Gabriella Petrick
Assistant Professor
A lecture given by Petrick for the Chemical Heritage Foundation, "How Lettuce Became Iceberg," described the evolution of lettuce production from regional crop to an industrial product. Along the way, she illustrates how the development of an industrialized food system increased supply and changed the perception of this food from a seasonal food to a staple of the American diet.
Gabriella Petrick recently joined the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health as assistant professor. She feels the merging of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health into a single department is a unique and fruitful combination. The rich possibilities for the cross-fertilization of ideas among these three related fields were particularly attractive to her, as is the intellectual community that makes up the department.
Petrick comes to NYU from the University of Delaware, where her research focused on the role of technology and science in the industrial development of food in 20th century America. Her dissertation is titled, “The Arbiters of Taste: Producers, Consumers, and the Industrialization of Taste in the United States, 1900-1960” and she hopes to expand it into a book.
Petrick’s two Masters degrees are in history from Carnegie Mellon University and in Hospitality Management from Cornell University. She has lived abroad, with an undergraduate year at London School of Economics studying economic history, and another year at the Australian International Hotel School in Canberra, Australia, where she was a lecturer on Food and Beverage Management.
As the 2004-2005 Edelstein Scholar at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, her most recent talk at the Foundation was on “How Lettuce Became Iceberg.” The talk described the evolution of lettuce production from regional crop to an industrial product. Along the way, she illustrates how the development of an industrialized food system increased supply and changed the perception of this food from a seasonal food to a staple of the American diet.
Petrick is looking forward to getting to know her students and their interests, and hopes to be able to help them frame new questions that will contribute to the community and the field of food studies and food systems. She has a graduate-level class in the works on the role of food in social movements. With her background in science and technology, she hopes to introduce other courses that will offer insights into industrial agriculture and food processing/distribution methods. She is working on a book on the industrialization of taste in 20th century America.
How is she adjusting to life in Manhattan? A native of Pennsylvania, Petrick is enjoying her newfound ability to walk to work every day and is eager to begin exploring the Greenmarket, museums, various neighborhoods and shopping destinations. In the meantime, of course, she has already made several forays into New York’s food scene. Most recently Petrick ate at Joe’s. The verdict? Great pizza but her meatballs are better.
Listen to a podcast interview with Professor Petrick on the history of food.
Written by Karen Lau
Gabriella Petrick's complete faculty bio.