This blog – Senior Moments from a Small Town in the Valley – began on Google Blogspot in 2007 and in late 2014 transitioned to its own site with WordPress. The theme used is called Nord.
About Almontage
Senior Moments from a Small Town in the Valley
Hello!
Please let me introduce myself. My name is Joel Dickau. I’m a PhD student in the History department at the University of Toronto writing a dissertation on the emergence of food science in North America in the 20th century. Today I stumbled across your blog and I felt absolutely compelled to reach out to you. To be completely frank, I’m not sure I know your name. Is it Almontage?
Here’s why I’m writing. I’m one of a number of historians, ourselves part of broader scholarly group, who have taken a real interest in the history and development of your profession. I’ve become fascinated with the question of food texture as an example of a discrete problem for engineers, scientists and marketers. In fact, my chief research subject is Alina Szczesniak who headed up a division of the General Foods Technical Center in Tarrytown, and with whose writings on texture I’m sure you’re familiar. In addition, I’m trying to piece together the links between trained home economists and their test kitchens and the laboratories that scientists such as yourself worked in; I wonder how both your approaches resulted in the products that filled grocery store shelves.
I would love to ask you some questions, if you’re interested in sharing with me. Mostly, I wonder if you’ll elaborate on your posts about the day-to-day work in your laboratory and changes in the nature of food science that you’ve witnessed.
You can reach me at joel.dickau@mail.utoronto.ca. I would love to send you an article I wrote outlining the history of the “texture measuring community” as I have come to understand it.
Very best from Toronto,
Joel