Post 1: For the required readings, I liked reading “Consider the Lobster” by Foster Wallace. I learned a lot about lobsters and I didn’t know they used to be considered low-class food, since now they’re really expensive. The article was really informative and I thought it was interesting that there could be a whole article written about lobsters, including the ways it can be cooked and a little bit about its history. From my own readings, I liked this article, History of Ice Cream, which talked about the history of ice cream and included a lot of fun facts about ice cream. I love ice cream but I didn’t know much about it until I read this article.

Post 2: I think the rhetoric of food connects everyone around the world. Every culture has their own food and unique recipes, and by writing about food, we can share our culture with other people and learn something new. Writers can express their thoughts on food, whether it be about the food itself, the history of that dish, or their thoughts on a restaurant they went to. People write restaurant reviews to express their thoughts on a restaurant, and in today’s world, Tasty videos have become a popular way to show how to make food in a short video clip. The rhetoric of food brings us together and is meant to be shared with everyone. Anyone can read about food and write about it, and by doing so we can learn more about food and its importance to people around the world.

I am thinking of writing a restaurant review, which will allow me to write about my experience at a restaurant and share my thoughts on it with my readers so they can decide whether or not they should try out this restaurant. I read a few different kinds of restaurant reviews, which all gave me more information about the restaurant that the author reviewed and what he or she thought about it. At first I was going to write a more formal restaurant review, but then I decided writing a blog style review listing out short reviews from different places would be more interesting.

The purpose of these blog style reviews is to review many food places that serve the same kind of food and compare them, so readers will have a chance to consider different places to try out. Most of the reviews I picked out were for restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I’m from, and I will be writing about places there since I have been able to try a lot of different restaurants back home. I noticed that in all of these reviews, the author would list out the name of the restaurant, the location, and what kind of food was served at the restaurant. For example, in the “Bay Area Boba” blog, the author included a list of top boba shops and under each one, she would write a short review of the shop. In all of my sources, there was a picture for each restaurant review, which would show either a picture of the restaurant or of the food that the author ordered. In some of the reviews, there would also be an exact address of the place; for example, in the Eater SF Coffee Shops blog, the address of each shop is included along with a map showing where exactly the location is. Each author reviewed a different number of places; for example, in the Bay Area Boba blog, the author did a review of the top 5 boba shops in the South Bay, while in the Top NY Restaurants, the author did a review of the top ten restaurants.

Here are the texts that I will be writing about:

Top NY Restaurants

Bay Area Boba

Coffee Around the SF Bay Area

Healthy Fast Food Around the Bay Area

 

Wells, Pete. “Filipino Food Worth the Wait at Bad Saint in Washington.” Review of Bad Saint in Washington, D.C., The New York Times, 29 November 2016.

I chose to read a restaurant review written by Pete Wells, the restaurant critic for The New York Times. He wrote the review for a Filipino restaurant called Bad Saint in Washington, D.C.. Wells set the scene by describing the line he had to wait in and what he did while he was waiting in line. I could picture what the place looked like; he wrote how regular customers brought their own folding chairs and drinks to make themselves comfortable while they waited. He also described how he “tried not to eavesdrop” on other people’s conversations and chatted with Black Elvis.

Once Wells was seated at the restaurant, he gave a description of what the interior of the restaurant looked like. Tables at the restaurant seat four people maximum, which helps give potential customers an idea of what to expect if they were to come in with a party of more than four. Although Bad Saint is a small restaurant, it makes use of the tiny space and Wells writes how it is easy to talk with others while sitting in the open kitchen styled restaurant. This helps readers picture the restaurant and feel included in the experience of Wells at this restaurant.

Following this, Wells talks about the Filipino food offered at the restaurant, giving short descriptions of the food. He explains what an adobo is, and how Bad Saint’s adobo of squid is “still astonishing.” He includes some recommendations for dishes to order; here, he says the oxtails and bok choy stirred in peanut sauce is an amazing dish to try. Wells writes how his guests were doubtful that pancit canton, a supposedly bland lo mein, would taste good, but were delightfully surprised when they tasted it.

Wells gives a brief background about the restaurant owners and the inspiration for their food. He talks about how the owners are Filipino but were born in the US, and some of the cooking “has a homey simplicity.” Laing is made differently in the Philippines, but the way the chef makes it at Bad Saint is “so luxuriously flavorful,” it’s clear that he knows how to incorporate the local ingredients to make this dish.

