About Middlebury’s many food groups and initiatives:
Middlebury College Organic Farm
The Middlebury College Organic Farm (MCOF) provides students and other members of the college and town with the opportunity to participate in and learn about local organic agriculture. At the garden, we want to understand the challenges of making organic food more accessible, more affordable, and better tasting. While planting rows of lettuce for Atwater Dining Hall, or gazing through the stained-glass windows in our outdoor classroom, or using a spade fork to dig up the inscrutable quackgrass, we not only come to understand the problems with industrial agriculture but also explore and help develop local, organic solutions. Please come and join us in planting and/or harvesting (depending on the season) this year’s crop or just stroll the garden and relax amongst our beautiful flowers and crops. We always love help and will be holding volunteer hours once the growing season begins.
Weybridge House
Although there are many avenues for practicing environmental activism, Weybridge House believes that purposeful eating is as an exciting and essential vehicle for reducing our carbon footprint and revitalizing the Vermont economy. Weybridge House demonstrates lived-activism in the collegiate setting by revealing the feasibility of local-eating and sustainable living on a budget, and the joy and fulfillment possible from community living. By purchasing, preserving (via freezing, canning and drying), cooking and eating food from within the state, Weybridge residents apply the goals and values of the Environmental Studies department outside of the classroom. On campus, Weybridge nightly dinners are seen as an alternative to the dining hall, and all members of the Middlebury community, regardless of course of study, are invited to join the house for an all-local dinner. Weybridge House is located at 28 Weybridge Street, on the corner of Weybridge and College St. Check out our facebook page for meal times and menu updates!
— check out the Weybridge foodshed here!! —
Food Studies
Because Middlebury does not yet offer an official academic program to examine issues of food and agriculture, we have created an “unofficial,” MCOG sponsored course of study. By bringing together courses that are already offered at Middlebury with hands-on, practical experience in food culture, this group of courses will help to prepare Middlebury students for careers in culinary, social and agricultural sciences.
Courses:
ENVS 0112: Natural Science and the Environment
ITAL 0299 / LITP 0299: Literary Feasts: Representations of Food in Modern Narrative (in English)
SOAN 0345: The Anthropology of Food
FOAG 0100: Methods in Organic Agriculture
FOAG 0200: MCOG winter term class
2 volunteer hours at MCOG per semester
1 dinner at Weybridge per semester
1 dinner at Dolci per semester
AND
2 of the following electives (one humanities AND one science focused class)
GEOL/GEOG 0257: Soils, Geology, and the Environment
GEOG 0207: Resource Wars: A Geopolitical Perspective
BIOL 0140: Ecology and Evolution
BIOL 0203: Biology of Plants
ENVS 0211: Conservation & Environmental Policy
PSCI 0209: Local Green Politics
ECON 0265: Environmental Economics
Encouraged FOAG experiences:
-apprenticeship on an organic farm
-semester in Weybridge House
-DOLCI employee
-restaurant work
-learn about Addison County’s food systems: talk to farmers at the market! ask questions at the co-op, or other grocery stores in town, and learn more about where YOUR food comes from!
If this sounds like the course of study for you, email mcof@middlebury.edu to receive more information! As a FOAG enthusiast, you will be a part of a vibrant community of curious students. Watch out for events, meals and outings!
MiddFood blog
Everyone has a story about food—a pizza dinner on Christmas Eve, learning the family’s secret chocolate chip cookie recipe, or a mother’s inexplicable aversion for the even the perfect fried egg. Meals, by their very nature, bring people together to nourish and converse in a meaningful way. The MiddFood Blog is a collaborative forum for developing a more local, tasty and healthy food system. Located in Addison County, “the land of milk and honey,” the town and college are ideally situated to participate in the growing sustainable food culture. This blog celebrates these edible traditions by covering the ideas and events of the Middlebury College Organic Farm and Weybridge House with the hopes of expanding to college dining, Dolci and the greater community.