Welcome

Hello, and welcome to Picnics Past and Present! This is where I’ll be exploring how the food we rely on for survival has shaped our environment through time. This blog is a project for a course in Global Environmental Change (GEOGG131), and I’ll be writing here for the next few months. During this time, I hope to cover a broad range of topics, including the environmental impacts of large-scale factory farming, the evolution of agriculture in the Anthropocene, and the energy costs associated with the globalisation of food production, to name just a few. If there’s something in particular you’d like to read about, feel free to let me know in the comments section below.

Before we get into the details of this complex environmental issue, let me introduce myself. I’m Katherine, an MSc Climate Change student at UCL. I completed my undergraduate studies at the University of Ottawa in Canada (my hometown), and studied Environmental Sciences with a focus on Conservation and Biodiversity. My strong passion for the environment and for understanding climate change is why I chose to pursue postgraduate studies here in London. Aside from my academic interests, I am also very fascinated by nutrition and cooking, the latter being a major hobby of mine. What more of a better way to combine these two interests than to blog about them? Come visit regularly, and you may even find a recipe for something delicious from time to time!

To conclude my first post, I’m leaving you with Oxford Dictionary’s definition of food. I’ll be back in a few days’ time to provide an overview of the way humans have produced food through time, from early humans hunting and gathering their food to the modern ways of our current food industry.

food: pronounciation: /fu:d/ [noun] Any nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink or that plants absorb in order to maintain life and growth.

Cheeses at a Paris market (June 2013)

Purple garlic at a Paris market (June 2013)

Exotic spices in Aix-en-Provence (November 2012)