Eat Your Words! is a New York 6 Think Tank Project of Tessa Jane “Flash” Kalinosky, with help from Professor Beck Krefting, Professor Dan Nathan, and Photographer Liv Anderson (and friends who eat the food she make). Tessa is a senior American studies major at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. She has a reputation around campus for making pies and having a grumpy, fluffy dog named Ditto.  

Eat Your Words! is a project analyzing how we value ingredients, serve,and enjoy food. Each is an indicator of how a society functions and its cultural norms. Food writing informs eaters about how to engage with specific foods. Food writing reflects social issues, political, technological, and agricultural changes, and global relations, among other topics. Each analysis is paired with an original composition, varying from recipes, restaurant reviews, and editorials. We are what we eat is a truism, of course. But what we eat is informed by the way food is presented to us, visually and in writing. Consciously or not, we digest these messages and opinions and thus food writing becomes part of who we are, what we think, and what we do.