Dr. Smiti Nathan

Transcript

Smiti: Welcome to Curiosity Meets the Past, a podcast for curious minds who love learning about the past. I’m Dr. Smiti Nathan, and I’m an archaeologist and your host.

In this episode, I am speaking with Dr. Katie Chiou, a good friend and food archaeologist. She’s currently an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alabama.

Katie’s research began with field work in the Andes, but today she’s turning her attention to the food landscapes of the American South.

In fact, she’s exploring places that we typically don’t associate with archaeology, like campus dining halls and gas stations.

We begin our conversation with the serendipitous story of how Katie first became interested in food archaeology.

Katie Chiou: well, I guess if I were to be honest about like how I got into this work, I would have to take you all the way back to when I was around five years old, and I was reading Kids Discovery Magazine. There was an article on how archaeologists were looking at basically human stomach contents in order to reconstruct ancient diets. And I remember thinking that that was the most fascinating thing I think I’d ever heard of. This idea that you could get so up close and personal to people. For me it was always about things that are hidden, things that are unseen, things that are left behind and ignored. And there are multiple kinds of artifacts and other kinds of remains that fall into that category. But my specialty has always been on the plant remains. So for a lot of, uh, my scholarly career, I’ve been focused on looking at ancient plant remains recovered from archaeological sites. I did my dissertation work on that kind of stuff. I did most of my field training in Peru. And looked at this particular society called the Moche, and how the wealthy, elite members of the society were eating versus those that had less at a particular time that was marked by environmental constraints, right towards the decline, the end of this particular civilization.

Smiti: So, when people think of archaeology, they typically think of ancient ruins or artifacts, not campus dining or gas stations. I’m curious what first sparked your curiosity to explore today’s food systems through an archaeological lens?

Katie Chiou: My archaeological brain, unfortunately, it never really turns off. And so, in some ways, the way in which I think about archaeological sites and the past, like I think about things in the present, where I’m constantly looking around me and trying to envision things as like a landscape.

So when I got here in 2017, to the University of Alabama, I mean, it’s, for those of you that aren’t familiar with UA, it’s a massive campus. It’s got these beautiful brick buildings. It’s very aesthetic, it’s very southern. It’s got beautiful trees all around the place, manicured lawns, pathways, a vibrant and large student population, Greek life, of course. But I remember also like at the same time seeing all this glitz and glamor, also understanding that there were things that were not as visible.

And so, I taught a class in 2018 on the archaeology of food, and as part of that class, I asked students, like: “hey why don’t you guys keep a weekly food journal?” I don’t want you to just talk about like what you’re eating, but the social context in which you know you’re consuming or thinking about food. I want you to relate it to the themes of this class. So like, when we’re talking about like food and structuralism and Levy Strauss and Mary Douglas, you know, these food anthropologists, to think about how we classify and categorize foods, I want you to think about that in relation to your own diet and your own daily behaviors.

And so I would get a lot of really interesting and thoughtful responses. But I remember one prevailing theme that kept coming up over and over again was, you know, students were dealing with food insecurity. There was one particularly poignant response where my student was talking about, you know, being, well, he was about to become a dad, and he was talking about the struggles that him and his fiance were going through, in terms of determining just like how to feed themselves and that anxiety they felt about being able to provide enough for their son who was gonna be born in a few months. So, he was talking about like, “Today, I had a really rough day working at Cracker Barrel and I don’t have a lot of money left. I’m thinking about a nutritious meal, but at the same time, all I can afford right now is a microwave meal.” And thinking through like, you know, the implications of that on his life and just the daily dread and worry and how that structures his experience every day. I remember thinking, like, I never would’ve known about this, you know, had it not been for this assignment.

Students don’t normally talk about this kind of stuff. There’s stigma attached to food insecurity. It’s not visible on campus. Like we do have a food pantry, but it’s rather small and according to students doesn’t really provide all that much. And so, I was just like, there must be this whole segment of students that are dealing with this. I know just talking with my graduate students that they deal with it too to a fair amount. And it’s just simply not being addressed. In regards to other things like gas stations, I mean, that again comes from my own morbid curiosity. So, you know, I’m not from the south. I don’t know if anyone can tell, I’m actually from the great state of New Jersey, right. So, to a certain extent, I’m very insulated from certain things that occur down here. I remember when I moved down in 2017 again, I saw people walking every day to gas stations. So, it made me think a lot about like, access to vehicles. I saw them carrying bags, like grocery bags. And so I was like, okay, like what kind of things are being sold at gas stations and like, how are they playing a role in communities?

