Esculent: A Public Humanities Podcast About Food

Daniela Gutierrez Flores
Spanish and Portuguese
UC Davis

How have ideas around food changed over time? Media, industry, academia and the public are continually grappling with what and how we as humans should be eating on our ever-changing planet. This challenge extends to humanities research on food systems more broadly, where traditional academic silos often exclude the sensory and community-driven dimensions of food culture. There is a pressing need to translate the complex theories of food humanities scholarship into public conversations around food, pushing against the commodity-as-problem, or the commodity-as-answer stance. Yet this translation requires more than simply moving platforms for dissemination. Our project proposes the research and production of a collaborative podcast that narrates leading research in food humanities alongside contemporary activist movements in food and agriculture in Mexico and California, expressed through multisensory and artistic encounters with what we eat and drink, in seeking what is “esculent”—meaning edible, potable, and suitable for eating.