Session	Dates	Price
Fall Semester 2009 - Palazzo Rucellai - Architecture	Late August - Mid December 2009	TBA
Fall Semester 2009 - Palazzo Rucellai - Liberal Arts	Late August - Mid December 2009	TBA
Academic Year 2009-2010 - Palazzo Rucellai - Liberal Arts	Late August 2009 - Early May 2010	TBA

Full Description

Course Description

In this course we will examine the history and culture of food in Italy and in the US in a comparative perspective drawing particular attention to the differences but also connections between both. We will first explore the evolution of Italian food culture in time and space focusing on the many foreign influences which over the centuries have shaped the use of different food products, preparation methods, consumption patterns, i.e. the Italian approach towards food. In the second part the focus will be on a reconstruction of American food history to draw attention to specific aspects of American food culture such as the role of food reform movements and food lobbies, the creation of the Mediterranean diet as well as the emergence of a “new” food culture in the United States. Finally the emergence of a specific Italo-American food culture from the beginning of the 20th cent. will be studied.

Course descriptions may be subject to occasional minor modifications at the discretion of the instructor.

Textbooks
Selections from the following:
Kiple, K.F. and Ornelas, K.C. (eds.), The Cambridge World History of Food, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000
Fernandez-Armesto, F., Food: A History, London: Macmillan, 2001
Flandrin, J.F. and Montanari, M. (eds.), Food - A Culinary History, (English edition by Albert Sonnenfeld) New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
Petrini, C. (ed.), Slow Food: Collected Thoughts on Taste, Tradition, and the Honest Pleasure of Food, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, Vermont, 2001
Schlosser, E., Fast Food Nation - The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, Houghton: Mifflin, 2001
Gabaccia, D.R., We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998

Additional Bibliography will be distributed in class.

During orientation at the Institute, students will receive a list of textbooks they are required to purchase. Students should not purchase any texts before orientation.