Story of a Recipe
For this first formal assignment in your semester-long research study, you will write a narrative essay about a recipe central to your food subculture. In addition to discussing the recipe’s origins and importance to your food subculture, you will also (for your final draft) discuss the recipe as an artifact and include historical, cultural, and/or scientific research about the main ingredient(s) of the recipe.
This assignment will go through a three-part drafting process, with the final draft due at the end of the semester as part of your Research Portfolio.
This is a narrative essay, which means that your primary goal is to tell a story to the reader to help them understand what your recipe means to you and why it is important to your subculture.
Choosing a Recipe
If you’re having trouble choosing a recipe, think about a special tradition in your subculture that involves a meal. What dish is always present at that meal, and who brings it? Or, think about a particular memory you have of being in the kitchen with a loved one or eating a particular food. What is that memory? You can also write about recipes that you think are unusual or unique to your subculture.
Requirements
While each drafting step will have separate requirements, by the time you submit your final draft your Story of a Recipe should:
tell a story to the reader to help them understand what your recipe means to your subculture.
incorporate information and quotations from two secondary sources to address the history of the recipe or main ingredients and illuminate this recipe’s significance in your subculture.
include the text of your recipe.
include direct quotations from at least one interview with a member of your subculture.
include a photograph or sketch of the food.
thoughtfully use metaphors, similes, and other figures of speech.
utilize MLA formatting (12pts, Time New Roman font; double-spaced, with title & header).
Arianna, nice work. I appreciate the effort you put into this. Right now, this reads, as you put it, as an analytical essay/research paper, whereas this needs to be more of a story/narrative. I recommend using more discussion from your interviews, and also discussing your fieldnotes regarding making the dish, or how it is part of your personal life as a member of the culture. Check out my comments and use my feedback to craft your middle draft.
Rachel Portel
comments of my draft:
Because this is a narrative (story) you don’t need headers like this
Define meztizo in Ecuadorian subculture
DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE PHOTO ( IM PUTTING A NEW PHOTO BY MYSELF)
How so? I like the verb preserves but how does it preserve the heritage
don’t put any citations capitalized
Through your ethnographic research you should have first-hand experience of this rather than more secondary research. Who you are interviewing? What is your personal experience with this dish in the frame of the subculture ( in the what fritada recipe means to my subculture)
in the quotation from an interview with a member of a culture, she wants me to use quotes from the interviews that should be woven into my story.
in the conclusion part, the conclusion should reflect a theme rather than a research summary.