Wells wrote this restaurant review to share his experience and help other people decide whether or not they should try out this restaurant. I think this is a good example of a restaurant review because it is written by someone who has a lot of experience writing reviews and since it’s in The New York Times, a well-known newspaper, it should be quality writing.

 

 

Annotated Bibliography on Ice Cream

“The History Of Ice Cream”. Idfa.org. Web. 27 Feb. 2017.

This article is from the International Dairy Foods Association, which represents the dairy industry’s manufacturing and marketing processes. It was written for people who are interested in reading about the history of ice cream, and is written in a way so people of all ages should have no trouble understanding it. No one knows exactly who or where ice cream was first invented, but we know that rulers like Alexander the Great and Nero Claudius Caesar ordered their servants to gather ice from the mountains, which they then flavored with honey or fruit. When Marco Polo went to Italy, he brought with him a recipe that was similar to sherbet, and many historians believe ice cream evolved from there. When ice cream came to America, it was mostly enjoyed by those in the upper class until technology made it possible for ice cream to be produced at higher rates. This matches the timeline stated in the article from Food Timeline stated below. I learned a lot about the history of ice cream from this article and never knew that ice cream had such a long history dating back to the Roman Empire.

Olver, Lynne. “Ice Cream”. Foodtimeline.org. N.p., 2004. Web. 27 Feb. 2017.

Lynne Olver is an editor for Food Timeline and conducted extensive research on the history of ice cream before writing this article, citing her sources throughout the page. This page was written in a FAQ style, where the headers were questions followed by the answers underneath. Olver’s purpose in writing this was to answer frequently asked questions about ice cream for her audience, which is everyone surfing the web in search of fun facts about ice cream. She discusses the evolution of different flavors of ice cream and how in the beginning, ice cream was often flavored with fruit but now, there are many other flavors available. Along the timeline, she includes quotes from her sources; for example, in 1747, she includes a quote about raspberry ice cream and continues to do this up through the 1990s. Olver also talks about different kinds of ice cream treats, such as banana splits and egg creams, and includes the history and recipes for these desserts. She includes all her sources she uses as evidence of where she got her information from, and provides a variety of information about ice cream. From this page, I could see how ice cream has evolved into a variety of delicious creamy desserts that are still popular today.

“Birthplace Of Commercial Ice Cream Production”. Pennsylvania Heritage 2012. Web. 28 Feb. 2017.

This article was published in the Fall 2012 edition of Pennsylvania Heritage magazine and discusses how ice cream was commercialized. It includes the year and volume number of the magazine it was published in. Jacob Fussell was owner of a milk and cream delivery business in which he went around Baltimore delivering dairy products. He got the opportunity to start an ice cream factory when a businessman who sold frozen desserts asked him to take over the business. This magazine article fits into the category of advocating for change; it informed me about the commercialization of ice cream, which changed the way ice cream was sold because now people from all social classes and not just the wealthy were able to buy ice cream. It made me really appreciate Fussell for being the father of commercial ice cream production because without him, I probably wouldn’t be able to have such easy access to ice cream in the supermarket today.

Ronald Reagan: “Proclamation 5219—National Ice Cream Month and National Ice Cream Day, 1984,” July 9, 1984. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=40141.

This is a proclamation made by Ronald Reagan on July 9, 1984. It includes the proclamation number at the top and is signed by Reagan at the bottom. He stated how ice cream is “the perfect dessert and snack food” and gave some statistics on the number of gallons of ice cream consumed in the United States in 1983. He declared July 1984 to be National Ice Cream Month and July 15, 1984 as National Ice Cream Day. This became America’s way of celebrating ice cream and even today, we continue to observe this national event. Major ice cream brands like Baskin Robbins and Haagen-Dazs will usually have special deals on this day. This source gave me evidence that National Ice Cream Day is a day that Americans observe, thanks to Reagan.

“From The Cow To The Cone”. Idfa.org. Web. 28 Feb. 2017.

