CM

The Departments of Geography and Folklore have a long-standing relationship in terms of offering courses at Memorial’s Harlow campus in England.  Chris Sharpe and Gerry Pocius have for many years offered the enormously popular English Cultural Landscape course, which has run for several decades.  Charlie Mather and Diane Tye, from Geography and Folklore, have now teamed up to offer a new Harlow programme called Consuming Cultures. This programme brings together their respective teaching and research expertise in the area of food, economy and culture in what promises to be an amazing experience in England.

When it comes to food, we don’t always think of England as an ideal place to run a field school. Yet England’s reputation for bland and tasteless food has changed dramatically in the last twenty years. These changes have come about in part through the rise of celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver, as well as through dramatic changes in the retail landscape.  There are five major supermarkets and they control as much as 90 percent of the retail market. This is a big change from 30 years ago when most food in England was sold through small retail outlets.  England is also an excellent place to look at the changing history of food from Roman through to contemporary times.  Charlie and Diane are in the process of putting together what promises to be an amazing field trip experience for 26 or so students who have registered for the programme from both St John’s and Grenfell campuses. Field trips include visits to London’s traditional fish and meat markets, brewery tours, a Medieval Banquet at the Tower of London, a tour of Tudor kitchens, visits to organic farms, and tours to London’s open air food markets.

Although the course is full, you can find out more about the programme by visiting the Consuming Cultures website and by following us on Twitter.