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INGREDIENTS

2 cups flour

3⁄4 cup water

1 tablespoon shortening

1⁄2 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Mix all ingredients together.

3. Turn onto a floured board and knead for five minutes.

4. Let dough rest for 10 minutes.

5. Roll out half of the dough to 1/4 inch thick.

6. Use the rim of a cup or bowl cut out 12 circles, each about 3" across.

7. Use a fork to prick the center of the circle a few times.

8. Arrange on 2 baking sheets and bake for 15 minutes.

9. Turn oven off and leave crackers in oven until completely cool.

In the context of panel 37, “Sensory methods for planetary survival,” I will offer a “tiny workshop” focused on Saloon Pilot Crackers, a form of hardtack manufactured in Honolulu by Diamond Bakery. This tasting is part of a multi-year arts-led project called Tasting History: Biscuits, Culture, and National Identity, takes taste as a research method for uncovering how ancient military rations cut across socioeconomic divides to become staples of mainstream diets. Diamond Bakery’s recipe uses lard to soften hardtack, also known as ship’s biscuits, army biscuits, cabin bread, kanpan, sea bread, and a host of other names. Hidegoro Murai, Kikutaro Hiruya and Natsu Muramoto founded Diamond Bakery in 1921. Several pilot cracker manufacturers have ceased production in recent years, including Nabisco’s Crown Pilot and Hilo Macaroni Factory’s pilot cracker. Diamond Bakery’s crackers are special, a little bit rare even. Hardtack arrived in Hawai’i with whaling and missionary ships. Saloon Pilot crackers carry material relations of multispecies environmental injustices experienced in these contexts. Crackers are also delicious and beloved, widely consumed, and adapted to cuisines around the world. Pilot Crackers are a site of everyday pleasures—for example, eating the crackers with guava jelly and condensed milk, or, as the author of the above recipe recounts, a childhood memory: “My parents would break the plain cracker up into a cup of coffee and milk and have it for breakfast.” Pilot Crackers are land and sea, whale and harpoon, they are more and more difficult to find and eat. They form digestive networks, following what Parama Roy describes as “the logic of permeability rather than of inviolability that often marks the workings of an alimentary order” (20). Writing about poi, Hi’ilei Julia Hobart describes the difference between tasting and thinking with the mouth and tasting and thinking with the stomach, finding that when eaters “think with their mouths, not their stomachs, …they consume a food rather than enact a genealogical connection” (143). Hobart’s distinction between consuming a food through the mouth versus enacting a genealogical connection through the stomach could model the how environmental justice might taste. Hardtack, often positioned as a bland and unremarkable substrate for other foods, has the capacity to juxtapose cultural practices of food and eating with genealogies and histories of injustice that can be tasted, felt, and digested.

References

Hobart, Hiʻilei Julia. “A ‘Queer-Looking Compound’: Race, Abjection, and the Politics of Hawaiian Poi.” Global Food History 3:2 (2017).

Roy, Parama. Alimentary Tracts: Appetites, Aversions, and the Postcolonial. Durham, NC: Duke, 2010.

Recipe by J-Ha7037: https://www.food.com/recipe/saloon-hard-track-pilot-crackers-351299

Source:

Kelley, Lindsay. 2023. "Taste Workshop: Daimond Bakery, Honolulu, Hawai'i." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

During our visit, I was struck by the landscape around the mound. Vast prairie, with woods in the distance, together with the remote location of the site made space feel empty. This notion of emptiness or insignificance came up occasionally in our discussions as we walked through or looked at artworks of the landscape. However, Kim, in particular, resisted the idea that these ecosystems have nothing to show, but are beautiful in their own way.

I had to think of these conversations again when I looked through the slide show and found this image of the bird house. In contrast to the ongoing dispute about the clean-up at West Lake Landfill, the Weldon Springs mound is emblematic of the idea of remediation/restoration. During our tour, I remember being told that certain species were returning to the site or the surrounding woods (is that correct? what did they say exactly?). Birds are also interesting actors in regards to opening up and cleaning the landfill, which might increase their presence. They have been discussed as both a threat to the nearby airport traffic and a species to be protected from the radioactive wast itself by adding additional measures. 

The purpose of this program is to help instill into nurses, doctors, social workers and more with the ability to mix their clinical practice with the ability to interpret, recognize and be moved by stories of illness according to their mission statement. This program is for those that want to improve the effectiveness of their care by increasing their familiarity with the skill of narrative medicine. 

Columbia University was one of the first medical schools to open a program in Narrative Medicine. This program was built within their College of Physicians and Surgeons. Rita Charon is the executive director of the program and is on the forefront of spreading the need for narrative medicine in the medical field. Colleagues of hers also believe that medicine has become too professional and clinical, and doctors focus on treating medical problems based off symptoms, not the patient. The educational program at Columbia created the opportunity to earn a Masters of Science degree in Narrative Medicine in 2009, making to one of the first programs devoted to only narrative medicine. 

This program is located within an institution, Columbia University's Medical Center and College of Physicians and Surgeons. 

This program is funded by tuition paid for my students (or maybe some form of scholarship, on a case by case basis.) Columbia University is a private institution, and those enrolled in this program pay a tuition for cost of the education and resources. 

This prgram is only offered in-camous adn takes roughtl 2-6 terms  to cp,plete. earnign the degree requires 38 points. Menaing fuill time studnes can copelte the program in one academic year and a summer. The degree requirements include  five Core Courses in Narrative Medicine (22 points) and the Research Methodology course (4 points), which is required for all students who have not taken a graduate-level course in research methodology. The other 12 to 16 points may include any combination of additional Topics in Narrative Medicine courses, elective courses chosen from other departments, Independent Study and/or Capstone (two to four points).

Requirements to apply are a Bachelor’s degree or its equivalent and demonstrable evidence of promise in the field of narrative medicine according to the admissions website. Ultimately, those looking to enter the medical field in any capacity are the main targeted demographic for this program. The goal is to instill into doctors, nurses, PAs, social workers, etc, the idea of incorporating narrative medicine into their clinical work. Those predisposed to healthcare fields are likely optimal candidates for this program. 

Those that complete the course requirements and achieve all their points will graduate with an MS in Narrative Medicine. 

Though this is a very new area of study and expertise, Columbia University is very highly regarded. The public and other institutions respect this program and school alike. It shows much promise and innovation in the medical and healthcare fields.