This article about the making of ice cream is from the International Dairy Foods Association, a large organization comprised of smaller subdivisions that represent the nation’s dairy industry. The purpose of this article is to inform readers who are looking to learn about the process of making ice cream. It includes a title and then the information underneath, characteristics of an informative article. The most important ingredient for ice cream is milkfat, and according to federal regulations, ice cream must have at least ten percent milkfat. Sweeteners can vary from cane sugar to honey, but once all the main ingredients have been added, the ice cream is blended and frozen using the batch freezer method. The ice cream then goes through a process of aeration, and federal standards say that ice cream must weigh at least 4.5 pounds per gallon. At this point, additional toppings are added if needed, and then the ice cream is packaged up, ready to be distributed. From this article, I learned how ice cream is made and it gives a detailed step by step look of the process of ice cream manufacturing.

Chen, Yan-Kwang, Pei-Shan Tsai, and Fei-Rung Chiu. “A Customer Value Analysis Of Taiwan Ice Cream Market: A Means-End Chain Approach Across Consumption Situations”. Springer Link. N.p., 2015. Web. 28 Feb. 2017.

This study was made by three Taiwanese researchers who wanted to learn more about customer value perceptions and how that might affect ice cream marketing. The audience is people in the scientific world who also conduct research and share their results. In today’s competitive society, ice cream brands have to find new ways to draw in customers. From the results of the study, they found out that the main values customers were looking for included economy, pleasure, and efficiency. Different kinds of consumers will focus on different values; for example, customers who are getting ice cream for dates or hanging out with friends will focus more on pleasure, while those buying ice cream from the store will look for satisfaction. This source listed out details from every step of the research process, which is part of many research papers, and I could see how certain phrases corresponded to different customer values, which I thought was interesting because major ice cream companies probably use this kind of knowledge in their marketing schemes to draw in customers.

Goff, H. Douglas and Richard W Hartel. Ice Cream. 7th ed. New York: Springer, 2013. Print.

In one of the chapters of this book, Hartel writes about the flavors of ice cream and the ingredients that go into the making of these flavors. Richard Hartel is a professor of food engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his book contains a lot of details about the chemistry that goes on in the making of ice cream. This book is written for people interested in the science that goes behind ice cream. Hartel writes about how the flavors offered by ice cream brands can help them compete with each other; if one company offers a unique but popular flavor, that can help it draw in more business. There are different kinds of flavorings, including liquids, syrups, and solids. Flavors can also be taken from natural sources, such as vanilla beans. A lot of the scientific details weren’t really useful for my topic but I was still able to take away some facts about the making of flavors of ice cream. I never knew how many different kinds of ingredients were used to make the flavors of ice cream, and how the ingredients used could affect the flavor and produce slightly different tastes for the same flavor.

“Ice Cream Facts”. IceCream.com. Web. 28 Feb. 2017.

This website has a lot of fun facts about ice cream, which I thought was interesting. Vanilla is the most popular flavor in the United States, and California produces the most ice cream in America. Most of the vanilla used to make ice cream comes from Madagascar and Indonesia. The average American consumes 48 pints of ice cream a year. This source was different from my other sources in the way the information was presented; there were a lot of colorful graphics and the fun facts were listed in different fonts, making the presentation very artsy like a blog. While there wasn’t any information on who made the website, it seemed like it was made by ice cream fanatics who wanted to share their love and knowledge of ice cream in a way that would be understood by any kind of audience. There were a lot of visuals to go along with the fun facts and I thought it was aesthetically pleasing while also getting the information across.

Poon, Linda. “Why Scream For Gelato Instead Of Ice Cream? Here’s The Scoop”. NPR.org. N.p., 2015. Web. 28 Feb. 2017. 

In this story, Linda Poon interviews Morgan Morano about gelato. Morano is the author of The Art of Making Gelato and was trained in Italy, where gelato is from. This story is like the written version of the podcast in which Poon interviews Morano, and it is meant for anyone interested in learning more about gelato versus ice cream. Morano talks about some of the differences between gelato and ice cream; gelato is smoother, silkier, denser, and uses more milk than cream. Gelato has less butterfat than ice cream and is served at slightly warmer temperatures to make it easier to taste the flavors in smaller amounts. Morano’s training in Italy gives her more authenticity and she knows how to tell the difference between traditional gelato and ice cream that is just labeled as gelato. Gelato should be served with a spatula instead of a scooper, and most importantly, it should be eaten fresh. I wanted to find out about ice cream in other countries that might have a different name, such as gelato, and this source was useful in comparing and contrasting gelato with ice cream. With gelato on the rise, people should be aware that gelato is not the same as ice cream.

