GROVE CITY — A Grove City College history course not only provides its students with food for thought, but with actual food.

“The official name of the class is Food and Feasting in the Western Tradition,” said Andrew Mitchell, an assistant professor of history at the college.

Mitchell said the course is designed to be interdisciplinary and students touch on a smorgasbord of fields, including philosophy, anatomy and physiology. And this year's course ends with a Victorian-era dinner.

“It's a seminar class encouraging discussion,” said Mitchell. “I have encouraged nonhistory majors to attend.”

“We have predominantly history majors but we have some double majors in religious studies, biology and English,” he said.

The seminar nature of the class limits it to 13 people.

“We do have field trips. We will go to the Strip (District in Pittsburgh) and look at the intersection of food and modern American urban society,” Mitchell said.

“We'll eat at DeLuca's, give them a diner experience,” said Mitchell, adding the class would also stop at a Strip District chocolate shop and Penzeys Spices.

The students, Mitchell said, “can look at the prevalence of spices and the changing American palate and taste. People are more interested in the spices they use on their meals beyond salt and pepper.”

Food is a fitting subject for a historian, Mitchell said.

“It's something humans do three times a day. It is useful sometimes to step back and ask, 'Why are you eating, what you are eating, when you are eating and with whom you are eating?'” he said.

“These actions help us identify the essence of a society and how it behaves,” Mitchell said.

“Is there an actual American cuisine or way to eat or are we Balkanized? Do we have smaller subcultures?” Mitchell said.

“I have a student in my class who is Filipino. At home they eat a lot of Filipino food, but they would consider themselves Americans,” Mitchell said.

“What do we celebrate when we sit down to eat?” he asked.

“Name the quintessential American food,” said Mitchell. “The name or the food has been imported.”

The hot dog and the hamburger come from Frankfurt and Hamburg, Germany, respectively, he said. Pizza is from Italy and long ago salsa, a Mexican-American invention, passed ketchup to become the most popular condiment in the United States.

On May 15 as the semester draws to an end, Mitchell's students will have to construct a Victorian feast for part of their final grade. “It's to put a practical dimension to it,” he said.

Some students will be cast in the role of the maitre d', others will provide entertainment and non-alcoholic drinks and others will prepare a meal at college kitchens or at Mitchell's home.

The meal — the students pored over 19th century cookbooks — chosen is vegetable julienne soup, turkey fricassee stuffed with sausage and carrot stuffing and a queen's apple sauce cake for dessert.

Mitchell said the meal will be hosted by Megan Maley in a local Victorian home in Grove City.

“We think it was built in the 1880s,” said Maley, who will be joining the class for the meal.

Maley said she wanted to sit in on the class but was prevented by her job.

“I'm a teacher, so I can't miss class to go to class,” said Maley, a 2007 graduate of Grove City with a degree in history.

“I think it is a creative approach to cultural history by being able to see how times have changed, how people lived and what they considered worthy of a feast, what kind of occasions would merit a feast. I think that is interesting to think about,” said Maley.

The menu tells us a bit about the long-ago Victorians, Mitchell said.

“The main course features meat,” Mitchell said. “They were not necessarily concerned with being vegetarians, although vegetarian movements existed.”

“To the Victorians, it was not considered a feast without multiple forms of meat,” Mitchell said. “They are not serving a meal with the ingredients thrown there naturally. They didn't want vegetables just steamed, they wanted them chopped up fine. They wanted to be more creative, showing the human ways of shaping the dishes.”

What gave him the idea for the course?

“I don't know if I can point to a particular thing,” Mitchell said. “I was teaching at a small college in southern Michigan and they had a course on French cooking, and that got me thinking about the nature of food.”

“After I got married, I did a lot more cooking for myself and my wife,” Mitchell said. “And I read a book called “Hungry Soul” by Leon Kass, which takes the idea of how we look at food and process food differently from the animals.”

“It's offered every other spring,” Mitchell said of the course. “It's the second time it's been offered. It was offered in 2011, and it will be again in 2015,” he said.

Mitchell said if people are interested in the course or the books used in it, they may contact him at ajmitchell@gcc.edu.