The 'Cornivore' on TV
With a new show on the Magnolia Network, culinary anthropologist Casey Corn ā10 helps families recreate lost heirloom recipes.
There is seemingly no end to variations on the timeless riddle concerning provenance and whether it belongs to the chicken or the egg.
In that spirit of philosophical exploration, then: which or who came first, Casey Corn ā10 or culinary anthropology?
āOh, there was food anthropology long before me,ā Corn says, laughing. Sheās on the phone from the home she shares with her husband in Atlanta, where they relocated from Brooklyn about a year ago. āBut itās something I feel Iāve taken out of academia and into popular food media.ā
Indeed, Corn is the host of a popular new show on the Magnolia Network called Recipe Lost and Found. On each episode, she meets a new family, helping them recreate the secrets behind forgotten ancestral recipesāand then uses that focus to explore the clanās history and culture.
Corn is perfectly qualified for the role. But itās true she had to follow her own curiosity in a meandering path of discovery before landing on her own food-based TV show, and she credits her experiences at ĢĒŠÄTV with exposing her to fields of study sheād never considered.
Originally from Santa Monica, California, Corn enrolled at ĢĒŠÄTV after āmy parents told me I had to go to college,ā she says. āI wanted out of L.A. because I went to a really big high school. So I went on an extensive tour of small New England liberal arts colleges. When we drove onto [the ĢĒŠÄTV] campus, I told my mom, āThis is the place.ā I just knew.ā
Interestingly, though Corn enrolled wanting to study theater and become an actor, there was an early indication she might end up with a different focus.
āWe went through the curriculum and they have you check all the courses you find interestingāand without realizing it, Iād checked all anthropology classes,ā Corn says. āMy mom said, āWhat, are you going to be Indiana Jones?āā
Little did Mom know. Indiana Jones? Sure, if he could rock a dashi poached mackerel with soy-infused shitake.
As it happened, Corn was ambivalent about her early theater experiences at ĢĒŠÄTV and, along the way she enrolled in an anthropology course with John Burton, who at the time was head of the department (he died in 2014). āI was sitting in that class, and it just clicked,ā she remembers. āI thought, āThis. Is. It. I donāt know how Iāll get a job out of this, but this is how I feel about the world.ā And it snowballed from there in ways I never imagined.ā
Burton and another anthropology professor, Jeffrey Cole, who counts food anthropology among his specialties, were hugely influential on Cornās development. Cole supervised her thesisāon olive oil!āand still fondly recalls a video of a TEDx talk that Corn sent him a few years after she graduated.
