I chose Indian cuisine and culture for my research topic, especially about curry. I had several topics in my thought and finally chose this since I love curry and I have always wondered about the variety of curry. I saw many curry, in many different ways, in many countries. However, it is general to think that curry is from India so I chose Indian cuisine and curry. I will still have to narrow down the culture part, wether I will focus on just the curry culture or other Indian cultures too.

So far I found many sources related to my topic. I found difference between southern and northen cuisines of India and also what spices that goes in the curry that defines the taste. Also interesting argument that wether curry in from India or from England. And curry from different countries and their styles. I tried many different styles of curry so I can include my own experience when introducing the difference. I found many sources but most of them are from the internet. I will have to work on finding more hard copied books.

My research is going well so far, at least I chose the topic and working on finding more sources. I think I can make things more organised as I go on.

I chose Tex-Mex food and its role in Texan cuisine as my topic as I love the food and have a great appreciation for its origin in Texas. I am wanting to explore this topic from historical and geographical viewpoints. I think this is an important topic to write on since food is such a crucial aspect of any culture, and Texas certainly has its own unique culture to be explored. Tex-Mex is likely the most well-known cuisine in Texas aside from barbeque. I have had great success in finding detailed history about the origin of Tex-Mex and the history of Texas cuisine in general. It was difficult at first to find diverse sources on Tex-Mex itself, so I expanded my topic to include the role it plays in Texan cuisine as a whole. From a historical standpoint, I am looking into how the history between Mexico and Texas led to this food fusion and what Tex-Mex is today. I found a great article from the History Network about the creation of Tex-Mex. I also found information from the Texas State Historical Society on the research they have done on this distinct cuisine and its significance to Texas. I also have been researching and found information on the history of Texas cuisine in general as to add more context to my bibliography. Geographically, I am looking at how Tex-Mex differs across the state as Texas is large and has many different regions. I also want to explore the difference between Tex-Mex and traditional Mexican food. I found a great article in Texas Monthly that gives a crash course on what makes Tex-Mex different from traditional Mexican food.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/06/8-essential-tex-mex-dishes.html

http://www.history.com/news/hungry-history/tracing-the-history-of-tex-mex

http://texascultures.housing.utexas.edu/assets/pdfs/texas_cuisine.pdf

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/lgtlt

My topic discusses how immigration into the United States, and the subsequent ‘foodways’ that came with it, affect  not only of food in the United States, but the overall culture as well. Foodways (as defined by this article) are the preferred foods and circumstances of eating of immigrant groups. Essentially I will be discussing how the food culture in America is shaped by the food cultures that have migrated here from around the world. This topic is especially important to me because both of my parents were immigrants to America and because of this, I grew up in a different culture than many of my American friends.

At this moment, I have tentatively selected Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrants to focus on as examples. Should I change these or add any other immigrant groups? I found this excellent source written by Hasia R. Diner for all three of those immigrant groups together, as well as a handful more examples for each. However, I am still unsure if these are the immigrant groups that I want to focus on for my examples.

My idea at the moment is to discuss how each of these different groups affected the United States culture over time. I would like to have some sort of chronological organization to the annotated bibliography. However, as I delve farther into my research, I have started noticing that the timelines are not laying out as smoothly as I had hoped. I may have to switch up my plan and start organizing by group since the timelines tend to be spread out and overlap.

For my research topic, I have decided to research the popularity of coffee in America, especially focusing in on Starbucks. I am still narrowing down my topic, and deciding if I want to focus more in on the globalization of the business of Starbucks, or just talk about the rise of coffee in general in the USA and talk about Starbucks only in America. What do you think I should narrow it down with?

I chose this topic because coffee is a part of my every day routine–specifically Starbucks. I have a very specific iced coffee order and I always prefer coffee from Starbucks rather than a brunch place or any other coffee shop because I know when I order it will most likely taste the exact same as it does at my usual Starbucks.

So far I have found many sources- Starbucks.com, A blog post from New York Serious Eats, and looked at the differences between Starbucks Menus here in Austin. Because they have so many locations, I think that the topic of Starbucks just in American will be big enough, and I will probably not include the globalization aspect in my research project. I am looking into different youtube videos, but haven’t found which one I want to include in my final project yet.

I think that my research is going well, and I am excited to continue to narrow down my sources and pick the best ones to share with everyone.

