Czech Culture, Food and Brewing Tradition

This course introduces students to Czech culture through focus on Czech food and Bohemia's rich brewing tradition. The course explores the historical evolution of Czech food and brewing practices and the variety of factors that have influenced how food in the Czech Republic is selected, prepared, stored, served, and eaten. The close-up experience will begin with visiting local food markets, well-known restaurants as well as traditional breweries.

Multi-disciplinary in approach, the course explores a broad variety of key contemporary issues including organic foods, Czech beer culture, and the origins (and preservation) of regional food traditions and variations. Students will also develop an awareness of more sophisticated ways of looking at food through lenses of food anthropology, history, environmental studies, psychology of food consumption. The course combines first-hand experience (field trips, guided visits, tastings) and interpretative analysis (examination of selected readings, written assignments, in-class debates, personal food journal entries). The course helps students develop a sense of food as a fundamental cultural aspect not just in Czech culture, but should empowered them to reflect more critically on the varied cultural aspects of their own domestic food-experience.