: Dr.

Cynthia Belliveau
: 322 South Prospect Street
: 656-3890
: Cynthia.Belliveau@uvm.edu
: Andrea Ziga, andrea.ziga@uvm.edu
: May 23-June 4. Monday-Friday 3:30pm-7:30pm, Saturdays 8:00am-12:00pm
: 233 Marsh Life Science Foods Lab
: by appointment
: , Alice Waters (available at the UVM
Bookstore). Other readings as assigned will be available on course reserve at the UVM
Library.

The goal of the class is to better understand your personal food system. To
cook and eat to help meet your needs for a safe and nutritious diet, while
ensuring that food production systems are environmentally sensitive,
economically viable, socially responsible and sustainable over the long term.

By the end of this course you should be able to:

1. Gain critical thinking skills about the complex dynamics of food that has
been grown, procured, prepared, and eaten using a sustainability
framework.
2. Connect this knowledge of that relationship to your own food, and to the
global environment in which you live.
3. Learn basic culinary skills in order to cook for yourself.

This course will use an experiential approach, meaning through your action we
will begin to understand the multifaceted, varied, and important ways cooking
and eating help us understand issues of sustainability. We will explore these
issues through 4 dominant perspectives (there are more):
 economic
 environmental
 human health
 social
With your input, we will start the complicated journey of putting these
perspectives together in a way that allows us to cook, eat and ultimately live
with more balance.
All discussions, lectures, cooking and eating will take place in the Food Lab and
will serve as the foundation of our exploration of food and sustainability.
  Your energy, effort, mise en place (preparation), creativity, humor,
resilience, interest, thoughtful comments, and observations are critical to
our learning. Come with and be prepared to explain a current food article
that uses one (or more preferably) of the sustainability perspectives.

 You will be asked to write a lab report after each class analyzing your
experience in lab and reflecting on the readings.

 A 3-4-page essay synthesizing class discussion, lab reports and readings.

 You and your team will be responsible for the day’s lesson. Plan to meet
with me to discuss the topic your team would like to study
and present.
 Prepare some leading questions that ask your classmates to think about
the issue you are going to present. Visual displays, tastings, and video
will enhance your presentation. Plan to present for 30 minutes and allow
15 minutes for questions and answers.
 Send me 3 follow-up questions immediately after the presentation for
inclusion in the lab report.

 A culmination of your cooking experience and a 4-5 page synthesis of

your lab reports, readings, presentations, and essays.

(Food Lab topic may be changed at instructor’s discretion with

notice)

: Introduction
: Basic Knife Skills, Mise en Place, Sanitation
: Lab Report and Readings as assigned for next class

Salads and Vinaigrettes

: Lab Report and Readings as assigned for next class

:
 : Preserving
: Lab Report and Readings as assigned for next class

: Beans and Rice

: Lab Report and Readings as assigned for next class

:
: Pasta
: Lab Report and Readings as assigned for next class

: Lab Report and Readings as assigned for next class

: Bread and Broths

: Lab Report. First Essay and Readings as assigned for next class

:
: Roasting
: Lab Report and Readings as assigned for next class

:
: Braising
: Lab Report and Readings as assigned for next class

:
: Desserts
: Lab Report and Readings as assigned for next class

:
:

Cell phones and pagers should be

turned off. Chronic tardiness is not acceptable. You are expected to come to class every day,
and if you are sick you need to contact me directly.

. The experiential nature of this course requires

that you to come to every class and to hand in every lab report; these elements are central to
your learning experience. Any missed classes will require that you make it up and if you miss
 without making it up you will not pass the course. I will offer only one
make-up class at the conclusion of the course. Each missed class will also be considered against
your final grade in the course. If you need to miss class for religious or medical reasons please
contact me directly to discuss.

The class is organized to promote dialogue and

interaction. When you are in class you need to participate. I will be following all the lab teams
to make sure there is full participation. Own this experience. I also intend to have conversations
during class and will call on people during discussions as well.

I will be leading class discussions in the

beginning and organizing our lab activities (and then handing it over to you) as much or more
than I will be presenting lectures. We will have much better and more meaningful discussions if
everyone comes in prepared. If you don’t understand a reading, bring in a list of questions – we
can use them to begin our discussions.

. If you hand in an assignment late you will be marked down 1

point for every day the assignment is overdue.

(not
attributing other people’s ideas, arguments or phrases properly) and will result in a
failing grade.