Last saved by: Elsayed Ahmed

I would love to see you push your explanation of the complex relationship between food and empire in numbers 2 and 3.  See Kerri Bennett's explanations for an example of how much detail I'm looking for here.  
 
For number 6, can you expand on how the gendered nature of “high” and “humble” cuisines and how the evolution of cuisines impacted ideals of masculinity and femininity?  For example, how did gendered expectations for cooking change from the ancient to medieval eras?  How did the rise of the salvation religions impact gender roles?  Did fasting and vegetarianism challenge imperial definitions of masculinity--or that real men ate a lot of meat?  How did the rise of middling cuisine alter gendered expectations for cooking and eating?
 
For number 7, can you expand your analysis of how the rise of "the religions of salvation" beginning in the 3rd century BCE transformed ancient imperial high cuisines?  What new traditions (the emergence of sacrificial meals, for instance) associated with food and cooking emerged and how did the associations between these traditions and religions of salvation mark a break with ancient imperial traditions?  And can you expand on how these culinary transformations impacted the role of food in marking social status?  Did these transformations equalize social classes, for instance, as some of your peers argued?  This also speaks to the role of “middling” cuisine in the modern era as a result of industrialization and urbanization and how this new middling cuisine helped bridge the gap between high and humble cuisines (despite the negative impact on people’s nutritional health).
 
For number 9, can you expand your analysis of how Laudan, Sharma, and Jurafsky works overlap?  For me, one of the big similarities between Laudan, Sharma and Jurafsky’s works revolve around the issue of accessibility to food and power.  Access to certain types of foods, and the language employed to describe those foods, were and in many cases still are symbols of power. If you get to decide what foods are "high," "middling," and "low," you wield a great deal of power, and you can see examples of this in all three works. The social definitions of food--that is, what foods are exclusive to the upper classes and what foods are not--are largely culturally constructed.  What other major insights can we glean from examining the history of food when bringing these works into conversation with each other?
 
Keep up the sharp analysis!