  My new research project is focused on the rituals surrounding food consumption. Ideally, the project will result in an extensive ethnography--dare I hope, a book?--regarding the place food maintains in lives and cultures around the world, and what Americans can learn from those instances.
As part of my research, I am requesting members of various online communities, especially those with an international focus, or a cultural focus other than American, to share their stories and experiences. If you would like to contribute, you can either do so in the comment chain after this blog entry, or you can email me here. Thank you in advance for your help! So far, here's the abstract: For humans, food in not simply sustenance, but rather a sensually stimulating representation of comfort, happiness, bonding, even wellness.
Foods and the ceremonies that surround the consumption of those foods delineate one cultural group from another, and stages of life within those cultural groups. In his book Eating Well for Optimum Health, Dr. Andrew Weil discussed the many parts of our lives in which food is represented. He explained that eating patterns set in one's formative years become the eating patterns one returns to later in life almost without exception.
And so it is that parents in our country often overlook their role regarding their children's diets in two critical ways: 1) the cultural significance foods maintain throughout life, and 2) the dietary patterns set within those all-important first years of life. This project aims to explore the rich traditions regarding children's consumption in diverse cultural settings, as well as the ways in which applying the tenants of culinary traditions to American children could potentially improve those children's health for their entire lives. 
