us in Wisconsin is the short science byte post entitled "Squeak" that answers the questions, "Why do cheese curds squeak? And why do they lose their squeak?" Another post provides a handy cheese classification chart, categorizing cheeses into unripened, soft cheese (e.g. ricotta, chevre, or fresh mozzarella) and ripened, harder cheese (e.g. Cheddar, Limberger, or Parmesan). For those looking for even more cheese education, an announcement on the website indicates that Polowsky has partnered with the Vermont Cheese Council to offer an online course, The Science of Farmstead Cheese. The course is fee-based, which gives students access to all course materials for one year, but a free preview is available to help prospective students decide if they'd like to sign up. [DS]
DocsTeach: What Americans Eat From the farm to the dinner table, explore the Government’s effect on what Americans eat. Many of the documents and other materials found on this page are featured in the What's Cooking, Uncle Sam? exhibit from the National Archives.
Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink
Food Politics
Blog by Marion Nestle
The Food Programme (BBC) On its website, the tagline for the Food Programme reads "Investigating every aspect of the food we eat." The site primarily features 30-minute podcasts originally broadcasted on BBC Radio 4, covering a wide variety of food-related issues, from speculation on the effects of Brexit on food to different cultural approaches to deep-fried foods to posh noshes for dogs. There's also a series of podcasts entitled "Life Through Food" that features interviews with notables such as Sir Paul McCarthy and Nigella Lawson, while another series, "The Ark of Taste," explores ingredients and traditional foods at risk of extinction. Image galleries also accompany this website. Shetland, Lancashire and squashes are currently on view, in addition to information pages that include recipes such as "How to pimp up your porridge," "How to liven up your lunchtime," "Can comfort foods really make you feel better?" and a Chinese food quiz.
Food Systems Feed the World Designed for middle school classrooms and meant to last an hour, this lesson plan is the perfect introduction to a unit on agriculture and food systems. The curriculum invites students to "explore the steps and processes that create a food system and gain an understanding of hunger as it relates to the physical well-being, culture, and geographic location of all people." The lesson plan includes two activities (with links to all of the materials needed), suggested questions to guide discussions, and a list of "companion resources" for further exploration. The activities, which explore food production and food insecurity, can be easily adapted for virtual classrooms. Debra Spielmaker created this lesson for the National Agricultural Literacy Curriculum Matrix, a branch of Agriculture in the Classroom (which longtime readers may remember from the 02-01-2013 Scout Report). Educators may also enjoy other lesson plans in the matrix (which can be searched by grade and content area). Additionally, educators may find value in the other learning tools found on the Teacher Center page. For example, the eLearning section has classroom activities for pre-K through 12th grade.
How Did We Can? the Evolution of Home Canning Practices How Did We Can? is an online exhibition curated by the National Agricultural Library (NAL) that "document[s] the progression of canning practices in the United States during the 20th century." The exhibit draws on NAL collection materials including books, articles, reports, and a multitude of images. The exhibition has five sections: Canning techniques; Consequences of improper canning; Evolution of canning equipment; Canning through the world wars; and Home canning: post World War II to present. Some of the most interesting materials explore disasters that can occur during canning. The page on oven canning, which was a popular method prior to World War II, did not require a water bath and did not heat up the kitchen as much. Oven canning was deemed unsafe in the mid-1940s, and the page features images showing shrapnel from jars that broke in the oven, and even a blown-off oven door. More horrors can be found in the Consequences of improper canning section, from split cans to botulism outbreaks. For twenty-first century canners, the full text of the 2015 edition of the USDA's Complete Guide to Home Canning is provided.