And then as I, you know, spent more time down here, I learned more about the kinds of vendors that exist, like, almost like hidden vendors, that exist inside of gas stations. So like, for example, in Birmingham there’s gas station Thai. There’s a Thai restaurant hidden within a former gas station. People talk about like, oh, the best fried chicken I had was at that Chevron located on this highway, et cetera, et cetera. Or like, oh, one time when I was taking a road trip from Mississippi to Florida, I passed by a gas station somewhere around this place. And these are all places that are not easily located. So, you can’t just like Google and be like, oh, gimme the best, you know, fried chicken gas station location in Alabama.

It’s just simply, like, they don’t feel the need to advertise. Their role is mainly to serve the community. And every day they have the same group of customers come in and out. So, they really get to know people. And so, again, I’m just really interested in like things that I have not been privy to, in terms of like, access to knowledge.

And so, it’s out of my nosiness that I get kind of involved in some of these things where I just wanna understand like, you know, some of these things that occur beneath the surface.

Smiti: So, that’s super interesting, and as you were speaking, I was thinking about, okay, it makes sense why an archaeologist would ask those questions. But how do you go about investigating that using archaeological methods?

Katie Chiou: That’s a great question. So, sometimes, you know, as an archaeologist I feel like I look at things very much in terms of, like, of a bird’s eye view. And, Smiti, you know this as an archaeologist too. I mean, all of our stuff oftentimes is compressed into like a two dimensional figure, right? Take like GIS, which is a tool a lot of us use, geographic information systems, where we’re mapping layers of data on top of each other. So, I was thinking about that in relation to like the modern present, right? Obviously, GIS is also a tool that’s used for a lot of modern applications. But specifically from an archaeological perspective, thinking about food and food landscapes or “foodscapes,” I was like, let’s map out all this food stuff; like the way I would do for an archaeological site, in relation to like a campus, So, let’s look at all the buildings and see which ones are offering food. Which ones are like kind of more buffet style? What are ones that are like little coffee venues that also serve like snacks and things? When are they open? How far away are they from residential halls?

And where are the pathways? Thinking about accessibility. And a lot of this comes from just like conversations with students and think, hearing their thoughts on, you know, things they like or don’t like about the food landscape. And oftentimes it’s like complaints, right? I know a lot of the vegans are always like, “Ugh, all I can eat are french fries.” Or, you know, you have people complaining about the health of it. Like, I’ve gained the freshman 15 because, you know, all the food is laden with X, Y, and Z. So yeah, I was just like, I’m, I’m curious, like I don’t use the campus facilities myself. So, I was just really wanting to capture that.

So, it was within the context actually of a GIS class that we began this project where a couple of my undergrads were like, “I don’t know what to study.”

“I’m not really interested in anything archaeological.” And I was like, you know what? I’ve always been really mad curious about food and how you guys interact with the food landscape. Let’s map out the University of Alabama. So, they did that. They basically produced their pilot project results. A couple other students got interested in it and were like, “Why don’t we pair this with a survey?” So, we actually, in 2019 sent out a large survey with way too many questions to the entire undergraduate population and were curious about their feedback. And then of course, after 2019, 2020 happens and we have the pandemic and we’re all shut inside and classes go online. And that incoming class, we were really curious about capturing their experiences and whether or not there were any differences between 2019 and 2020. So, we sent it out again and got results for that year as well. So, we have essentially a very rich data set. We’re still kind of in the midst of analyzing it because it is so robust. We have so many different axes of identity ranging from, you know, obviously the, the traditional things like race, ethnicity, class, in terms of income, background, um, status. Like, are you, are you a sorority member? If you live in sororities, for example, you have access to a chef. So, all this stuff like floating around that gives us like a really rich picture of just what it’s like to be a student. So, out of that so far, our understanding is that the current food insecurity rate is 25%. So, one out of four University of Alabama students is considered food insecure according to the USDA survey. Which, you know, looking at national rates is actually putting us kind of average. I think average, at least from 2020 data done by the federal government, is 23%. And then some of my students who are graduate students who are working on this, were like, I’m very curious about how this relates to graduate students within our department.

