Digesting Food Studies—Episode 120: Carceral Food Systems
https://rss.com/podcasts/digesting-food-studies/2739060/

This episode considers carceral food systems and the roles food plays in expressing identity and liberty, as well as oppression and power.

Alexia Moyer’s Amuse Bouche segment starts it off with a historical record of how WWII prisoners of war in Singapore dealt with hunger, privation, and the distribution of food labour.

After that, Amanda Wilson discusses themes from the May 2025 themed section of Canadian Food Studies that she co-edited, “Exploring Carceral Food Systems” (https://canadianfoodstudies.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/cfs/issue/view/39).

And, closing things out, chef-activist-PhD student Joshna Maharaj responds to Kelsey Timler’s article, “Protest pizzas: Resisting carcerality with storytelling, community building, and an array of toppings” (https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v12i1.696)

#DigestingFoodStudies
#FoodPodcast
#CarceralFoodSystems
#Prisons
#PrisonFood
#PrisonersOfWar
#Singapore
#Changi
#Protest
#Resistance
#Pizza
#FoodStudies
#Academia

Digesting Food Studies—Episode 119: Kids’ Lit and Food Insecurity
https://rss.com/podcasts/digesting-food-studies/2681139/

Books for kids can be mirrors and windows, reflecting readers’ own lives or opening up onto those of others. When it comes to issues like hunger and poverty, portrayals in children’s literature have lasting effects on our collective understanding.

Alexia Moyer looks back at food insecurity in The Tin Flute (Bonheur d’occasion) by Gabrielle Roy, while Dian Day gazes forward with “Food Insecurity in Books for Children?” (https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v11i1.654) AND her own graphic novel (with Amanda White), Shy Cat and the Stuff-the-Bus Challenge.

Then, Ruby Harrington shares her thoughts on Dian’s article and the ways in which hunger and poverty need systemic, concerted attention from academics and governance bodies alike.

#DigestingFoodStudies
#FoodPodcast
#FoodInsecurity
#FoodSecurity
#Literature
#Children
#Hunger
#Poverty
#GabrielleRoy
#TheTinFlute
#BonheurDOccasion
#ShyCat
#SecondStoryPress
#FoodDrives
#FoodStudies
#Academia

Digesting Food Studies—Episode 118: Reading Menus as History
https://rss.com/podcasts/digesting-food-studies/2637411/

What’s on the menu? A lot, it turns out, and we’re not just talking about hors d’oeuvres and tasting combos. From gravy stains to hand-written notes, menus are an important source of information about cultural histories, social patterns, and human migration.

This episode considers menus as historical records. Alexia Moyer shares excerpts of meal planning from Northern Cookbook, and guest Koby Song-Nichols explains his 4-part methodology for menu analysis, discussed in “Can Historians Order off the Menu?” from Canadian Food Studies. (https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v11i2.682).

And, serving up a scoopful of DFS afters, Anson Hunt weighs in with his perspective on Koby’s article and the ways that menus bridge conversations between front, back, and middle of house.

#DigestingFoodStudies
#FoodPodcast
#Menus
#FoodHistory
#Restaurants
#Cooks
#Kitchens
#CanadianNorth
#FoodStudies
#Academia

Digesting Food Studies—Episode 116: Social Economy of Food
https://rss.com/podcasts/digesting-food-studies/2555303/

Sharing, gifting, and informal economies have been around forever, and they might be seeing a new resurgence that offers promise for the long-term.

This episode helps re-think and reorient ourselves towards creating integrated value exchanges beyond just the financial kind. Alexia Moyer provides gifts from Sandro Botticelli and Catherine Parr Traill, and guest editor Irena Knezevic talks about “The social and informal economy of food” issue of Canadian Food Studies. (https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v6i3).

Finally, Christophe Dubois shares his thoughts on social gastronomy and Mary Anne Martin’s use of feminist theory to explore urban agriculture.

#DigestingFoodStudies
#FoodPodcast
#SocialEconomy
#GiftEconomy
#Sharing
#Boticelli
#CatherineParrTraill
#FemaleEmigrantsGuide
#SocialGastronomy
#FeministTheory
#UrbanAgriculture
#FruitRescue
#FoodStudies
#Academia

Digesting Food Studies—Episode 115: Fisheries Diversification
https://rss.com/podcasts/digesting-food-studies/2477576/

Diversification is a survival strategy in many food systems, from biomes to economies to cuisine. This episode is about many of those things, including green sea urchins and the Wolastoqiyik Wahsipekuk First Nation’s approach to fisheries and food-making.

The article in focus is Charlotte Gagnon-Lewis’s “Fishing amongst industrial ghosts: The challenges of green sea urchin diversification in Eastern Canada.” (https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v12i1.680)

Plus, Alexia Moyer shares a story from the Montréal Biodome, and master student Adelle D’Urzo Paugh responds to Charlotte’s article with reflections on participatory co-learning and the Capitalocene.

#DigestingFoodStudies
#FoodPodcast
#Fisheries
#StLawrence
#SeaUrchin
#Uni
#Gonads
#Diversification
#Fishing
#WolastoqiyikWahsipekukFirstNation
#Maqahamok
#Cacouna
#MontrealBiodome
#EspacePourLaVie
#Anthropocene
#Capitalocene
#FoodStudies
#Academia

photo: Hannah Robinson

Digesting Food Studies—Episode 115: Fisheries Diversification
https://rss.com/podcasts/digesting-food-studies/2477576/

Diversification is a survival strategy in many food systems, from biomes to economies to cuisine. This episode is about many of those things, including green sea urchins and the Wolastoqiyik Wahsipekuk First Nation’s approach to fisheries and food-making.