 

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Process Reflection:

When I first started thinking of topics for my annotated bibliography, I thought I wanted to write about Chinese and Taiwanese food, since that’s the food I grew up eating at home. However, once I started searching for sources, I realized it was difficult to find sources that related to my topic, so I decided to switch to something else. I wrote about choosing a topic in my writer’s notebook, as shown in an entry here: “I searched Google and the UT library website but didn’t come up with anything that useful, so I think I might have to change a topic.” One night while I was working on my Operating Systems homework and thinking about how to celebrate surviving the midterm, I suddenly thought about ice cream and how it would be a good topic for my annotated bibliography. I enjoy eating ice cream when it’s hot outside and I thought it would be interesting to do more research about it. I didn’t know much about ice cream at all before writing this bibliography, which is why I thought it would be a good topic. I thought it would be good to start off by finding sources that talked about the history of ice cream, so I could get some background about my topic. From there, I would move on to include sources related to the making of ice cream, which would then lead to flavors of ice cream and different kinds of ice cream today. I thought these subsections of the topic of ice cream would flow together and work well for my annotated bibliography.

Once I decided on my topic, I started thinking about what sources I wanted to find. I started off by using Google to find sources for the history of ice cream. I came upon many websites and decided to keep the one from the IDFA, because I thought it was more credible since it was from the International Dairy Food Association, an organization that represents the nation’s dairy industry. I had also found a source from history.org that discussed the history of ice cream. However, I found it to include a lot of details which were not useful to me; for example, there was a whole paragraph talking about how humans came to discover fire, but all I wanted was to find out how ice cream was first invented. I ended up scrapping this source and finding other sources that fit into the other categories that we needed for this bibliography. While I was looking for sources related to the flavors of ice cream, I came across a list of the top fifteen flavors from The Food Channel. At first I thought this might be useful as a justification for the most popular flavors of ice cream, but since it was only a list and didn’t include any other information, I decided to reject it and look for something more informative. For the category related to celebrating of food, I thought about National Ice Cream Day and came across a proclamation by Ronald Reagan in which he made July 15 the official national holiday. I thought it was an interesting source to include in my annotated bibliography; I never thought a president would actually make a national holiday to celebrate ice cream. It was difficult to find a source that advocated for change, but when I came across the article from the Pennsylvania Heritage magazine, it seemed perfect. This magazine article was about the commercialization of ice cream, which allowed people of all social classes and not just the wealthy to enjoy ice cream. The magazine has been published since the 1980s and is archived in the State Museum of Pennsylvania website, which lent it more credibility.

In conclusion, I ended up making several changes during the whole research process. I switched topics to ice cream, which was more interesting to me and had more depth to it which made it easier to find sources. I used my notebook to keep track of where I was during each part of the writing process, and I kept a list of all my sources on a Google docs file for easy access. My final product uses sources which were informative and which I deemed were credible.

I originally was going to do research on Chinese food, but I couldn’t find too many sources that were useful so I decided to switch to something else. I decided to look into the history and making of ice cream, and how we have so many different flavors now. I was sitting in my room the other night thinking of some food I like, and I thought about how I was going to get ice cream after my exam this week, which led me to choose ice cream as my topic. I found several websites online about the history of ice cream, including an article from the IDFA (IDFA Ice Cream History), the Farmer’s Almanac (Almanac), and a page from history.org (History.org Ice Cream). After learning about the history of ice cream, I thought it would be appropriate to also learn about how ice cream is made. I found more information on the IDFA website (IDFA Making of Ice Cream). I also went on google to look up the popular flavors of ice cream and found a list of the top 15 flavors here (Top Flavors). I know there are a lot of unique flavors around the world and I hope I can find more information about that. I thought going from the history, to the making of, and finally to ice cream today would flow along nicely. When I went on the internet to look up a list of ice cream flavors, I ended up finding a lot of results for different ice cream companies, so I wasn’t sure if I should take a look at a lot of them and then pick out the more unique flavors to include when talking about how ice cream flavors have changed.