Indigenous Food Systems Network Created by the Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty, the Indigenous Food Systems Network website serves as a hub for Indigenous food and food sovereignty related resources and research. The Network defines Indigenous food sovereignty as "a specific policy approach to addressing the underlying issues impacting Indigenous peoples and our ability to respond to our own needs for healthy, culturally adapted Indigenous foods," and devotes a section of the site to explore this topic. Other topics have their own sections, too, which are listed on the left-hand panel. For example, visitors can prepare a three-course meal using the Recipes section, explore seasonal activities in the Events and Activities section, and learn about Indigenous leaders and projects via the Profiles section. The Explore by Resource Keywords box, found at the bottom of the Home page, is a great way to browse content from across the site. These keywords include: "Food Sovereignty," "Nutrition," and "Health." Readers should note that some materials on the site are a decade old, but the What's New section brings attention to "recent additions to the site." While all readers can view the resources on the site, readers looking to share resources will need to register an account. Instructions on how to do so are found under the Help tab.
Indigenous Foods Knowledges Network Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and coordinated by the University of Colorado and the University of Arizona, the goal of the Indigenous Foods Knowledges Network (IFKN) is to "develop a network comprised of Indigenous leaders, community practitioners, and scholars (both Indigenous and non-Indigenous) who are focused on research and community capacity related to food sovereignty and Indigenous Knowledge." IFKN is accomplishing this work in part through a series of meetings; the inaugural meeting was held in March 2018 at the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona. IFKN members, partner organizations, and the group's charter can be viewed on the website, in addition to a copy of the NSF-funded proposal that initiated the IFKN. Readers may also be interested in a section of the website entitled "Our Food and Knowledge Stories." Currently, there are about a half dozen stories, ranging from personal reflections to meeting reports to a short video, "The Resiliency of Hopi Agriculture: 2000 Years of Planting."
Jell-O America's Most Famous Dessert: At Home Everywhere This online exhibition, mounted by the University of Michigan in 2015, extolls the wonders of Jell-O. The exhibition uses materials from the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive in the University of Michigan Special Collections Library. Jell-O has been manufactured since 1897, so a good deal of documentation is available to tell its story. Curators Nicole Tarulevicz, and JJ Jacobson organized the materials into thematic sections: production, exotic tales, Jell-O Girl adventures, and imagining the other. The exhibition sections all feature advertisements, illustrations from cookbooks, and postcards and other printed ephemera that show glistening molded Jell-O concoctions. Possibly the most fanciful of these is the back cover of a cookbook called "Jell-O, America's most famous dessert" published by the Genesee Pure Food Company (the original manufacturer of Jell-O), which shows the Genesee factory encased in Jell-O. For those who wish to browse the images, it's possible to jump to a gallery section. No recipes for these stunning Jell-O creations are provided; however, there is ample bibliographic detail about the sources of the exhibition that would make it possible to locate recipes.
Journey of a Product: A Loaf of Bread The story map Journey of a Product uses a loaf of bread as an example through which to introduce viewers to the concept of economic sectors. With a focus on the UK, the journey begins by looking at a colorful interactive map of land use in Europe before succinctly explaining the difference between goods and services. From there, the bread's journey continues through the primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary sectors of the UK economy, incorporating photographs and zoomable maps highlighting specific locations along the way. Users can navigate through the different sections via the menu at the top. This story map could be used as a visual aid by social studies instructors, particularly in geography or economics, but general audiences curious about the systems that enable them to shop at grocery stores may also find it of interest. Journey of a Product was created by Brendan Conway, a geography teacher at Notre Dame School in Cobham, UK.
Mixed History (Cocktails) For Black History Month 2019, we're looking back at "Mixed History," an essay by Osayi Endolyn that appeared in the Southern Foodways Alliance journal and podcast Gravy in summer 2018. The essay itself looks back and analyzes what happened when Joe Stinchcomb, the beverage director at Italian-inspired Oxford, Mississippi restaurant Saint Leo, introduced five special cocktails to the restaurant's seasonal drink menu for Black History Month in 2018. The drinks were titled "Blood on the Leaves," a Mai Tai twist that quoted a lyric in Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit;" "Bullock & Dabney," a mash-up of the Corpse Reviver and Mint Julep; "The Clyde;" "(I'm Not Your) Negroni;" and "Black Wall Street." After only 11 days, the seasonal drink menu was pulled because the restaurant received numerous calls threatening protests. Stinchcomb's intent was to use the drinks to present unknown Black history to a wider audience. For example, Bullock & Dabney references Tom Bullock, a bartender at the St. Louis Country Club in Missouri who published a drink manual in 1917, while John Dabney, born a slave in Virginia, was a prominent caterer and social figure. The drink menu was promoted online where it was presented without context, and viewers had no way of telling that the author was a Black man. Saint Leo was named a 2017 Best New Restaurant Semifinalist by the James Beard Foundation, and Stinchcomb has been inserting hip-hop or pop-culture references into his cocktails (which are by all accounts delicious) since the restaurant opened. See the full essay for more details in this complicated narrative of Black history.