For my annotated bibliography, I have decided to research the idea of “pizza variations around the world”. I believe this is a good topic because while this idea is is small compared to the grand scheme of pizza, I can still report on a large pool of information when I consider things like pizza toppings around the globe, the variations based on continent, how pizza is made, and its overall popularity as a dish in certain places. So far I have been exploring different mediums of research and will definitely be utilizing written text as well as multimedia reports on pizza.

In the written article, The Strangest Pizza Toppings Across The Globe, I have already discovered that crocodile and kangaroo meat are popular toppings in Australia, while China at large is a fan of hot dog crust. I am also looking forward to watching, Food Paradise International: Pizza Paradise, an episode from the Travel Channel, that includes information about pizza from London, Buenos Aires, South Africa and more. If anyone is curious about the pizza habits in a specific country or how certain toppings came to be, please let me know! I look forward to being able to relay this information to y’all.

The topic for my annotated bibliography is essentially “The evolution of food media and its relationship with the American household.”  While this is a very broad topic, I do plan to narrow in on specific sects of subjects as my research progresses. I am wanting to explore how food media has evolved throughout history, while also including a comparison with food radio, food television and finally food on social media.

While I first thought I would really focus a lot on food television, my research has brought me to find a lot of interesting articles about food on social media; continuing on, I want to develop more inquiries surrounding food on social media, including how review apps (such as Yelp), “foodies” on Instagram, and YouTube had changed America’s perception about food and the food eating/making experience. Already I have found several articles that show the impact some of these sites have had on the food industry, including “10 Years On: How Yelp Has Completely Transformed the Restaurant Industry” and “The Yelp Factor: Are Consumer Reviews Good for Business?”

While social media has opened a lot of new avenues for me to venture into, I also want to explore food television and its relationship with the American household, moreover how America had influenced and changed food television. While this subtopic will explore content on television, I also want to compare and contrast modern “food celebrities” with those from the beginning of food television and radio. From first glance it is clear that the content and personalities are vastly different between the era’s, but I want to see if there is a reason or speculation as to what has caused those changes. So far I have found several helpful sites that discuss this topic such as, “How food television is changing America” and  “The Evolution Of Food On TV.”

Overall my biggest complication is finding sources. While there are many articles I do have to sift through a lot of nonsense articles that don’t give much reasoning or behind their claims. Is there a better way to do this other than just using Google? Also, because of the nature of my topic and subsequent subtopics, I am just struggling to narrow everything down into a cohesive argument. Are there any topics that seem more interesting from a readers perspective? My bibliography is going to cover a lot and is hopefully going to show how why food media is not only popular, but has constantly stayed relevant while so many other genres have died out. This bibliography is not just about food making but also the role food has on society, and vice versa.

I have chosen to do my research topic over humorous food media. I chose to pursue this topic because I am a very humor-driven person and strongly enjoy comedy in all its forms. I didn’t want to bore myself with this project, so I chose this topic because It is focused around something that I genuinely enjoy. I have had success finding food comedy over a wide variety of mediums, from texts to videos. In addition, I think I have done a good job with the diversity of the content.

Some of the texts that I have chosen to include thus far are NYT’s Review of Guy’s American Kitchen, It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers, and Surviving Whole Foods. Each of these texts are written about very different things, yet they all relate to food in some way. The first text is a scathing review of a restaurant, discussing not only the food, but the atmosphere and experience of the place itself. The second text never talks about eating or preparing food all all, but rather analyzes the symbolism of gourds and how they have come to represent the image of Fall. Finally, the third text references the process of going to a store and purchasing food, something that is often overlooked when writing about preparing and cooking food.

I recently began to broaden my mediums of communication by including videos as well. I have had great success finding a number of comical videos on YouTube. Most of the videos that I am thinking about using thus far are fairly similar structure-wise in that they are all “cooking show” videos. Two of my favorites are  Chef Henny’s Henny Cookies, which shows the viewer how to prepare, Hennesy-based chocolate chip cookies, and How To Make Vegan Blueberry Muffins with Waka Flocka Flame & Raury, which shows two vegan rappers tackling a rather complex recipe for blueberry muffins. I plan to continue searching YouTube for videos that incorporate food in a different way other than instructional, how-to cooking videos.

I have noticed a bit of split in regards to the age of the authors in relation to the medium. The written articles that I have found so far have all been composed by older authors while most of the videos are made by younger individuals. I think this is representative of the dichotomy of traditional versus. modern day forms of communication. Older people are used to communication via writing while younger generations experience a lot of content digitally with the rise of internet and televisions.

For my readers, I have several questions regarding the future of my research. Firstly, is my topic too broad? Should I narrow it down to a more specific sub-genre within comedy? Also are there any comedic mediums besides texts and videos that you recommend I include in my bibliography? I look forward to exploring any suggestions that you offer!

I had a hard time deciding on a topic, but I think I’ve finally decided to focus on Thai food. At first I wasn’t sure what I wanted to look into specifically, but after my initial research, I am going to focus on all the different cultural impacts on Thai food. I started by researching the general history Thai food and learned that China has been more impactful than any other country or region. My favorite Thai dish is chicken pad thai, so I started researching the history of this dish. From an article titled “A Brief History of Delicious Pad Thai”, I was able to find out that pad thai was originally created to help separate Thai and Chinese cultures from each other. At that time, the leader of Thailand wanted to help separate the two cultures and thought that creating a national dish of Thailand would help accomplish this. Sure enough, that dish was pad thai. I want to do some more research on why this leader thought creating a national dish would be an effective way to separate the two cultures and if food was really this important to him. I am curious to find out if the people of Thailand also saw food as an effective way to establish their own identity. I am also looking at how the different regions of Thailand each have been impacted by different cultures and therefore have very different foods/traditions than each other. I have yet to look at this in much detail but am excited to learn about the wide variety of cultural impacts on each of the four regions.

For my annotated bibliography, I decided to cover unlikely authors of cookbook as my topic. The inspiration came from a birthday present I bought for my sister—a Salvador Dali cookbook; I read somewhere that his book was being republished for the first time in 40 years, and I knew she was fascinated with Dali, so it seemed perfect.

After being assigned the annotated bibliography where the topic could be just about anything regarded food, I thought about the present for my sister and realized it would be a fun and hopefully unique track to follow—unlikely authors of cookbooks.

Luckily, there are plenty of celebrities out there who want to continue their time in the spotlight, so the number of unlikely cookbook authors is not small. The striking authors I came across, to name a few, were Boy George, Dolly Parton, 2Chainz, Chrissy Teigen, and the list goes on. I took it upon myself to simply pick at random, which celebrities whose cookbook I wanted to dive into, and I honestly have to thank good ol’ Salvador Dali for sparking that interest!

As far as texts good and things to actually create the annotated bibliography, I decided to take a different take on the cookbooks; I wanted to focus on the actual books I could get my hands on or access easily, of course, but to avoid spending a lot of money, I decided analyzing reviews on these authors and their cookbooks would be an interesting spin on the project. I plan to focus on the writing style of reviews for these particular authors and how they differ from more expected authors, per se.

I’m hoping that using reviews, I’ll get a wide variety of writing styles and voices. There’s more research to be done, but I’m looking forward to what I find.

When this assignment was first given to us, I did not think hard before choosing my original topic.  I decided to do my annotated bibliography on avocados.  Avocados are delicious, healthy, versatile, and have been used for centuries for a variety of purposes; however, I feel that the topic would have been too broad for an annotated bibliography.  Thus, I decided to change my topic to a type of cuisine that avocados are commonly found in: sushi.

While compiling my sources for sushi, I discovered a common theme among many of the links, texts, and videos.  The etiquette of eating sushi is almost as important as the food itself.  In Japanese culture, honor and respect is stressed heavily in all stages of life, especially towards elders, who, not coincidentally, make up the majority of the ‘master sushi chef’ population.  I began to think about my topic once again, and I realized that sushi is also quite a broad topic.  So I have decided to change my topic once again to the etiquette of sushi.  This specifically involves the different customs that revolve around sushi, such as how to eat different types of sushi, condiment usage, and ways to show respect to the sushi chef, among other things.  The following links, which are also two of my sources for the bibliography, do an accurate job of describing most of the customs of sushi-eating:

Link 1: How to Eat Sushi

Link 2: Sushi Etiquette

Finally, I have a question for my classmates.  What do you think about my new topic compared to my previous two?  Do you think it is unique and specific enough to warrant an entire annotated bibliography?  Is my topic now too specific?