Title: Trips Food

General Information about Item:

• Material folklore: food
• Language: English
• Country: USA

Informant Data:

• The informant is a Dartmouth ’18 female. She is active in the Native American Community on campus, SPCSA, and Sigma Delta. She is a Government and Native American Studies modified with Anthropology double major from Martha’s Vineyard. She went on cabin camping in September 2014, but never led a trip or was on a croo.

Contextual Data:

• Social Context: Students are first introduced to trips food in the information given to them prior to trips. Students are supposed to disclose dietary requirements and the trips food is typically focused on being healthy, environmentally friendly, and portable. Students are then introduced to trips food when packing the food for their specific trip on the first day of trips when they are on campus. Throughout the course of their trip they will prepare their own food. Croo members prepare food while students are on campus and at the Lodge.
• Cultural Context: Many of the food items on trips are not typical of your average American grocery store. Many of the foods are more organic and less big-brand than most students might be used to. These sorts of foods are easily available at the grocery store in Hanover, the Coop, which is a health foods store. Trips food serves as another aspect of the common trips experience for students as does their part in preparing meals while on trips.

Item:

• Trips food includes Cabot cheese, Annie’s Mac, bread, Peanut/Sun-butter, crack (a sugary granola-like trail mix), organic granola bars

Transcript of Informant Interview:

Then once you have broken the ice, but not actually broken the ice because I don’t know if you can break the ice through awkward games like that, then I think they assigned you a specific time to go get snacks. You make the food bags and stuff so you’re part of the preparation I guess in that sense.

And then we’re at the cabin. The first thing we do is spread out all of our snacks and make lunch. We’re all thinking what is this food. Its super New England, like organic stuff. And there are kids coming from all over wondering where the normal people food is.

Informant’s Comments:

• The informant saw trips food as another introduction into Dartmouth’s crunchy reputation.

Collector’s Comments:

• I thought it was interesting that the informant didn’t just talk about the New-England-ness or oganic-ness of the food, but that she also saw the practice of having students make food bags for their trip as involvement in preparation and a sort of ownership over their trips experience.

Collector’s Name: Clara Silvanic

Tags/Keywords:

• Trips food, snacks, DOC trips