10th Annual Melon Forum | April 12, 2023

On April 12, 2023, from 5:00 – 7:00 P.M., the Yale Sustainable Food Program hosted its tenth annual Melon Forum at St. Anthony Hall, where ten Yale seniors presented senior theses relating to food and agriculture: Gavrielle Welbel, Meredith Ryan, Kayleigh Larsen, Brianna Jefferson, Ben Christensen, Catherine Webb, Caroline Beit, and Lucie Warga, majoring in subjects from Environmental Studies to Economics. Raphael Berz and Michael Min contributed their prospectuses to our 2023 Melon Forum brochure. Virginia Davis ’23 planned and led the event. The students’ projects ranged across disciplines, methodologies, and theories, utilizing novel approaches to tackling wicked problems in food systems. To view the Melon Forum brochure, please visit this link.

Lucie Warga ’22 began the event with her presentation, assessing the socio-political climate influencing school nutrition standards in the last decade. Drawing from archival research and discussing cultural norms, Warga engaged in an interdisciplinary exploration of food standards for students in U.S. schools.

Following Warga, Meredith Ryan ’22 explained how she used remote sensing and Google Earth Engine to analyze how the Russia-Ukraine war impacted agricultural production in Ukraine. Ryan used sensing technologies to analyze different types of wavelengths absorbed and reflected by chlorophyll in regions of interest to determine the impact of the war on agricultural yields. 

Presentations focused not only on fluctuations in geography, but also on their shifting relationships with the people and environments around them. Catherine Webb ’22 highlighted the Shinnecock Kelp Farmers, a collective of six Shinnecock women  who work to steward the land amidst “social geographies of antagonists and potential allies,” she wrote. Their ancestral relationship with kelp guides their present-day work in kelp farming. Themes of protection, spirituality, and connection imbued Catherine’s thoughtful presentation. 

“You can’t talk about hunger without talking about race,” said Kayleigh Larsen ’22. Larsen’s presentation explored American food politics, activism, and power from 1964 – 1973. Through three case studies—one of which highlighted the Black Panther Party’s free breakfast program—she examined how grassroots organizers used food systems to contest values of an oppressive society. 

Next, Gavrielle Welbel ’22 presented their long-term research on rock weathering in agricultural settings through analyzing carbon dioxide removal, crop yields, and soil pH. In conjunction with a team of researchers and farmers, Welbel studies rock weathering at Zumwalt Acres, a farm which they co-steward in Sheldon, IL.

Next, Brianna Jefferson ’22—advised by YSFP Director Mark Bomford—presented on the intersections of hydroponics and environmental justice. Through interviews with companies in the Northeast and Florida, Jefferson investigated large hydroponic companies’ purported commitment to environmental justice and local communities. She found that while the companies’ commitments were largely opaque, they did at times positively impact communities by providing job opportunities in underserved areas. 

Jefferson’s presentation was followed by Caroline Beit ’22, whose project on the history of breastfeeding in American prisons tracked court cases and political visions of breastfeeding. Studying the racialized double-standards of white and Black women breastfeeding their children, Beit analyzed the effects of court decisions that have affected the accessibility and legality of breastfeeding in carceral settings. While breastfeeding has been repeatedly criminalized, other court decisions have elevated breastfeeding as a constitutional right. 

Finally, Ben Christenen ’22 presented a graph-theoretical project on human population clusters as a function of geography. “People tend to live where they can grow food,” he said. Christensen  used computational methods to explore the geographic conditions conducive to supporting large populations, and considered if natural geographic clusters correlated with canonical ideas of “regions.” 

Around forty students gathered to watch these seniors present their culminatingYale academic works. The YSFP provided wine, a variety of cheeses, and sweet treats. We hope you’ll join us next year at our 11th annual Melon Forum. 

To view photos from the event, please follow this link. Photos by Reese Neal ’25. 