The article in focus is Charlotte Gagnon-Lewis’s “Fishing amongst industrial ghosts: The challenges of green sea urchin diversification in Eastern Canada.” (https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v12i1.680)

Plus, Alexia Moyer shares a story from the Montréal Biodome, and master student Adelle D’Urzo Paugh responds to Charlotte’s article with reflections on participatory co-learning and the Capitalocene.

#DigestingFoodStudies
#FoodPodcast
#Fisheries
#StLawrence
#SeaUrchin
#Uni
#Gonads
#Diversification
#Fishing
#WolastoqiyikWahsipekukFirstNation
#Maqahamok
#Cacouna
#MontrealBiodome
#EspacePourLaVie
#Anthropocene
#Capitalocene
#FoodStudies
#Academia

photo: Hannah Robinson

Digesting Food Studies—Episode 114: Flexitarianism
https://rss.com/podcasts/digesting-food-studies/2469363/

Are you a carnivore? A vegan? A frugivore? Or do you fall in between categories of eater, identifying more as a flexitarian? As we learn from this episode’s guest author, Kelsey Speakman, flexitarianism is a complex space of food making, ethical and multispecies relationships, and marketing rhetoric.

Kelsey’s article on the subject, “Beef, Beans, or Byproducts? Following Flexitarianism’s Finances,” comes from Vol. 11, No. 4 of Canadian Food Studies (https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v11i1.638). And sandwiching this meat-alternatives theme are Alexia Moyer on a powerful kitchen implement, and Milka Milicevic on the power of true alternatives in eating.

#DigestingFoodStudies
#FoodPodcast
#Flexitarianism
#FoodAlternatives
#Eating
#Supermarkets
#KitchenMallet
#Meat
#Vegetarianism
#GeorgeBrownPolytechnic
#GBPolytech
#GBCollege
#HonoursBachelorOfFoodStudies
#TheSpaceMerchants
#FrederikPohl
#CyrilKornbluth
#FoodStudies
#Academia

photos: Alexia Moyer

Digesting Food Studies—Episode 114: Flexitarianism
https://rss.com/podcasts/digesting-food-studies/2469363/

Are you a carnivore? A vegan? A frugivore? Or do you fall in between categories of eater, identifying more as a flexitarian? As we learn from this episode’s guest author, Kelsey Speakman, flexitarianism is a complex space of food making, ethical and multispecies relationships, and marketing rhetoric.

Kelsey’s article on the subject, “Beef, Beans, or Byproducts? Following Flexitarianism’s Finances,” comes from Vol. 11, No. 4 of Canadian Food Studies (https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v11i1.638). And sandwiching this meat-alternatives theme are Alexia Moyer on a powerful kitchen implement, and Milka Milicevic on the power of true alternatives in eating.

#DigestingFoodStudies
#FoodPodcast
#Flexitarianism
#FoodAlternatives
#Eating
#Supermarkets
#KitchenMallet
#Meat
#Vegetarianism
#GeorgeBrownPolytechnic
#GBPolytech
#GBCollege
#HonoursBachelorOfFoodStudies
#TheSpaceMerchants
#FrederikPohl
#CyrilKornbluth
#FoodStudies
#Academia

photos: Alexia Moyer

Digesting Food Studies—Episode 113: Eating and Social Isolation
https://rss.com/podcasts/digesting-food-studies/2422624/

Do you eat alone, or with others? Is it by choice, or are your commensality options dictated by your social condition, your domestic situation, your access to shared space? https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v4i2.220

Eating is both a unifier and divider in our food cultures, and the spaces in which we do it can both support connection-making and reinforce isolation. This episode focuses on an audio artwork by Mélanie Binette—a sound installation in a Montréal community restaurant called “Invité.e.s Invisible.s”—intended to help solo eaters connect.

Plus, Alexia Moyer shares two other soundscapes and their implications for sociability, while Samphe Ballamingie responds poetically to Mélanie’s artistic intervention.

#DigestingFoodStudies
#FoodSystems
#Eating
#Art
#Isolation
#Society
#Commensality
#Soundscape
#MilieuDeNullePart
#LeChicRestoPop
#HochelagaMaisonneuve
#FoodStudies
#Academia
#FoodPodcast

photo: Patrick Ma

Digesting Food Studies—Episode 112: Centralization of Power in Food Systems

https://rss.com/podcasts/digesting-food-studies/2382014/

There’s a lot of power in food and food systems: care and nurturing, regeneration and resilience. The power to feed, to refuse food, and to transform landscapes. And then there’s petroleum, data, GMOs, and pesticides; financialization, tractors, and land-grabbing…

This episode explores how corporations and governments operate and control spaces of production and transformation, with articles from Vol. 2, No. 2 of CFS, which our guest, Jennifer Clapp, co–guest edited. (https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v2i2)

Alexia Moyer shares learnings from Brian Brett’s book, Trauma Farm, and PhD student Heidi Janes responds to a selection of CFS articles about corporate power.

#DigestingFoodStudies
#FoodSystems
#Agriculture
#Farming
#Pesticides
#Fertilizer
#Tractors
#PrecisionAgriculture
#Financialization
#LandGrabbing
#Palestine
#Gaza
#Power
#Capitalism
#BrianBrett
#TraumaFarm
#Academia
#FoodPodcast

image: Johnson Martin, Pixabay