Owen Heidings

Owen Heidings is a first-year undergraduate student at the University of Michigan studying economics. He is fascinated by the intersection between food and culture. Hailing from a German-Jewish family, Owen prefers to document and write about cuisines that are connected to his cultural background. His self-proclaimed “magnum opus” is an essay titled “Twisted in History: An Analysis of the Pretzel,” in which he deconstructs the history of the knotted pastry and recounts his experience eating one at a century-old German restaurant in New York called the Heidelberg. 

Before attending U-M, Owen was a high school student at the Horace Mann School in New York. There, he started a social-impact organization called Jump for Joy, which focused on donating sneakers and other wares to young children in under-resourced communities. Owen also debated across the country as a member of his school’s Model Congress program for three years, where he won Best Delegate awards at universities such as Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia. 

Owen’s favorite element of his hometown, New York City, is its reputation as a “cultural melting pot”—some of Owen’s dishes of choice outside of his own culture include cactus tacos from Los Tacos No. 1 in Chelsea Market and ramen from Momofuku Noodle Bar in Columbus Circle. Owen keeps a running list of his favorite restaurants on his phone, which he hopes to publish in a catalog in the future.