Gulf Coast Food Project
The Gulf Coast Food Project Wins a $100,000 NEH Grant
Drs. Todd Romero and Monica Perales were awarded a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for their work on the Gulf Coast Food Project, an initiative incubated by the Center for Public History. Titled “The History of Food Production and Consumption in the U.S. Gulf Coast,” the grant will support a six semester program designed to enhance teaching, scholarship, and community engagement on the region’s food history. One important goal of the grant is to develop new Food Studies courses with the aim of establishing an undergraduate minor and graduate certificate in the interdisciplinary field.
Founded within the Center for Public History (CPH) in 2008, the Gulf Coast Food Project (GCFP) brings food studies research and creative endeavors into the classroom and community.
Gulf Coast Food Project FY 18 Updates
UPDATE: We are excited to announce that the "Houston Eats! Texas Gulf Coast Food in the Past, Present, and Future" Conference was re-scheduled Februrary 2nd and 3rd. We had informative and engaging conversations around food, identity, activism, policy, environmental concerns, among others through individual presentations, panels, and roundatables.
Unfortunately, we had to cancel our National Endowment for the Humanities supported conference, “Houston Eats! Texas Gulf Coast Food in the Past, Present, and Future” due to Hurricane Harvey. The good news is that we have been able to reschedule the event for Friday, February 2nd (Rockwell Pavilion, M.D. Anderson Library) and Saturday, February 3rd (Student Center South, Multipurpose Room 237). We are excited about the new dates and expect a robust crowd. Best of all, we have made minimal changes to the slate of speakers, which we were extremely pleased with prior to the hurricane. The conference is free and open to the public but tickets are required for both days. Free tickets are available at the following Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/houston-eats-texas-gulf-coast-food-in-the-past-present-and-future-tickets-39974160791 For more information, see our Facebook page at Houston Eats!
The NEH grant supporting the conference also funded curriculum development and the new Food and Society Minor. New food studies classes like HIST 2355 the Global History of Food taught by Dr. Kristin Wintersteen and HIST 2347 History of Jewish Food taught by Dr. Mark Goldberg were incubated in CPH, and have enjoyed robust enrollments in recent semesters. The food studies courses also continue to be an important vehicle for developing public history projects. For example, Brian Kling and Miguel Ramirez, history majors in Dr. Todd Romero’s recent undergraduate food and public history capstone course, produced “Cooking Friendships,” a documentary short film on feeding first responders during Hurricane Harvey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt4jlnMs12E Kling also incorporated the film into a webpage he developed in CPH affiliate Dr. Temple Northup’s 2017 Multimedia Journalism course: https://cookingfriendships.weebly.com
Past Events
The Gulf Coast Food Project hosts Psyche Williams-Forson, author of “‘In Her Mouth Was an Olive Leaf Pluckt Off’: Food, Race and Gender in Times of Displacement and Dislocation.” The talk was a part of a year long expolration of African and African American Foodways.
Featured Articles
Todd Romero On How Houston Became One Of America’s Great Food Cities
Author of 'The Jemima Code' Discusses Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks