Smells and Bells

Screenshot from Smells & Bells S'20 virtual banquet FYS F '17 Cooking Together As I was reading Rosie's reflection, especially after reading almost all of the class's reflections, I saw that nearly all  of you noted  the one thing the would change would be to have the banquet in person,. But then  a strange thought occurred to me.  Of all the times I've had classes do this "ritual scorecard" after a banquet, including our FYS, your reflections on this virtual banquet  seemed to come closest to expressing the "educational goals" I had in mind by having us make a ritual banquet together.  For one thing, more people agreed that we achieved the right balance between scriptedness and improvisation, more people felt it was inclusive, and people seemed to have a clearer sense of the closure it provided.  Which suggests that just as there were costs of not being able to cook and eat together, so there may also have been costs fr...

In Religion in the Kitchen , Elizabeth Perez states that “over the last two decades, scholars engaged in the academic study of religion have increasingly come to regard the human body as a malleable multi-sensory interface continually reconfigured through ritual practice” (10). This quote at first caught my attention but for some reason I could not understand why, it took me a bit to understand that being part of different cultural environments changes my emotions. For example, whenever my family and relatives are having a get-together, being surrounded by Armenian culture changes how I feel. My grandparents were born and raised in Armenia, immigrating to the United States they brought their culture with them. On Sunday’s, my grandparents would invite us over along with my cousins to have Khash for breakfast: an Armenian dish that’s made of boiled cow or sheep, along with onion, and is served with vodka for adults. Personally, I did not enjoy this, however, every time I taste this...