2024 Report

Summing up 2024—thoughts on Gardens Flowers and Fruit from Scott Alves Barton

Give thanks by showing reciprocity

Anishinaabe adage shared by first-time symposiast Cas Gardiner

Steely-hued skies and chilly temperatures greeted the 220 symposiasts who traveled to St Catherine’s College for the July 5-7 opening weekend of the 2024 Symposium. Not only was the cool summer weather atypical, sending many symposiasts sweater shopping on High Street Friday morning, but symposiasts faced a new campus geography when essential repairs closed the Arne Jacobsen lecture and dining halls, disrupting the year-round functioning of the College. While the ability to host the symposium had been in doubt until mid-January, the resourceful St Catz crew rallied to the challenge, erecting temporary lecture, seminar,  field kitchen and dining spaces in the under-explored St Catz gardens. And the rainy summer had its rewards: the high wall of jasmine that scented our path to the dining hall and the luxuriously verdant vistas from those classrooms and dining hall serendipitously made the perfect setting for Gardens, Flowers, and Fruits.

Friday afternoon opened with Carolyn Steel’s keynote address, introduced by Chair Emerita Elisabeth Luard. Steel’s talk, ‘Gardens: How our modification of nature expresses our evolving sense of our place in the world,’ was a tour de force of lavishly illustrated garden history, dashing through millennia of environmental manipulations in a never-ending quest to make nature conform to our whims and needs. Her expanded recorded version of the keynote is well worth watching. Her overview of garden history flowed seamlessly into the framing of our Friday night dinner, A Rhapsody of Greens: From the Gardens of Oxford, devised by guest chef Arthur Potts Dawson and executed by St Catz’s Chef Tim Kelsey and his team. The intellectual Potts Dawson anchored our dinner around the impeccable local bounty of greens, fruits, and dairy products, nearly all sourced within a few miles of St Catz. His framing talk emphasized the importance of local foods for gastronomic and environmental reasons. Supporting the feast was a trio of ciders from Sandford Orchards, located in Devon, which uses only apples from within 30 miles of its press. Meals Coordinator Cameron Stauch introduced cider maker Barny Butterfield, who explained some of the technical issues and gastronomic qualities involved in making the ciders (which we all found delicious at dinner), while Dr Amanda Burridge, a research associate from the University of Bristol, regaled us in a most accessible way about some of the genetic curiosities (read unpredictability) of the apple, enhancing our appreciation of the cider-maker’s art.

Following dinner, we chose between structured activities and the always enjoyable hang out at the improvised bar. Those with artistic flair painted botanical images onto fans under the tutelage of Brigitte Kampmann and Elisabeth Luard, while others learned about the world’s most expensive spice, the hand-harvested saffron, from Nader Mehravari.  Nader kindly shared some of his stash with us and gave us a thorough grounding in the centrality of these red-gold stamens in Persian cuisine.

Saturday morning opened with the announcement of the Sophie Coe Prize and the reading of the judges’ report by Jane Levi. The recipient, Dr Russell Fielding, was attending the symposium for the first time; his prize-winning paper, Voltaires Breadfruit: Thoughts on the Inspiration for an Eighteenth-Century Colonial Botanical Transfer,” although not submitted for presentation consideration, was  apt for this years theme (quite coincidentally, as the Sophie Coe Memorial Fund is independent of the Symposium). His paper is available through the Sophie Coe website, https://sophiecoeprize.wordpress.com/. Following warm congratulations, long-time symposiast and classics scholar Dr Christopher Grocock introduced our second keynote presentation, Dr Annalisa Marzano, whose talk, “Rome’s Horticultural ‘Revolution’: Ideology, Display and Economy” homed in on the pivotal role that orchards played in the Roman Empire, carrying profound messages of power, status, and conquest, along with the very practical quotidian requirements of running a villa. An important takeaway was how much the Roman fascination with the fruits of lands they had conquered, and their desire to imprint Roman culture, have shaped the agricultural legacies and landscapes of contemporary Europe, with the Romans spreading both imported and indigenous (to Italy) fruit trees throughout the Empire.

