ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with introducing ways in which food studies can be taught in a linguistic anthropology framework. In particular, it focuses on teaching methods for a traditional freshman-level linguistic anthropology course called Culture and Communication. It introduces a perspective that depicts food as one system of para-linguistic communication that allows people to manipulate their identity and create groups, or food communities, that define boundaries of interaction and acceptance. By outlining terms from linguistic anthropology and concepts of interest to all anthropologists, the goal of this course is to illuminate how many of these “natural” groupings are rooted in ethnocentrism, racism, or sexism.
