Our recipes, ourselves: The cultural psychology of food

Our recipes, ourselves: The cultural psychology of food

Author: Charts & Leisure August 27, 2025 Duration: 39:19

In this week’s episode of Unravelling, we have a bit of a special episode: a roundtable discussion with our hosts Mary and Kurt, joined by our producers Hans and Andrew, and our guest, Professor Sean Duffy.  Sean is a psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychology at Rutgers-Camden, and together, we share a bit of a metaphorical meal of a discussion about something that unites us all:  food.  We caught up with Prof. Duffy in Paris on Bastille Day, and he was fresh back from the Louvre researching food:s depiction in art. Together we explore questions such as: How food can bring us closer to family, culture, identity, our history? Can we know ourselves through what we eat? Can it help us keep the past alive in us, and give us a felt sense of our personal and cultural identities? Can we know each other better through the sharing of a meal? Join us in this feast of a discussion, as we explore all of this and more.

Website for more about Prof. Duffy:  

https://duffy.camden.rutgers.edu/

Resources:

High on the Hog 


There’s a thread that connects our inner lives to the culture we live in, and Unravelling pulls on it to see what emerges. This isn’t a lecture series, but a conversation guided by therapist Kurt White and journalist Mary Wilson, who bring their distinct perspectives to every discussion. They explore how mental health is woven into everything from our daily fitness routines and societal pressures to the art we consume and the relationships we keep. In each episode, you’ll hear from experts who study the mind alongside individuals sharing their personal, lived experiences, creating a dialogue that feels both intellectually rigorous and deeply human. The aim is to move beyond simple definitions, examining how anxiety, resilience, joy, and struggle shape our collective reality. Produced by Charts & Leisure, this podcast provides a space for nuance, challenging the idea that our psychological worlds exist in a vacuum. It’s for anyone who has ever felt the tension between their private thoughts and the public world, offering not easy answers but a more textured understanding. By listening, you become part of a broader exploration into how compassion, for ourselves and our society, can actually be built from a place of genuine curiosity.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

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