Dr. Charlotte Biltekoff - "Eating Ethnicity: Adventures in Food and Identity"

Biography: Dr. Charlotte Biltekoff is an assistant professor of American Studies at the University of California at Davis, where she also holds an appointment in Food Science and Technology. The mandate of her cross-college appointment is to develop the intersection between UC Davis’s established strengths in the science of food and drink (Food Science and Technology, Viticulture and Enology) and our emerging strengths in the social and cultural analysis of food and eating (as evidenced by the new Multi-Campus Research Group on Food and the Body).

Biltekoff is a member of the University of California’s Multi-Campus Research Group on Food and the Body and serves on the board of directors of the Association for the Study of Food and Society.

Presentation Title: Eating Ethnicity -- Adventures in Food and Identity

Why are foods so central to our sense of national or ethnic identity? What happens when we eat, or refuse to eat, foods from other cultures?  This talk will explore a variety of links between eating, ethnicity and identity including how foods serve as a symbol of ethnic identity, the long history of ethnic fusion in American cuisine, and the meaning of culinary tourism.