The “Care Work” of Food

To mirror my own interdisciplinary positioning in academia—somewhere between food and museum studies—I’ll share some thoughts from one of my favorite museum studies books, Nuola Morse’s The Museum as Space for Social Care. I did not start writing this editorial letter thinking that I’ll take the leap from food into museum studies, but the twelve articles featured in this issue of Gastronomica inspired me to do so. In her book, Morse (2020) is interested in what care looks like in the museum field and who engages in care work “at a time when the habit of caring for others is largely devalued” (p. 2) yet the demand for care-centered policies and practices is increasing (with the pandemic playing an important role). Her inquiries re-framed the community engagement work of museums as “care work” (Morse 2021) that involves both embodied and emotional forms of labor and action. Acts...