All Pib Slow Play: A sedimentation of history and sound | Friday, April 15th

On April 15th, 2022, from 3:00-5:00 P.M., the YSFP hosted a workday followed by an event called “All Pib Slow Play: A sedimentation of history and sound,” organized by  MFA student Miguel Gaydosh, SOA ‘22, which featured pibil style cooking. In the early afternoon, volunteers started off the workday by preparing for and planting strawberries. They used “flamethrowers” to cut perfectly shaped holes in a black tarp, laid the tarps over a lower field, and planted strawberries in the circular openings. Using silver rods, they pushed the yellowed, spindly roots of the nascent strawberries into the dirt and packed them in with their fingers into the wet mud, careful to leave the fragile web of roots intact and buried deep in the dirt, but the green bud at the top exposed to the sunlight. Long-time  and first-time workday participants squatted side by side over the bunched tarps and planted three rows of strawberries; conversation sprouted between graduate students at the School of  the Environment, farm managers, and first-years meeting each other for the first time. 

At 4:00 PM, volunteers migrated upwards to the Lazarus Pavilion, where the culinary events team had been hard at work preparing food for the event, alongside Guatemalan chef Sandra of La Cocina de Sandra, her husband, and her son. The family slow-cooked some truly spectacular food for the undergrads and many School of Art students in attendance. Throughout the event, Sandra stood supervising several large silver pots with an array of bowls full of chopped and diced vegetables, steam billowing out; she was working on preparing pupusas and tamales. In front of the Farm’s brick oven, culinary events managers heated up a silver tray full of cilantro and lime rice, slowly stirred a basin of beans, and cooked Guatemalan-style chow mein. At the wooden picnic tables, Catherine Rutherfurd ’22 mashed coconut rice pudding she made in a tray with gloved hands. Underneath our chalk sign sat a few pots of agua de jamaica (hibicus water). As all this culinary goodness unfolded, Miguel and his fellow students soundtracked the event with slowed Xumbia and ambient music, reflecting the slow cooking which was happening in the pib. 

Back behind all the action under the Lazarus Pavilion was the star of the event: the pib. Before the event began, culinary events managers took turns digging into the hardened earth to create a 3-feet-wide by 3-feet-deep pit. Once it was dug, the pit was lined with rings of stones stacked atop each other. The team then lit a fire at the bottom of the pib, which heated the stones for several hours and created tons of hot coals. Attendees dropped in sweet potatoes, wrapped in banana leaves and tinfoil, directly over the coals and rocks. Miguel and others then worked together to cover the potatoes with the soil, leaving them to cook underground for an hour. After digging up part of the pit and finding they weren’t yet fully cooked, we re-covered the potatoes with soil for another hour or so, letting them bake underground in the slow cooking pibil style. When the potatoes were finished, they were smothered in honey butter with Cobanero chili and lime. The event was a beautiful fulfillment of Miguel’s vision, which intended in part to teach, practice, and evolve a tradition long held by his Guatemalan family.

Big thank you to Miguel; Sandra and her family; Geo Barrios, who helped organize this event; and everyone who turned out to make this event such a beautifully unique and meaningful evening on the Farm. 

Photographs by Reese Neal ‘25. To view all the photos, please follow this link.

Post by Sarah Feng ‘25.

Political Dessert with Paola Velez

The following blog post shares more from Paola Velez during her visit Paola visit to campus as part of the Yale Sustainable Food Program’s “Cooking Across the Black Diaspora” series. A themed line-up for Chewing the Fat, these events were conducted in collaboration with the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale, and the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration.

In doing so, the series commemorated Black History Month, and the 50th anniversary for both the Afro-American Cultural Center (fondly referred to as “the House”) and the Yale Department of African American Studies. Ezra Stiles College and La Casa Cultural also supported Paola’s time on campus.

Paola’s visit included a podcast on Chewing the Fat, lunch and flavor pairing workshop using frio frio (shaved ice) at La Casa, and a public conversation with then Head of College Stephen Pitti at Ezra Stiles.

