The doing of ethnographies of eating: writing, observing, and eating chip butties during ethnographic research in primary schools in England

This paper explores the experience of researching food in schools. Food is personal. It is an ingested symbol of culture, family, tradition, ethnicity... What does this mean as a researcher? How do we navigate food relationships? How is this relationship shaped by the rules of the school? This paper examines how I went about doing food research in primary schools, and the various incidents that occurred that revealed food was something more than that consumed. It outlines the ethnographic approach adopted, paying attention to the sensory in research. I explore researcher identity, explaining how my own identity was multiple, and shifting, depending on where I was at a particular 'food moment'. I draw attention to several events that, on reflection, serve to reveal the importance of food in everyday life, and helped understand both the field site, and the wider context of the research