So, in the Department of Anthropology, we had a group of motivated students send out the survey to the graduate students and we found that actually 75% are considered food insecure. Which, um, is, is insane, right?

So, we’re seeing also like different kinds of degrees of insecurity. During the pandemic, we had a little bit of insight into that loneliness epidemic that everyone talks about that was especially bad.

They were like, “I’m stuck inside my room. My meals get delivered. I’m taking it to my bed. I’m eating on my bed, watching shows on a laptop. I’m wondering what I’m missing out on by not going out and hanging out with people in the way that you might in like a common dining room.” It’s been a couple of years and we’re still working through it, but there’s just a lot of potential for doing this kind of like mixed methods approach. That all just comes out of seeing things as an archaeological landscape. So, in many ways it’s like the stuff that I wish I had, that I don’t, but now that I have it, I’m gonna just run with it.

Smiti: There are so many fascinating insights there. And I’m also thinking about the methods that you used for campus dining and how that could be applied to your new project on gas stations in the American South as food spaces. So, I’m curious, is there anything that you’ve done in your pilot work or found in your early observations that made you want to keep digging deeper with that specific project?

Katie Chiou: Yeah, so, actually um, and you’ll appreciate this as a, as a public anthropologist. As the viewers may know or may not know um, Smiti and I were both involved in a training that was geared towards public engagement. And so, I took what I learned from that one year fellowship and decided to turn it into class. So, I was like telling all my students, I’m like, you know, I just came hot off of this wonderful training and I’m really interested in translating anthropological information into something that is digestible and of interest to the public. And I had a group of students that really wanted to look at short form or even shorter documentary style videos. And so that particular group, I was like, you know what? I have this project in my head.

It’s been sitting there for a number of years, just because, again, I’m super fascinated by it, and it’s mainly because I’m ignorant and I don’t like feeling ignorant. And so I wanna find out more about the role of gas stations in the South, Because it’s very different from my perception, where it’s like, oh, I’m going in there because I’m on a road trip and there’s some essentials I need. It seems like there’s more there and I want y’all to dig into it. So, they got together. And with some equipment I was able to purchase from another grant, decided to go out there and pick a select number of gas stations to go visit. So, they went and they got some background photography. They talked to some of these owners. They got insights into some of the things that were happening in cities versus in rural areas. So, I don’t know if any of the viewers are familiar with Alabama, but Alabama, I like to say, is always a state of great contrasts. You have real urban areas like Birmingham, for example, that are built up, that have a lot of things going on.

But then at the same time, you have really, really rural areas where you simply don’t have access to a lot. So, Alabama tends to be a poorer state. But there’s pockets of money, And again, it’s just like the University of Alabama too. Like you see glitz and glamor and money, but then at the same time, there’s also places where there is no money.

So, it’s in that context that you get to see like, What is the role of gas stations in anchoring communities? Where people are coming in day in and day out, you know, they’re greeting each other, they’re catching up on the latest and greatest, um, the local gossip as well.

At the same time, like they’re all going there because they want good food, right? So, you have these vendors that have set up that are providing all kinds of different cuisine. I think there’s an Indian food vendor that I would like to visit as well, just to understand like why they’re located at a truck stop in like rural Alabama on the border of Mississippi in Alabama.

Like what’s the story there? And so, the, the video that they produced, it really had some seeds I think, that are interesting that we wanna explore more in this next phase. So, we did get some grant funds pulled together to go and expand on this work and visit, I think we’re aiming for roughly 10 places. I really wanted to intersect with some of my own interest in food insecurity. So, we’ve looked at the USDA food insecurity maps that are available online. Um, you can also combine it with layers of information like access to vehicles, to get a sense of like just generally what people’s food landscape looks like, depending on their mode of transportation or their access to transportation. And also, yeah, at the same time, like I would love to do some of the stuff we’ve done regarding the campus food scape.

Just to get a real sense of what it is that people have access to and a better understanding of the larger context that these like gas stations exist in. And also at the same time, we just wanna eat like really good food too. So, there is also that component.