Chef Paola Velez’s earliest food memories are from the Dominican Republic, where she lived with her mother in a sleepy town known for cacao farming. But even after she and her mother moved to the Bronx, she still had strong memories of food. The mothers in their mostly Dominican neighborhood gathered often for their families to share meals. One mother would bring the rice, another the beans, and so on. Until they had enough for everyone. Food insecurity may have affected her childhood, but her community came together to cook together. There she learned hospitality. She learned how to share a meal.

This act of sharing food remains an important ideal to Velez. “It’s the great equalizer: food is that moment in time when we all have to be quiet and eat.” By cooking for people, she is able to direct the conversation that they will have with their food and each other. At the moment, such conversations center the past. Velez may cook with plenty of local Mid-Atlantic ingredients, but she elaborates on their history by connecting her sourcing to anywhere that the African slave trade touched: not only from the Americas, but Asia too. Soy sauce, for example, sneaks into her desserts for a touch of umami.

After all, Velez considers it her duty to cook with history, especially as a pastry chef. Everything associated with dessert, like alcohols, sugars, and fruits, comes from the African slave trade. Her awareness of the cultural significance of her food allows Velez to ask all her patrons to grapple with its violent history.

But she does more than spark conversations about history. She asks people to do something about it. And here, Velez leads by example. As an executive chef, Velez makes a point of hiring marginalized people, especially women of color and trans people. She never had a culinary mentor, but Velez hopes to utilize her position of power to open doors for people like her. To do this, she built a team at Kith/Kin founded on trust and mutual respect. “People need to feel safe at work to succeed,” she explained. She learned how to be a good manager, and teaches those below her the same practices. She asks questions. She listens.

To hear her talk, it is clear that Velez is much more proud of her work with people than her work with food. She spoke excitedly about how she brings a rotating staff with her to banquets and offsite events, so that everyone has a chance to find their future employer and move up in the ranks. Her goal is to train her staff well and have them move on, rising to power in a different restaurant and opening those same doors for marginalized people in their own place of work. Little by little, Velez is creating a community of love in the world for world.

She asks us to do the same. One of the most emotional moments was when Velez explained how much it meant for her to be here, at Yale, talking to a room of aspiring leaders. “I just cook food,” she said, but that food is an entryway point to places like Yale and the people “with the king’s ear, who can mobilize change.” Who she will be voting for in years to come. Who she will be trusting to teach her children. Who will be making policy to make changes for the better. People like us, who go to Yale or work in DC, are the people Velez hopes to influence through her food. She tells us her story in a way we cannot ignore. At least, I hope not. Just like there is no such thing as a free lunch, there is no such thing as an apolitical dessert.

Agricultural Justice as Racial Justice

MLK Day Pierson College Tea with Savi Horne

Ulam: Main Dish

A Film Screening and Conversation with Alexandra Cuerdo

A History of SPAM Workshop

Photography by Logan Howard '21.

Asian America is in the Food

Photography by Erwin Li.

Food for the Ears: Podcasting the Science & History of Our Meals

Photography by Noa Hines '21 and Erwin Li.

Food = Text with Soleil Ho

Photography by Noa Hines '21.

The Food Markets of Saint Petersburg

Food is a subtle thing.

When Emily Sigman MF/MA Global Affairs ’20 traveled to Saint Petersburg last summer, she spent much of her days exploring its street markets. From the ​byzantine aisles of Sennoy to fruit stalls scattered the city, Emily was keen to observe what subtleties there may be. For starters, the brightly speckled berries that adorned so many booths. How much could they reveal about Russia’s biodiversity? In how small farms grew, but also in what could be foraged?

It helped that berry vendors often had their own stories of (mis)adventure. Mostly older women, the ​stall owners trekked ​hundreds of miles into the countryside to pick their desired fruits. As they set up their businesses from the trunks of their cars, these women regaled Emily their tales of evading regulatory authorities: an endless game of cat-and-mouse.

Wild mushrooms were also popular goods in Saint Petersburg’s markets. During her presentation for our weekly knead 2 know series, Emily invited two audience members to act out a script she’d written. Her text featured a number of conversations she’d had with locals about their perceptions of mushrooms.

