Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Stephanie Joan Stiavetti Humanities and Social Science

The Consecrated Kitchen: Culinary Expressions of Spirituality

This projects aims to understand how Babettes Feast and Like Water for Chocolate demonstrate the sanctity of food in relation to religious practice. My plan is to answers several questions in the course of my research: how do food and faith correlate, and how are these correlations articulated differently in these two texts? How do gender expectations shape the lives of these heroines? In telling the stories of two women, Babette Harsant and Tita de la Garza, these texts asseverate a link between the spirituality that is inherent in each heroine and the gender issues that arise when their faith can only manifest itself where they spend the vast majority of their lives: in the kitchen.

Message To Sponsor

I am very excited to have been given the opportunity to research my topic with the assistance of the SURF program. Unfettered by other obligations, I am looking forward to diving headfirst into my project without any distraction. Cooking is my favorite creative outlet, and I am very grateful to SURF for the opportunity to combine my three greatest passions, academia, literature, and the culinary arts.