Smiti: So, you’ve spoken a lot about food stories and it got me thinking about memory and how food is remembered and possibly how history and archaeology is shaped.

So, from your experience doing this project and your other archaeological experience, what do you think that can tell us about how food is remembered?

Katie Chiou: I think a lot of what makes us, us, when it comes to food, is of course present in our development. So, like what you experienced as a child. I know for myself, like I can’t stand peas. I don’t know why, but like it goes all the way back to when I was a little kid and I would pick out each individual one and fling them at my brother. I just hated them. A lot of what I grew up eating like I still gravitate for. So when I’m stressed out, when my day has been really long and, you know, people are a little tiring or whatever it is, I’m dealing with some things I don’t really wanna deal with, I’ll gravitate towards some of those foods I grew up with.

Oftentimes simple stuff that my mom would cook whenever I wasn’t feeling well. So, we have a nostalgia for things like that. At the same time, I think when there’s moments where we’re just mentally more present because of some external factors, like for example, there’s plenty of stories about like food in the context of war or food in the context of having less. We can think about times like the Great Depression, or I think about stories like my grandma told me about like growing up in World War II. Um, and some of the things that they had to deal with. And how that’s still like a very embodied thing. She’ll talk about having to survive off of sweet potatoes because there wasn’t access to a lot of other things.

And so when I was a kid, I remember seeing her eat things like fish heads, for example, or being really, really concerned about food wastage and wanting to make sure everyone was always eating plentiful. And a lot of that comes from anxiety about not having a lot. Recently, I know with the pandemic, I don’t know if folks remember, but supply chains were definitely impacted by that. So, suddenly things like yeast were in short supply. And so, there’s these moments like that I think that are really important in terms of thinking about like national or regional cuisines. Right? You can think about examples like barbecue. I mean, barbecue comes out of a lot of um, influences like slave foodways, where you’re dealing with trying to make the most of certain kinds of meats that you had access to because that was the situation you were in.

Or think about like the love that Polynesians have for spam. A food that is symbolic, of American imperialism in some ways. And yet today, like you have spam musubi or other kinds of spam that are beloved by populations. And so, you’ve created this food that comes out of hard times, but it’s also become something that is part of your history. And while you see a lot of change, as well, you also see a lot of conservatism when it comes to foodways, where things are kept traditional because that’s the way it’s always done and it’s passed down from generation to generation. And so, if you’re interested at all in just nuance and culture, food is such a interesting way to go about looking at these larger issues. Ranging from the very individualized and personalized to things that are more global in nature and transformative. So, I always like to tell students if you wanna study anything, you can always study food. Because like with food, you can pretty much address anything out there.

Smiti: Thank you for sharing that. And I’m curious, what do you hope listeners take away about the value of looking at food, especially in unexpected places, when it comes to better understanding both the past and the present?

Katie Chiou: So, I would say something that I always tell my students, which is just be more cognizant of everything that you’re consuming. And where it comes from, who produced it, what the history is behind it. One example I like to point to constantly, just because it’s something that has, I think has affected my life, or something I think about because of my own sort of cultural context, is, Asian American foodways. Particularly Chinese American food. parents, just for added context and background, came over to the US in the 1980s. My father came to work in tech. He’s an engineer. But we went first to California in the midst of a tech boom and then ultimately ended up in New Jersey and you work for Bell Labs until they went under and so on and so forth. So, I have a very specific trajectory in terms of like, how I’ve experienced this country. And I remember when I was growing up. Everybody was always talking about, and I mean everybody in terms of like the local Asian American community, you know, Americans love eating like, oh, that, like fake Chinese food. That Chinese food that’s like exemplified by things like General Tso’s chicken, or orange chicken, beef and broccoli, all that kind of stuff. And that was always seen as being like fake or not legitimate. To the point where like if you were to go to a Chinese restaurant that served that kind of stuff, usually on the lunch menu, everybody knew there was like a secret menu, right?

And that was like the real stuff, the authentic stuff. And it wasn’t until like years later that this concept really started bothering me, and I wanted to kind of unpack it more. And now there’s been a lot more work done in the realm of, for example, Chinese-American foodways. And seeing that more in the context of the history of Chinese immigration to the United States. The history of laborers coming over to fill certain kinds of needs during the railroad boom, for example, and how they used these foods to kind of make a life for themselves in this country.