The Quest for Sourdough Puratos, an international company located in Belgium that supplies products for bakeries, patisseries, and chocolate manufacturers, also maintains a library of sourdough strains. Similar to a seed library, the Puratos Sourdough Library currently catalogs 1,430 sourdough varieties, which can be browsed via the Quest for Sourdough website. The library accepts two types of submissions from sourdough aficionados: recipes and actual samples of sourdough starter. Samples are analyzed for microorganisms in labs at the Uni Bolzano and Bari in Italy. After analysis, the microorganisms are then stored in a freezer at -80C/-112F to preserve their biodiversity for the future, while the sourdoughs are kept in optimal condition in refrigerators at 4C/39F. Each sample is refreshed every two months with the flour with which it was originally made. In addition to the scientific side, the website includes a blog with stories and lots of recipes, such as Ione's sourdough waffles (from Alaska) or Sourdough donuts. Belgium is not typically known for its sourdough baked goods and, in fact, consulting the map of location origins of the sourdoughs in the library shows that the majority have been collected from the United States.
Song of the Vine: A History of Wine Although the physical Song of the Vine exhibition hung in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at the Carl A. Kroch Library at Cornell University about ten years ago, the online version is still available for visitors today. Materials on display are selected from the Eastern Wine and Grape Archive, which documents the history of wine in the Finger Lakes region and the development of the wine industry in the U.S. For example, the section entitled "Wine Comes To America" contains items such as images from Agoston Haraszthy's Grape Culture, Wines, and Wine-making. With Notes Upon Agriculture and Horticulture, published in New York in 1862. Haraszthy, a wine enthusiast, is credited with introducing around 300 different grape varieties to the United States. Also in this exhibition section is a reproduction from "Thomas Jefferson on Wine," and a patent for the Einset Seedless Grape, April 26, 1988. Other sections of Song of the Vine cover practical aspects of winemaking, the temperance movement and prohibition, and grape varieties.
Still Tasty Founded in 2009 by food journalist Janice Revell and her mother, Regina (Jeanie) Revell, a retired food safety expert, the mission of StillTasty is "to help consumers save money, eat better and help the environment." To create its content, StillTasty draws on food safety research conducted by government agencies, including the United States Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. StillTasty also contacts food and beverage manufacturers directly to obtain specific information about their products. The main Keep It or Toss It? section of the StillTasty website can be searched by food name, and also browsed by categories such as Nuts, Grains & Pasta, and Vegetables. For example, under Grains & Pasta a user can quickly determine that the shelf life of dry farfalle pasta is about three years, even if the package has been opened. StillTasty also points out the difference between safety and good quality (i.e. frozen farfalle will taste best if it's frozen in a sauce and eaten within 1-2 months, but will still be safe to eat for much longer than that). Users with a particular query in mind may want to begin in the Your Questions Answered section, which covers food safety FAQs. The site also features Shelf Talk, a section dedicated to helping readers with other food preparation and transportation questions.
