Rhetoric of Food

As the class ends, I believe the Rhetoric of Food is mainly about the sharing, analyzing, and understanding of the writings of food. However, the writings don’t have to be writings, but rather any way of portraying an idea. So it food writing can be viewed as a text, as a visual, or as a verbal story. Any way you share an experience about food with someone is the Rhetoric of Food. And anytime someone shares an experience of food with you, and you are able to analyze and understand what they’re saying, you are participating in the same process.

Best Text of the Semester

Personally for me, the best text I read for this class this semester was the Eater Article about the worst restaurants in America of 2015 (http://www.eater.com/2015/12/23/10649488/scathing-restaurant-reviews-of-2015). In this article, it portrays how the authors dragged these restaurants through the mud due to their “incompetent chefs” and “brand new levels of absurdity”. Reading this magazine article really helped me realize what is important to include in a restaurant review, like visual language and honest opinions. I used this article quite often as a reference when writing my genre conventions paper.

Simple Falafel Recipe

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There’s some kind of magic in creating a meal out of basic ingredients. To start off with an array of raw ingredients and end with a dish is enchanting. That was my goal with this dish; to start off with the basics and finish with something decadent. Simple ingredients, simple recipe, delicious dish.

Ingredients

For Falafel:

  • 5 cups dry chickpeas
  • .5 cups chopped fresh parsley
  • .25 cups chopped white onion
  • 7 cloves of garlic
  • 2 Tbsp of flour
  • 2 tsp of salt
  • 1 Tbsp of ground cumin
  • Pinch of cayenne pepper
  • Extra Virgin Olive Oil

For Sauce:

  • 1 cup of tahini paste
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • .5 of a lemon
  • .5 tsp salt
  • .2 tsp fresh parsley

For Dish:

  • Package of naan bread

Instructions

The falafel is fairly simple. Rinse chickpeas and toss them into a food processor with the parsley, white onion, and garlic. Add the flour, salt, ground cumin and cayenne pepper before mixing. You want it to look like a paste with few chunks.

Once it is fully mixed, put the mixture into a bowl and let it sit in the fridge for one hour. While it’s sitting, put all the sauce ingredients into the food processor and blend until it is sauce-like (simple enough!).

Once the falafel mixture has cooled, form into small discs. Grab a pan and the olive oil and cook the falafel on each side on medium heat for about 2-3 minutes.

Now serve! Place the falafel on naan bread and pour the sauce on top. Add tomatoes and red cabbage if you’re feeling adventurous!