That you have these places where not only are they building restaurants, they’re also constructing grocery stores. They’re providing laundry needs. They’re going into all these niche areas for specific reasons. Right? And that food in many ways is the product of trying to make it in America and trying to both straddle the line between providing your traditional foods, but at the same time adapting to local tastes, in the context of, dealing with things like racism and exclusion. And i t’s not something exclusive to, of course, the Chinese community. You see the same thing with like Italian foodways. You see the same thing with Jewish foodways. You see the same thing with Irish foodways.

All of these foods have adapted and are the product of a history of people being here in the United States. So, I oftentimes like to think about that. I like to think also about things like, we’re increasingly getting divorced from where our food comes from. That’s one thing that I think we as archaeologists can definitely address. Because we see more of those lines between origin and where they end up. That whole process of production to transformation and cooking to disposal, like we have access to the material evidence related to all of that. So, we think a lot about that. For the most part today, I mean, I could say this too, as just a citizen of the world living in this current environment, is I don’t know where my food is coming from.

I go to the grocery store, it’s packaged nicely, in plastic. It’s aesthetic, You know, they spritz water on things to make it look all fresh and vibrant. And like maybe I’ll take a cursory glance at like the country of origin, like this is roughly from Mexico, or these asparagus spears are from Peru. But for the most part, like we don’t see the conditions under which these things are produced. We don’t know who’s doing it. We don’t know how it got here. We don’t even question like why it’s here at this time of year. And so, I try to get my students to see that too.

We run through this exercise where they actually call up food manufacturers and ask them like, Hey, like where’s this ingredient from? They go down the list of ingredients and see how far they can get. And it’s actually a trick exercise because in many ways, like they’re not gonna be successful. I don’t tell them that. So I, I let them deal with that worry and dread. Because they’ll tell me like, “Oh my God, Dr. Chiou, I can’t complete this assignment. Am I gonna get an F? Because I called this company and they’re refusing to tell me anything.” And in many ways it’s an instructional exercise because I want them to see like, hey, you don’t know where your food comes from. What are the implications of not knowing? What do we deal with as a result of us not being connected to food producers, to food origins, to the way in which food is dealt with and manipulated, before it ends up on your plate. And how have these things played out in the past, right? So, it’s an excellent way to bridge past and present. So yeah, if there’s one takeaway message, and I know it was a bit long-winded, it’s just to be more cognizant. Because I think in being more cognizant we’ll be more grateful. We’ll be more empathetic.

We’ll see people as people, Thinking about like, oh, who’s picking your strawberries, for example. What’s the labor conditions around the shrimp that you’re eating from Asia? What’s happening right now with coffee, or chocolate? What are, what are the conditions under which the workers are dealing with when they’re producing the things that you are consuming? That’s not to say that we should feel shame or guilt about eating these things, but rather just to understand and to appreciate and to be just more mindful in general, in terms of being consumers.

Smiti: One of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is that when we bring the same curiosity we have for the past and apply it to the present, we begin to notice things we otherwise might have missed. Even in places like campus dining halls and gas stations.

If you’d like to learn more about Katie’s work, you can check out her website, and she also has an Instagram that she co-curates with her students. Katie’s also part of the Conserve group, which does community oriented nature-based science. You’ll find those links in the show notes along to a link with a full transcript of this episode. And if you’re curious to hear the unexpected cooking show that Katie recommends to those interested in food anthropology, she shares that in a Patreon exclusive video.

Our Patreon is free to join and gives you access to all of our bonus content. Now, if you’re able to support the podcast monetarily, we’d of course appreciate that too. Thanks so much for listening and cultivating your curiosity with us. We’ll see you soon.

Credits

Katie Chiou: Guest

Noor Hanania: Theme Music Creator

Laura Riveiro: Podcast Cover Art Creator

Brooke Norton: Production Support

Smiti Nathan: Host, Video Editor

Patreon Supporters

Thank you to our paid Patreon members for supporting the creation of this episode:

Nancy Fulton, James D., Giancarlo Annese, Thomas Martin

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