1. Chicken noodle night: conviviality, resilience, and food at the Vinland Fair.
- Author
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Comi, Matt and Stamper, Ruth
- Subjects
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SMALL cities , *NOODLES , *RURAL sociology , *CHICKEN as food , *CULTURE - Abstract
This participant-observation study examines the intersection of food, community resilience, and conviviality in a tiny, aging, but vibrant fair in NE Kansas. Vinland Valley is a town halfway between Lawrence and Baldwin City, southwest of Kansas City. Vinland's population has never grown significantly beyond the size of its founding membership, and this stagnation resulted in its official un-incorporation in the 1980s. The Vinland Fair, however, remains the oldest, continuously running fair in Kansas and a vital community practice that exhibits the resilience and conviviality still present, though rare, throughout the rural US Midwest. On a Thursday through Saturday each August, a couple hundred residents of Vinland and the surrounding area gather in the otherwise vacant Vinland Fairgrounds. While this research is interested in food presented at the fair, we are particularly interested in food eaten at the fair. We examine the three shared meals repeated every year: pork-burger night, chicken noodle night, and brisket night (each comes with pie). This research explores the intersections of food and eating in the place of Vinland at the oldest fair in Kansas to better understand community resilience in the flagging small towns of the Midwest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021
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