“Do you know how to prepare these mushrooms?”

This conversation’s participant had asked Emily about cooking mushrooms. She’d had her own interesting theories of how toxins came to be “on” mushrooms, and what restaurants and processors then did to remove them. Surprising? Yes. But un-scientific? Not necessarily.

Most unexpected though, were the literary connections Russian locals drew with the city’s markets. One of Emily’s acquaintances dubbed Sennoy “a field of miracles in a country of fools.” She caught the reference immediately. “Field of Miracles” was the title of a popular television show, with a deeper reference to Tolstoy’s famous children’s story, The Golden Key. And the use of “fool”? Actually positive. Based on the Russian folktale trope Ivan the Fool, this character is simple-natured, his destiny always one of good fortune.

In her time abroad, Emily was exposed to a vast spectrum of Russian ethno-gastronomic experiences and beliefs, windows into the more complex cultural workings of food. In other words, sometimes, the most interesting connections between food and identity were not as obvious as a clearly stated culinary tradition. Instead, cultural milieus were built subtly, subconsciously. For example the literary references to describe these markets hinted at a cultural claim over space, couched in, or at least related to, Russian and Slavic identity. How then, might these perceptions interact with the non-Slavic foods and people who also inhabit, and even control neighboring and overlapping spaces? Another research question for another day.

Emily’s research was partially funded by the Yale Sustainable Food Program’s Global Food Fellowship. Photos provided courtesy of Emily. Event photography by Vuong Mai '21. 

Celebrating Foods of the Black Diaspora

For Black History Month, the Afro-American Cultural Center and Yale Sustainable Food Program have partnered together for a special event series, “Cooking Across the Black Diaspora.” The collaboration honored and commemorated this year’s 50th anniversary for both the Afro-American Cultural Center and Yale Department of African American Studies.

“Cooking Across the Black Diaspora” weaves into the Sustainable Food Program’s long-standing speaker series, known as Chewing the Fat. Building upon the conversations with past Chewing the Fat guests like Michael Twitty and Leah Penniman, we recognize the food traditions and innovations of Afro and Black-identifying peoples from across the world. In hosting Nyesha Arrington, Paola Velez, Kiki Louya, and Bryant Terry, this series held space for four chefs to share their stories, of food and identity, heritage and resilience, healing and justice.

The series culiminated in an evening celebrating the foods of the Black diaspora. Students and New Haven community members shared reflections on sweet potato pie and chosen family, soup joumou’s history in Haitian liberation, and the evolution of rice across continents. Logan Klutse ’22 offered a poem contrasting growing up hungry with the abundances of Yale’s dining halls.

Bryant Terry then followed, noting while he's proud of his cookbook Vegetable Kingdom, his live events mean little if they did not inspire community and action around Black foodways. Cooking to the tune of Bjork's "Hunter", Bryant demoed his book’s carrot soup, sharing his beginnings as a food justice activist inspired by the Black Panthers’ Free Breakfast program. Besides a few cooking tips, Bryant spoke more on the powerful connections between Black cooking and broader racial justice. The evening closed with conversation, book signings, and more of Bryant’s delicious carrot soup with Atticus sourdough.

Special thanks to the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale, the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration, Saybrook College, LoveFed New Haven, People Get Ready Books, and the Table Underground for also supporting Bryant’s visit.

Icon Image from Bryant Terry’s Vegetable Kingdom. Photography by Noa Hines ’21.

American Breads Before 1850

Maria Trumpler, Director of the Office of LGBTQ Resources, kicked off our spring semester knead 2 know series with a special interactive presentation titled, “American Breads Before 1850.” Starting at noon, participants made amaranth crackers from Sean Sherman’s “Sioux Chef Indigenous Kitchen”, as well as “hoe” cakes, rustic corn bread, and beaten biscuits inspired by Michael Twitty’s “The Cooking Gene.”