 

Over the past two weeks, I have been looking at different websites online and thinking about a topic that would interest me. I finally decided to research about the cuisines and culture of East Asia, particularly Taiwan and China, since my parents are from Taiwan and I grew up eating food from those cuisines. I have mostly been using Google to help me find sources that are related to my topic. I also looked on the UT library website but most of the results are books that are actually located in the library, so I need to find a chance to take a look around the PCL sometime. I found a recipe book for Chinese dishes on the UT library website (http://ebookcentral.proquest.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/lib/utxa/reader.action?docID=903067), so this can help me get an idea of what kind of dishes are part of the Chinese cuisine. I also found another book called The Land of the Five Flavors that explains the cultural history of the Chinese cuisine (http://ebookcentral.proquest.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/lib/utxa/detail.action?docID=1531172). I have a Google Doc to help me keep track of my citations and every time I find something new, I’ll put the link in there so I have a list of my sources that I might use.

Whenever you’re craving something sweet but simple, cheesecake is the way to go. If you’ve been to The Cheesecake Factory, you probably know how expensive each slice of cheesecake is, no matter how simple or extraordinarily sweet the flavor is. Instead of spending all your money on just one slice of cheesecake, you can make your own whole cheesecake for just about the same price as one slice from a restaurant like The Cheesecake Factory. This could be your new comfort food to eat when you come home from a long day of classes and just want to forget about school for a moment. My mother would make this a lot when I was younger, so I thought it would be fun to try and make it on my own. I ate the whole thing within a few days and have no regrets. This is super easy to make and you can make it for yourself to enjoy or share it with friends.

 

Serving size: 12 to 16 servings

Ingredients:

8 oz Kraft Philadelphia fat free cream cheese

½ pint heavy whipping cream

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

¼ cup of sugar

9 inch Keebler Ready Crust pie crust

2 large eggs

 

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl until there are no more lumps.
3. Pour the mix into the pie crust.
4. Put the cheesecake in the oven and bake for 36 minutes.

 

 

 

Recipes are written to teach readers how to make the dish so they can recreate it themselves. Authors write recipes with different kinds of audiences in mind. For example, in the book Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day, author Leanne Brown writes, “I designed these recipes to fit the budgets of people living on SNAP” (Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day). Although the main audience of her book was for people who were part of the food stamp program, her book is also suitable for college students, people on a budget, or people who don’t want to spend too much on groceries, demonstrating how recipes can pertain to more than just one audience. The purpose of writing recipes can vary based on who the audience is; some authors might write recipes to inform readers on how to make the food, while others might write recipes just to get the information out there. Authors will also think about including certain words in the recipe title to catch the attention of audience members; for example, if an author wanted to write for college students, he or she might include the word “easy” or “quick” in the title, since many college students do not have as much time to cook. Most recipes follow a certain format which makes it easy to identify that a certain piece of text is a recipe. First, many recipes will start off with an introduction of the food so readers will know more about what they are making, followed by a list of ingredients. High quality recipes will include exact measurements of the ingredients, as well as serving size. After the ingredients, many recipes will list the steps needed to make the rest of the dish. These instructions are written so readers can easily follow along; in higher quality recipes, this could mean the steps are numbered and easy to read, or are split into short paragraphs. Some recipes will list out the ingredients on top before listing out the instructions, while other recipes will format it so the ingredients are in one column and the instructions are in another column of the page, side by side. In the Kung Pao Chicken recipe by Kho, we can see this kind of format with pictures on one page and the recipe on the next page (Phoenix Claws and Jade Leaves by Kian Lam Kho). More modern recipes that can be found online will also usually include the prep time, cook time, and how long it will take for the food to be ready. Recipes found on websites like All Recipes will allow people to rate the recipe, comment, and give feedback to the author, which also gives other people the chance to look at the recipe and decide if they want to continue reading (All Recipes: Joy’s Banana Bread). Some recipes will also include photos of the food, which can draw in readers who may not have a lot of cooking experience and are looking for something that looks delicious. Recipes are a way for the authors to share their culture with the rest of the world. People can make food from different cultures by reading recipes, and now with the internet, it is easier than ever to look up old recipes which have continually been passed down, or recipes that originate from other countries. In a web search for a Taiwanese beef noodle soup recipe, I was able to find a website which listed out the recipe with video tutorials and pictures detailing different parts of the cooking process (Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup). Food is an important part of a country’s culture and recipes help bring people together by providing a way for everyone to learn more about that particular food.