This semester, we were exposed to a wide variety of food-related texts. My favorite of these texts was “Consider the Lobster,” by David Foster Wallace. This piece was so interesting to me because it conveys a very specific message about the food industry without ever expressing it in so many words. Wallace’s perspective on the Maine Lobster Festival is probably not one that you’ve heard before and the text could be really eye opening. This text helped me realize that food writing can come in all kinds of varieties and is often meant to invoke an extremely personal response within all of us, kind of like eating.

We were also prompted to go out into the world, conduct research, and find our own texts to read and share. My favorite text that I found was a gastronomical article entitled “Michelin in America,” by Priscilla Ferguson. I loved this text because I learned so much from it. Prior to reading, I had no idea what Michelin stars meant (except that they were good) or where they came from, and through this text I learned a great deal about their origin and the transformation of their usage over the years. I had no idea that Michelin came to America such a short time ago and was really interested to understand the dynamic that it now plays in our country’s food society.