Academics are in the kitchen

[Sleeping in EQ]

And they’re making Beef Wellington. Let’s listen to what they have to say.

Department Chair: I’ll be back in about an hour. I’ve got to go try and talk the Dean out of moving the Intro to Philosophy class into the equipment shed. Good luck, troops!

Absent Minded Philosopher-Historian: To understand the continuities and discontinuities in any particular construction of Beef Wellington you need to understand Cicero’s treatment of the artaphalegean manuscripts...

Grumpy Late Modernist with Tenure: The making of Beef Wellington affirms the progressive currents in modernity, but the recipe itself, as well as the ingredients, are made available in a fashion that discourages traditional modes of public discourse, such as the sharing of recipes over the back fence.

Postmodernist with Affected French Accent: The Beef Wellington actually *makes* you.

Closet-Conservative Social Scientist: The literature suggests that if you add the egg before the mushrooms your chances of getting grant money decreases by .07.

Female Professor of Gender Studies in her mid-40s: I went into academia to avoid making Beef Wellington for the patriarchy. I might, however, cook some up to get that strapping young grad student to linger in my office with the door closed.

Bourgeois Phenomenologist: Don’t we have a cast iron roasting pan? This Pyrex will completely ruin the texture of the meat.

Soon-to-be Emeritus Professor of the Arcane: Why am I doing this when I could be busy skipping my office hours? We knew Beef Wellington was a lost cause after the Omaha conference of ’73.

Second-Wave Feminist Adjunct: The making of Beef Wellington prevents the domestic engineer from adapting the instruments of her subjection (the oven, etc) into libratory apparatus (a furnace for the burning of brassieres).

Die-Hard Neo-Marxist: If we make Beef Wellington from negotiated and resistant subject positions we can subvert the Thatcherism intended by the original recipe.

Associate Professor in Cultural Studies from Turkey: Although the making of Beef Wellington re-inscribes the forces of Western Cultural Hegemony, the people I lived next to in Istanbul shifted the consumption context by only serving it on paper plates.

Earth Tone-Wearing Ethnographer: To understand the making of Beef Wellington we must first go live amongst the cattle…

New Faculty Member Fresh Out of Grad School: We never tried to make Beef Wellington in Grad School. We barely made macaroni and cheese. I haven’t seen any articles on Beef Wellington in the Journals lately; will this get published? I hope this doesn’t mess up my chances for tenure.