by Michelle Biancardi

Like many of my classmates, my understanding of the rhetoric of food coming into this course was fairly limited to recipes, food blogs, and the food memoir, as these were texts with which I interacted somewhat regularly and found more or less approachable. But our studies this semester opened the door for me to the great expanses of texts that make up the rhetoric of food. I think one of my first and most important realizations of what is meant by ‘the rhetoric of food’ is that this genre is not just constricted to written texts or food literature. Text creators can use the language of visual images or audio to share their work with the world, which I find so exciting as our world shifts in this technology-driven direction, to think of the great many food texts that will be created in a wide variety of media. I greatly enjoyed watching some of my classmates put together such works that I initially did not consider a part of ‘the rhetoric of food’ upon the start of the semester.

We began the course by defining ‘rhetoric’ as the where, when, why, and how of a text, and I learned throughout the semester how important each of these factors plays in the making, meaning, and after-life of a text. I learned quickly that neglecting to learn as much background information about a work as possible was a huge detriment to my efforts of trying to understand how a piece functions in the world. I learned to recognize my biases towards certain texts and the value of moving past texts that seem familiar and comfortable.

To me, ‘the rhetoric of food’ is a celebratory piece of the rhetorical pie. It is a rich genre that calls on contributions from creators of all backgrounds — backgrounds even more diverse than the wide range of backgrounds that my classmates and I brought to this course. ‘The rhetoric of food’ is something to be studied to gather a wider understanding of how others experience the world. I’m excited to continue my personal work in this genre and am looking forward to seeing the many many directions in which the genre will continue to grow.