Edible Education 101: Rock Stars of Food Movement Teach UC Berkeley Class

Andrea Kissack | August 23, 2011 | 4 Comments

Nikki Henderson. Photo: People’s Grocery

A new class at UC Berkeley is getting a lot of buzz. Edible Education: The Rise and Future of the Food Movement is all about food politics. In an unusual step, Cal is opening up the 13-week course to the general public. Well, the class was open to all. Three hundred free tickets for the first night were snatched up in less than fifteen minutes. Student enrollment filled up just as fast. Edible Education is being organized, and funded, by Alice Water’s Chez Pannise Foundation. Nikki Henderson, the executive director of People’s Grocery in Oakland, along with author and U.C. Berkeley journalism professor Michael Pollan, will co-teach the semester course.

Michael Pollan. Photo: Alia Malley

Think of the sustainable food movement as a dinner party. Edible Education will take a look at the guest list and topics of conversation. How do the slow food movement and food justice fit together? What does corporate food look like? The class will feature immigrant farm workers telling their own stories. Each week will include a guest lecturer.

Here’s the line-up:

8/30: The Global Food Movement, Founder Carlo Petrini with Corby Kummer
9/6: Building a Successful Movement, Peter Sellars
9/13: The Politics of Food, Marion Nestle, Ph.D., M.P.H.
9/20: Perspectives on Race, Place & Food, Alegria De La Cruz, Rebecca Flournoy, Yvonne Yen Liu
9/27: Nutrition, Health and Diet Related Disease, Patricia Crawford & Robert Lustig
10/4: Corporations & the Food Movement, Jack Sinclair, Jib Ellison, Michael Pollan
10/11: School Lunch and Edible Schoolyards, Ann Cooper
10/18: Global Economies of Food: GMOs, and Feeding the World, Raj Patel
10/25: Agriculture and Social Justice, Eric Schlosser, Greg Asbed & Lucas Benitez
11/1: What is an Edible Education? Alice Waters
11/8: Food and the Environment, Frances Moore Lappé & Gidon Eshel
11/22: Van Jones
11/29: Place Based Models of Change, Brahm Ahmadi, Hank Herrera

The class is every Tuesday from August 30th through November 29th, 6-7:30pm (doors open at 5:30pm) at the Wheeler Auditorium at UC Berkeley.

Tickets will be available, free of charge, six days before each class.

Bay Area Bites will provide coverage of the course.

Related Articles:
Nikki Henderson: On the frontlines of edible education by Sarah Henry (Berkeleyside)

Tags: alice waters, chez panisse, Chez Panisse Foundation, edible education, edible schoolyard, food, food justice, food politics, michael pollan, nikki henderson, people's grocery, raj patel, Robert Lustig, Slow food movement, UC Berkeley, Van Jones

Category: Bay Area Bites Food + Drink, chefs, culinary education and classes, economy and food costs, farmers and farms, farmers markets, food banks, hunger, volunteer, food trends and technology, gardening and urban farming, health and nutrition, politics, activism, food safety, sustainability

About the Author (Author Archive)

Andrea describes herself as madly in love with wine, the growing, making and drinking of it and actively pursues all three activities. She is a Senior Editor and host with KQED's science and environment multimedia series, QUEST. She has covered a number of wine-related stories during her career including: how some children of Mexican vineyard laborers are now vintners, the impact of climate change on Napa wineries and the dizzying array of eco-wine choices. When she is not working, Andrea often finds herself cycling through vineyards not just in California but along the Croatian coast and Germany's Rhine River, high in Portugal's Douro Valley and through the wine lands of South Africa's Western cape. Of course, one eventually has to get off their bike and experience the regional tastes in this case, dry eastern reds, cool crisp Rieslings, aged Tawny Port and lush, acidic Chenin Blancs. Anyone thirsty?

http://www.curious-food-lover.com Marijke Blazer

Sounds amazing! Any chance of making podcasts/videos available?
Andrea

Marijke, good news! There is a webcast, sponsored by Bon Appetit Management Company. Here is a link to last week’s talk with Marion Nestle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tCkGenlDlw. Also, if you scroll up on our blog you can see the webcast from the first class in the course with Slow Food Movement founder, Carlo Petrini.
Russ

any chance this class series could come up to UC davis or Sacramento State?
jHolland

I’ve only missed a couple of classes and there have been some high points and some low points. I go with a group of “native” Berkeley-ites, UCB alums, foodies, over 50, the whole 9 yards. We were devastated by the Wal Mart guy- avoidance corporate-speak and filibustering indeed!; thought Ms. Waters should NEVER appear without a script and compared very poorly to Reich; the Public Health lady totally boring. However, the “statistician” was fantastic for an otherwise potentially dull presentation; Petrini is the real rock star here in partnership with Kumer – their duet was a piece of theatre!!!! – ; Lustig was outstanding; the Small Planet lady a bit over the top but loveable; etc. Your concept is wonderful but you know by now it needs fine tuning. The format for question and answer never works well so should be changed – the “don’t talk about yourself” admonition needs to be repeated. The “2-questions-at-a-time” idea loses the questions, which might be a good thing in some cases.