USDA: FoodData Central Food Data Central is an excellent resource for those interested in health and food-science research. Published by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the website includes "five distinct data types that provide information on food and nutrient profiles." Readers may want to begin on the About Us section, which includes information about the five data types. For example, Foundation Foods consists of nutrient composition for a wide range of foods and ingredients, while Experimental Foods provides links to relevant agricultural research data from multiple sources. The other three data types are: Standard Reference Legacy Release, Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies 2013-2014 (FNDDS), and USDA Global Branded Food Products Database. A useful search bar is available both on the center of the Home page and on the left-hand side of the screen when visiting other pages. Search inquiries include all five data types, and the results list indicates where each individual search result originated. For example, searching "mochi" brings 1 hit from FNDDS and 87 from the Branded Food Products Database. Users should note that limited search features and results are available when conducting a search on a mobile device.
What America Ate If you've wondered what Americans ate during the Great Depression in the 1930s (besides the mock apple pie printed on the side of the box of Ritz crackers, or the eggless, butterless, sugarless "Depression Cake" that is still seen in cookbooks in the twenty-first century) this website has the answers. What America Ate, a National Endowment for the Humanities-funded project from Michigan State University presents three broad categories of information. These consist of digital versions of material collected during the original America Eats project (a Depression-era program in which writers and photographers documented eating habits of people around the country); food advertisements, pamphlets, and packaging created by manufacturers; and 200 community cookbooks that were created by women's groups, clubs, and churches and produced in small editions. The archive currently features a handful of essays, such as Domestic Workers in the South by Rebecca Sharpless, Professor of History at Texas Christian University. It's also possible to search and browse historical recipes, and sign up to transcribe more recipes to make them more searchable.

Streaming Video

Food Forward, Season 2

Food Safety and Hygiene Food safety is an important topic to all students learning how to prepare food. This video covers the most important food safety and hygiene procedures to teach (or remind) students about best practice. It covers the areas of: cleaning, food storage, avoiding cross contamination, and safe heating and cooling practices.
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto "Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants." With those seven words, journalist Michael Pollan distills a career's worth of reporting into a prescription for reversing the damage being done to people's health by today's industrially-driven Western diet. Pollan offers a clear answer to one of the most urgent questions of our time: What should I eat to be healthy? Distributed by PBS Distribution.
Reading and Understanding the New Food Label This program highlights changes in the new food label, which will be required in 2018. Viewers learn how it has been simplified for the consumer and modernized based on current nutrition science.
Tomorrow's Food (3 episodes)

Ejournals

Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies Begun in 2001 as a quarterly print publication from the University of California Press, Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture now makes an increasing amount of its old and new content available online. A wide variety of authors' and scholars' work can be found in Gastronomica, from working chefs and photographers to scholars of many disciplines. The editorial page promises a mix of "examinations of historical trends and transformations in food and eating; analyses of the political, economic, and social dimensions of food production and consumption; research briefs on emerging issues in fields related to food research and innovation; and interviews with key figures in the world of food (scholars, activists, producers, and consumers)." This certainly plays out in the table of contents of the most recent issue (Spring 2018), which lists research articles on topics as varied as food distribution; a biography of the "Chinese Julia Child"; and anti-intellectualism, and natural food. There's also a photo essay entitled "Who Harvests Our Food," on migrant farm workers. Full text of these articles are available to subscribers only; however, readers affiliated with large universities are likely to find that their library subscribes to Gastronomica.
Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development October 16 is World Food Day, an annual celebration recognizing the founding of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization. Many of the holiday's themes, including sustainable food systems and environmentalism, are represented in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development (JAFSCD). This open-access journal (as of 2018) "is the world's only peer-reviewed, transdisciplinary journal focused solely on food and farming-related community development." Scrolling down the Home page, readers will find recent articles highlighted. Visiting the Archives page allows users to browse by volume (from 2010 to present). Articles of interest can be easily downloaded or printed. Readers interested in publishing with the journal should check out the Submissions tab. JAFSCD is currently led by Editor-in-Chief Duncan Hilchey (from the Thomas A. Lyson Center for Civic Agriculture and Food Systems). Financial support is provided by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, the Kwantlen Polytechnic University's Institute for Sustainable Food Systems, the University of Vermont Food Systems, the Center for Environmental Farming Systems, and Clemson University Land-Grant Local Food Systems Solutions.