Maria reflected with audience members on what breads across U.S. history tell us about the deep connections between grain and social life. But more importantly, she noted, these staples help us center the people that history has too often marginalized, such as women, enslaved people, and indigenous tribes. When combined with embodied practice, what we eat then, offers more than an understanding of the past, but honors the ways in which people have shaped our present.

Photography by Sol Thompson '21.

Food & Urban Empowerment with Erik Clemons

In honor of 2020 Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend, the YSFP hosted a conversation with Erik Clemons, founding CEO and President of the Connecticut Center for Arts and Technology (ConnCAT). Based in New Haven, ConnCAT hosts after-school job, arts, and culinary programming to advance the careers of unemployed or under-employed adults and at-risk youth. In a public conversation at Pierson College, Erik shared with students and New Haven community members about his working relationship with Yale, ongoing development projects in Dixwell, and how ConnCAT’s programming has led to meaningful employment and equity in the New Haven community.

This Chewing the Fat event was co-sponsored by Pierson College and the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration.

Photography by Logan Howard '21.

Indigenizing the Local Food Movement with Elizabeth Hoover

Indigenous communities around the U.S. have long sustained their unique relationships to culture, land, and one another through food. As part of our Chewing the Fat series, the YSFP invited Dr. Elizabeth Hoover, Associate Professor at Brown University, to speak more about her research on indigenous foodways.

After recording a podcast with YSFP student Amy Zhang ’21, we hosted Dr. Hoover for lunch on the Yale Farm with Yale students and staff (thank you to Sanctuary Kitchen for catering!). The group gathered also to workshop a chapter from her forthcoming book, From “Garden Warriors” to Good Seeds: Indigenizing the Local Food Movement (University of Minnesota Press). In particular, students explored the relationship between food and gender norms through terms like “rematriation”, and asked questions on how climate change affects indigenous food systems and ways of living.

That afternoon, Dr. Hoover began her widely attended public lecture with stories of road trips; for years, she’d driven around the U.S. to meet with various native tribes and communities. Through these travels, she’d documented their seedsaving, farming and other cultural practices, explaining how stewarding seeds has transformative implications for food sovereignty. Seeds, after all, were gifts: they offered both biological and spiritual nourishment to people. YSFP Deja Chappell ’21 moderated the conversation that followed.

The Native American Cultural Center (NACC) hosted Dr. Hoover for a dinner with NACC students and community members. Along with other NACC student staff, YSFP-NACC liaison Catherine Webb ‘22 prepared buffalo creek squash soup, a hominy-bean salad, and sunflower seed cookies. The recipes were inspired by chef Sean Sherman’s Sioux Chef cookbook.

Elizabeth’s visit was co-sponsored by the Native American Cultural Center and the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration.

Photography by Addee Kim ‘22.

Climate Change and the Future of Food

A lunchtime conversation with Max Elder from IFTF's Food Futures Lab on climate change and the future of food. Institute for the Future (IFTF) partnered with the World Bank Climate Investment Fund on a body of research related to the Future of Climate Action. The report identified opportunity zones for climate action over the next decade, including artificial intelligence, digital engagement, youth movements, and the new climate economy.

In partnership with the Yale Center for Business and the Environment (CBEY)'s Climate Change and Entrepreneurship Program, the Plant-Based Initiative at CBEY, Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale (CITY), and Food, Agribusiness and Beverage (F.A.B.) Group at SOM.

Farming While Black, Book Conversation with Leah Penniman

Soul Fire Farm, cofounded by author, activist, and farmer Leah Penniman, is committed to ending racism and injustice in our food system. Extending this work is Leah's widely acclaimed book, Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land. We hosted Leah for a book conversation, and to discuss how you can help build a food system based on justice, dignity, and abundance for all.

Part of the YSFP's Chewing the Fat speaker series, as well as a kick-off event for Afro-American Cultural Center's Black History Month 2019 programming. Event co-sponsors included the Yale Sustainable Food Program, Afro-American Cultural Center, and Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration, Endeavors, Center for Business and the Environment at Yale, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale.