1: Honey Glazed Salmon: I chose this dish because salmon is my favorite type of fish and a dish that I grew up eating on a regular basis

INGREDIENTS:

2: Bacon Stuffed Cheeseburger: I chose this dish because one of the things I talked about in my journal was the association between football and food. My friend who used to cook for us when we all went to his house on Sundays would always make bacon stuffed cheeseburgers

Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon hot sauce (recommended: Frank’s Red Hot)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 strips bacon, diced
1/2 onion, chopped
1 cup grated sharp Cheddar
4 burger buns
Lettuce, tomato, pickles for garnish

Directions

Preheat grill to medium.
In a bowl combine beef, garlic, hot sauce, salt and pepper, to taste, being careful not to over mix. Warm a skillet over medium heat and fry bacon until crispy. Remove to a paper towel-lined plate to drain. Keep heat on skillet and fry a pinch of the beef in the bacon fat to test seasoning. Adjust seasoning, if needed, then form 8 even thin patties, about 1/2-inch thick and set aside. Saute onions in bacon fat in skillet until tender, 5 minutes. Place onions and bacon in a bowl with cheese. Form a spoonful of bacon-cheese mixture into a ball, then place in the center of 4 patties. Top each with another patty and seal the edges. Grill burgers over medium-high heat, flipping once until desired doneness is reached, approximately 4 minutes each side for medium. Serve in buns with garnishes. Alternative: In a medium skillet over medium-high heat, sear the burgers 4 minutes on each side.

3: Chicken Pad Thai: I’ve always been a huge fan of Thai food and the first ever Thai food I had was chicken pad thai

Ingredients

• 10 oz Thai rice noodles
• 1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, sliced into small strips
• 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup packed dark-brown sugar
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 Tbsp lime juice
• 1 Tbsp fish sauce
• 1 red bell pepper, sliced into thin strips and strips halved
• 1 1/2 cups matchstick carrots
• 2 cloves garlic
• 4 green onions, whites minced, greens sliced into 1-inch pieces
• 2 cups bean sprouts
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup unsalted peanuts, roughly chopped
• 1/3 cup cilantro, chopped
• Red pepper flakes and sesame seeds (optional)

Directions

• Prepare rice noodles according to directions listed on package. In a mixing bowl, whisk together brown sugar, soy sauce, rice vinegar, lime juice and fish sauce, set aside.
• While noodles are cooking, heat oil in a wok or large and deep non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Once hot add chicken and saute until cooked through, about 4 – 6 minutes. Transfer to a plate, leaving oil in pan. Add bell pepper and carrots and saute 1 – 2 minutes then add garlic, green onions and bean sprouts saute 1 minute longer. Push veggies to edges of pan and crack eggs into center. Cook and scramble until eggs have cooked through. Add in chicken, noodles and sauce and toss everything together and cook 1 – 2 minutes.
• Serve warm topped with cilantro, peanuts and optional red pepper flakes and sesame seeds.

1. Ground Beef Tacos : I chose beef taco as one of my recipes because I love mexican foods and beef taco is my favourite taco. I have never tried to make taco myself but I think it is good chance to try one and the recipe does not look so difficult.

Ingredients

2. Fried Calamari : Fried calamari is my favourite appetiser. I chose this recipe so I can learn it and make it as a snack instead of buying it every time.

Ingredients
Vegetable oil, for deep-frying
1 pound clean squid with tentacles, bodies cut into 1/3- to 1/2-inch-thick rings
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons dried parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 lemons, cut into wedges
1 cup simple tomato sauce, recipe follows or jarred marinara sauce, warmed
Simple Tomato Sauce:
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions
Watch how to make this recipe.
Pour enough oil into a heavy large saucepan to reach the depth of 3 inches. Heat over medium heat to 350 degrees F. Mix the flour, parsley, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Working in small batches, toss the squid into the flour mixture to coat. Carefully add the squid to the oil and fry until crisp and very pale golden, about 1 minute per batch. Using tongs or a slotted spoon, transfer the fried calamari to a paper-towel lined plate to drain.
Place the fried calamari and lemon wedges on a clean plate. Sprinkle with salt. Serve with the marinara sauce.
Simple Tomato Sauce:
In a large casserole pot, heat oil over medium high heat. Add onion and garlic and saute until soft and translucent, about 5 to 10 minutes. Add celery and carrots and season with salt and pepper. Saute until all the vegetables are soft, about 5 to 10 minutes. Add tomatoes and bay leaves and simmer uncovered on low heat for 1 hour or until thick. Remove bay leaves and check for seasoning. If sauce still tastes acidic, add unsalted butter, 1 tablespoon at a time to round out the flavors.
Add 1/2 the tomato sauce into the bowl of a food processor. Process until smooth. Continue with remaining tomato sauce.
If not using all the sauce, allow it to cool completely and pour 1 to 2 cup portions into freezer plastic bags. This will freeze up to 6 months.

3. Kimchi Fried Rice : the last recipe I chose is Kimchi fried rice. I think I am the only korean in this class and it is the one I cook a lot and good at. It tastes really good and I wanted to make

Ingredients

• 3 bowls steamed rice (3 cups)
• 1 cup chopped kimchi
• ¼ cup kimchi juice
• ¼ cup water
• 2-3 tablespoons gochujang
• 3 teaspoons sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• 1 green onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon roasted sesame seeds
• 1 sheet of kim, roasted and shredded

Directions

1. Heat up a pan. Add the vegetable oil.
2. Add the kimchi and stir fry for 1 minute.
3. Add rice, kimchi juice, water, and gochujang. Stir all the ingredients together for about 7 minutes with a wooden spoon.
4. Add sesame oil and remove from the heat.
5. Sprinkle with chopped green onion, roasted gim, and sesame seeds. Serve right away.

I chose these recipes because they are pretty much the only things  I know how to cook. They were also things my mom regularly made for me.

Garlic Butter Salmon

This is the course website for RHE 309K, Rhetoric of Food. Our online community is a space to discover how, when, where, and why people write about food. We’ll be writing, reading, and researching throughout the year, sharing periodically on this website.

Check out the syllabus for more details about the course, and browse through the different sections to see and comment on student work.

Reading

Hear what students have to say about what they read; view curated selections of readings around topics from tamarind to Michelin guides.

Writing

Read original writing from our contributors: recipes and texts in various genres that students investigated throughout the semester.

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.

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.

When I described what the rhetoric of food meant to me in my midterm learning reflection, I focused on the rhetoric portion of that phrase, rather than the food portion. But the rhetoric of food is a phrase that cannot, or at least should not be broken down and examined as its component words. To me, the rhetoric of food means the surrounding and contained elements of a piece of food writing. This could range from the author’s background to the words that the author writes. The way that the author describes the food is extremely important, as they could be making social of political commentaries that you are not thinking about. For instance, Michael Twitty’s piece that we read as a class was a great example of how food writing can comment on the culture at large. The rhetoric of food is exceedingly complex and connected with a whole host of other genres and topics of writing. These interconnections really need to be taken into account when talking about the rhetoric of food in order to get the best and most complete view of any piece of work.