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The Culture of Food & Wine in Italy
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This Course is Available through these Programs:
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Italian Language & Culture
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Modern Italian Perspectives
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Academic Institution: CEA GlobalCampus: Florence
Location: Florence, ItalyPrimary Subject Area: Cultural Studies
Other Subject Area(s): Sociology
Level(s): 300
UNH Course Code: CUL340FLR
Instruction in: English
Recommended Semester Credits: 3
Contact Hours: 45
Additional Fee Description: This course requires payment of an additional fee to cover active learning components that are above and beyond typical course costs, such as site visits, entrance fees and other expenses. Spring 2009 fee = $70; Fall 2009 fee = $70; Spring 2010 fee = $100; Fall 2010 fee = $100
Description
This course will introduce you to the textured cultural histories of Italian food and wine. Your approach will be a mixture of first-hand experience (field trips, guided visits and several tastings) and interpretative analysis (through the examination of selected food texts, your own written assignments, in-class debates and your entries in a personal food journal). Through a multi-disciplinary approach to food and wine you will address a broad variety of key contemporary issues including slow-food, organic foods and the origins (and preservation) of regional variations. You will also develop an awareness of more sophisticated ways of looking at food in the fields of food anthropology, the psychology of food consumption, the symbolic aspects of food and the social construction of its meaning.
In this course you'll see at first-hand the historical evolution of Italian food, and you'll discover how a variety of factors have influenced how food is selected, prepared and eaten. Your close-up experience will begin with visiting local food markets (like San Lorenzo), well-known restaurants and traditional trattorie as well as important food production and distribution facilities in Florence and in Tuscany. We will visit wine and cheese producers on a special class trips to the areas of Parma and San Gimignano, where you will get a chance to watch production processes at first hand in the company of experts, and analyze and taste varieties of cheese, wine and olive oil.
One key objective of this multi-disciplinary course is to help you develop a sense of food as a fundamental cultural aspect not just of Italian but also of American society, and you will be empowered to reflect more critically on the varied cultural aspects of your own domestic food-experience.
If you are also enrolled on the Photography course you could submit a photographic documentary piece on an appropriate issue as part of this course's requirements.
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