What you will find on this website is the product of a five week study abroad program led by my university, University of California, Santa Cruz, at the Umbra Institute of Perugia, Italy. I took part in two courses: Anthropology of Food and Workshop in Ethnography. This work is a direct result of the latter.

 Each subsection is divided into four ethnographic field reports that I produced. I utilized different methods each week at various field sites with the goal of obtaining information pertaining my research question: what are Perugian traditional foods and to what extent are they impacted or reinforced by globalizing forces? As I progressed through the course, this question had come to be refined to Umbrian traditional foods, and cured meat and cheese production in particular. From which I developed a thesis building upon prior food studies literature whereby I concluded that the cultures of Umbrian regional foods are deeply embedded within macroeconomic forces and the intensification of global interaction. In this context, local desires for shared meaning and belonging are reflected in the foods produced and consumed as demonstrated by interviews with interlocutors, discourse analysis, and participant observation. However, the cultures emerging from this process are mediated by market constraints and demands, political recognition, and authoritative claims to authenticity.

The pages incorporate a short description of the methods employed, observations made, and their resulting insights. Photos taken by myself are used to give a visual depiction, which are then accompanied by relevant quotes from my reports. The full field reports can be found at the end of each page. In addition to the above, google map coordinates are included where applicable as a means of creating an interactive experience for the exploration of my field sites. You may do so by clicking view larger map and then by dragging the little yellow person from the bottom right corner of the screen to the location marked. Please note that these maps may be outdated or updated depending on when they are accessed, thus may not be entirely representative of what is described in my writings.  

-Jordan Mazzarella

Please contact jordanamazzarella@gmail.com for more information.