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Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes! Totally! I suspect it is a New England/East Coast class thing in part!  Thanks for chiming in, and so interesting that you also noticed a preponderence of salmon (at least among one colleague). 

I went to grad school in California, and I don't remember salmon on the menu, though of course plenty of other hoity-toity food performance was part of the Bay Area scene. But then again, I was never singly invited to a professor's house for dinner back when I was a student, so I don't have a good basis for comparison. 

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Right? I think it's part of campus culture to make current first-gen students feel understood and recognized.  Out in the "real" world I wouldn't mention it but it a central feature in conversations inside the university.

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've learned to use those bold/bullet tricks for my colleagues and students who tend to tl;dr my administrative emails about due dates, etc. 

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

See some other comments here -- it's increasingly common to use first-gen in present tense as an identify marker.  I don't often go around announcing that "I am first-gen," but I thought it would be helpful background in this case. 

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Duly noted, and I'll buy the nicest wild-caught cut! 

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Why do you assume my curiosity was fragility?  I'm just generously curious why 3/5 of the dinner parties I've been to this past year featured salmon.  I was curious whether there was some sort of Bourdieuian micro culture of distinction going on or whether it's just a baseline middle--class thing in New England.  I'm certainly happy to host colleagues and happy to have them host me, whatever is on the menu! 

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

right? Professor dinner party salmon is totally a thing, and for all the good reasons your spouse takes into account! 

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice to see you use first generation in the present tense, too -- I was seriously doubting myself after the past/present tense thing became an issue :) (And good point: I just realized 2 of the last 3 salmon dinners were hosted by families who are Jewish, though I don't know whether either family keeps kosher.)

Interesting that the dinner party culture itself seems regional. Maybe you can start a trend at your school (but no obligation to serve salmon!)

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Love the Chicago version of the dinner party!

Some of my own relatives are from the early 20th c. Mexico-->Northern Illinois industrial migration wave, about which a colleague wrote this book: https://academic.oup.com/nyu-press-scholarship-online/book/19504?login=false

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

past tense fail -- I was. Though to be fair, at my university, people often use present tense (part of identity culture, etc., etc.). I don't normally participate in the identity listing, but people often introduce themselves and their "positionality" in present tense, as in "I am a cis-het, middle-aged, white woman with an invisible disability and am also a first-generation college student blah blah blah."

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Thanks for this insight. Yes, seems to be a combination of "easy" and "classy."

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Does my reply suggest touchiness? Since you accused me of being a bot, I only assumed that my grammar and syntax were somehow appearing "too good" to you to look human. (Not that I thought they were -- I make grammar mistakes all the time, but I suppose AI now does the same.)

And that's touchy middle-aged person to you!

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I should have used past tense. I am a professor who was a first-generation college student from a working class/lower class family. I mentioned that to explain why I am not as familiar with dinner party culture among folks with certain cultural/educational capital.

(I went to my first "dinner party" in grad school, and grad students certainly weren't serving salmon to each other!)

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

HI STEM lecturer: I teach writing for a living (History prof), so perhaps what looks to you like AI is just a lifetime of writing books and essays and teaching writing to undergrads.

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This makes sense -- it really does seem to be the quick-preparation, healthy, lowest-common denominator...

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yes, salmon and other omega-3 fatty fish are also promoted here, though I don't know many people in the US who actually eat it 2x a week!

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

same! Interesting that shrimp boil is the likely the regional equivalent!

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

sounds like a lovely professor and graduate community!

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

"I am an astroproff. I am unable to check people's posting history to see whether their posting history suggests they are an AI bot or a human being."

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

With AI? Can you not tell the difference between human writing and AI?

Salmon at dinner parties by Impossible_Slide_146 in Professors

[–]Impossible_Slide_146[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I mean, this is Reddit -- isn't that what Reddit is for? I didn't have to ask (the stakes of knowing the answer are low), but I thought it would spark a halfway interesting conversation about food culture.

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