UC Davis experts: Food, beverages and culture

The UC Davis faculty has broad expertise regarding the culture of food, wine, beer and other beverages.

HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY AND TOURISM

Beverage history

UC Davis' Special Collection Department at Peter J. Shields Library has amassed the best collection in the world on grape-growing and wine-making. The collection, which began in 1880 as the California Board of Viticulture's original library, also includes a vast amount of material related to phylloxera, the scourge that has devastated California vineyards since the late 19th century. Other major collections include the 6,300-item A.W. Noling beverage collection, which includes a very rare book from 1685 with one of the earliest published recipes for hot chocolate. Also found in the Special Collection Department are historical menus for the Bohemian Club's famed Owl and Wine Club, the most complete set of regulations on the making of port wine and recipe books for early cocktails. Axel Borg, UC Davis' food and beverages bibliographer, can give the history of these and other items, including stories about UC Davis legend Maynard Amerine, patriarch of California wine science. Contact: Axel Borg, Shields Library, (530) 752-6176, aeborg@ucdavis.edu.

Food geography

Louis Grivetti, a food geographer in the UC Davis Department of Nutrition, can talk about a variety of subjects, ranging from the history of chocolate to the Mediterranean foods of 1,800 years ago and how they relate to today. Currently he is working on a book that maps the best cheeses, wines, breads and assorted delicacies throughout the Mediterranean, based on the eight-volume "The Deipnosophists" written by Egyptian author Athenaeus from nearly 2,000 years ago. He is also leading a team effort to develop a comprehensive Web site on the history of chocolate. Contact: Louis Grivetti, Nutrition, (530) 752-2078, legrivetti@ucdavis.edu.

Science and history of beer

Charlie Bamforth, the Anheuser-Busch Endowed Professor of Brewing Science and chair of the Department of Food Science and Technology, is an authority on brewing and malting science. In his 2004 book, "Beer: Health and Nutrition," he sets forth a "warts and all" discussion of the beverage, which archaeological discoveries suggest has been around for at least 6,000 years. He can discuss the history of brewing, the attitude of various cultures and religions toward beer, and its role through the ages as part of the diet. He also has examined the potential health benefits of beer, resulting from plant-derived compounds called "phytonutrients." He is the author of two other books: "Beer: Tap Into the Art and Science of Brewing" and "Standards of Brewing." Before coming to UC Davis, he was employed in the brewing industry in England. His current research program focuses on beer quality. Contact: Charlie Bamforth, Food Science and Technology, (530) 752-1467, cwbamforth@ucdavis.edu.

Food history and its effect on politics

UC Davis scholar Lynette Hunter, who focuses on the history of rhetoric and performance, co-founded the Leeds Food History Symposium and Publications in Great Britain. She researches early modern food, medicine and science. Hunter's current scholarship focuses on food cultures as modes of traditional knowledge that can form bridges for social groups entering Western democratic structures. After 20 years of research, she edited the Prospect's Books series of descriptive and analytical biographies of cookery and household books of 1700-1914. She also has written many sections on food, cookery and household technology for the "Cambridge History of the Book" and for the "Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature." Contact: Lynette Hunter, Theatre and Dance, (530) 752-5658, lhunter@ucdavis.edu. (Hunter will be teaching in England for the 2005 summer but can be reached through e-mail.)

Artificial foods

Why do we eat artificial foods? Why are there so many substitutions for the real thing in the American diet? Why are all our "low calorie" foods not decreasing rates of obesity? American studies scholar Carolyn de la Pena is researching why Americans began substituting artificial, low-calorie sweeteners for sugar in the second half of the 20th century. She can discuss how artificial sweeteners made Americans increasingly comfortable with "scientific" foods, and the positive and negative impacts this shift had on things ranging from taste and pleasure to consumer habits to the acceptance of science and technology in everyday life. De la Pena, a former branding strategist who worked on national corporate accounts, wrote "The Body Electric" (2003). Contact: Carolyn de la Pena, American Studies Program, (530) 752-3375, ctdelapena@ucdavis.edu.

THE SENSES

Food sensory properties and consumers

Jean-Xavier Guinard, professor of food science and technology, studies the sensory properties of foods and beverages, and how those properties are perceived and affect consumption. His research also focuses on how knowledge of sensory properties can be used to develop palatable, yet nutritionally sound, foods and beverages. His lab has demonstrated how food texture affects satiety, shown that sensitive "tasters" may be at increased risk for diet-related diseases, and explored how flavor and texture perception affect our consumption of high-fat foods and beverages. Contact: Jean-Xavier Guinard, Food Science and Technology, (530) 754-8691, jxguinard@ucdavis.edu.

Sensory evaluation of wine and food

Sensory scientist Hildegarde Heymann, professor of viticulture and enology, has worked in all areas of sensory science and has evaluated, with her students, a wide range of food and non-food products, including wine, meat, ice cream, cereals, juices, cat litter, soap and toothpaste. Her current research focuses on descriptive analysis of wine and foods, and on integrating data from sensory analyses with consumer ratings. She also teaches a popular course called "Sensory Evaluation of Wines." Contact: Hildegarde Heymann, Viticulture and Enology, (530) 754-4816, hheymann@ucdavis.edu.

REFLECTIONS THROUGH LITERATURE

Romantic roots

UC Davis English professor Timothy Morton can discuss how food consumerism originated during the Romantic movement of 1790-1830. Morton says much of the Western food culture today -- ranging from picnics and restaurants to drinking mineral water and practicing vegetarianism -- stemmed from 200 years ago. Morton is particularly concerned with relationships between culture and the natural and global environment, with emphasis on food studies. He edited "Cultures of Taste/Theories of Appetite: Eating Romanticism" (2004) and wrote "The Poetics of Spice: Romantic Consumerism and the Exotic" (2000) and "Shelley and the Revolution in Taste: The Body and the Natural World" (1994). His forthcoming book, "Ecology Without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics," talks about food and Romantic cultural legacies today. Contact: Timothy Morton, English, (530) 754-6901, tbmorton@ucdavis.edu.

New World food culture

UC Davis English scholar Michael Ziser is interested in the way that the new foods, food cultures and agricultural practices that greeted the early colonists helped shape their attitudes (as expressed in literature) toward the American environment. "Food is a natural focus for writers seeking to orient themselves in an unfamiliar place," Ziser says, "and as a subject it allows some of the most searching, if unexpected, meditations on the relationship between the physical human body, settler cultures, indigenous cultures, and the broader ecosystem." He can talk about the profound ways that the physical and cultural environment of North America left its imprint on early American literature. Ziser has written on the early literature of tobacco and on the agricultural ethic of Henry David Thoreau. Contact, Michael Ziser, English, (530) 754-6899, mgziser@ucdavis.edu.

Media contact:

Claudia Morain, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9841, .

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Last updated Dec. 13, 2008