Following Marzano’s talk, we focused an initial exploration of the fundamental question, “what is a garden?” through a panel discussion amongst Carolyn Steel, Cass Gardiner, Barbara Segall, Naomi Duguid and Rick Shepro, moderated by Symposium Chair Cathy Kaufman. We learned that this (western) assumption that a garden is bit of land exploited though human action for food and beauty is culturally charged, leaving us to consider different models of gardens as something in which the heavy hand of human manipulation is visible, ‘bending nature to our will,’ or as something that allows nature to take its course, with little or no extractions from the human caretakers, or can it be something else entirely?  We reached no conclusions, but felt humbled by clashing world views, each with its own strengths, over how we understand, use, and honor the life sustaining landscape.

We then adjourned to our first set of parallel paper sessions, digging into themes raised by our first plenary sessions (and which would be revisited for extended Q&A in the online Conference section). Panel 1, “Symbiosis: Plants are Actors, too,” with papers by Diego Astorga de Ita, Ursula Heinzelmann, and Jennie Moran, creatively investigated the plants’ perspective from areas and time periods as diverse as pre-Columbian Mexico, contemporary Alpine Europe, and the lingering dead soil of post-potato famine Ireland.  Panel 2 brought views of “Ideal and Idealized Gardens,” with papers by Tatiana Alekseeva, the co-authors Christopher Grocock and Sally Grainger, and Wena Poon; in this session we strolled through  Agatha Christie’s fictional gardens that reflected a British societal need for order, ancient Roman imagery, both literary and decorative, and classical Chinese Gardens to which affluent city dwellers might retreat. Our third panel, “Even the Elite Need to Eat,” examined historical gardens of the well-to-do, whether through Mariella Beukers’ investigation of medieval and early modern Dutch vineyards (and what uses were all those underripe grapes put to?), Simi Rezi-Ghassemi’s lyrical description of Persian gardens, or Rick Shepro’s meticulous exploration of the politics and agricultural experimentation of the King’s kitchen garden at Versailles.

All this talk of gardens, fruits, and flowers made us ravenous for the intensely flavorful lunch devised by guest chef Debbie Peters in collaboration with guest gardener Paulette Henry of North London’s Black Rootz at Wolves Lane Centre, a combination garden, educational space, and cafe focusing on the Caribbean foods that provide a vital link to home for the émigré community. The taciturn Peters let her extraordinary cooking speak for her, with cod cakes, jerk portobellas and other delights fortifying symposiasts for the afternoon ahead, while in advance of lunch, the engaging Henry brought the garden at Black Rootz alive for us.

Thus sated, we returned to the serious business of parallel paper sessions. Panel 4 on “Unlikely Communities, Born from Adversity,” spotlighted the politics of the garden, whether in Mallory Cerkleski’s work on gardens in contemporary Havana, Cuba, Hao Pei Chu’s pandemic-inspired rooftop rice garden in Singapore, the launching of the Secret Rice Society, and the stunning condemnation by local authorities, or Jo Sharma and Sarah Elton’s co-authored study of vegetable gardens created by different migrant groups in Toronto, starting in the late 19th century. Gender was the focus of panel 5, “Women as Agent, Women as Object,” with papers by Joshua Kam, exploring portrayals of women and fruit in magazines  published in post-independence Malaysia; Barbara Segall, offering a tribute to three under-appreciated female gardeners, and Laura Shapiro, writing on culinary and feminist utopias portrayed by female novelists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. “Floral Cuisines: Flavor, Health, Culture,” unified the papers in panel 6, with contributions from Nader Mehravari on orange blossom jam in Persian cuisine, Kathryn Sampeck’s study of chocolate—that is, its flower and fruit—in Mesoamerica, and the Ayurvedic renaissance in 19th century India, presented by Maithili Tagare.

A short break for tea, many with floral infusions, was followed by setting the scene for Saturday’s dinner.  Devised by guest chef Thomas Zacharias and using “Forest as the Garden,” he skillfully melded India’s culinary practices with seasonal UK ingredients. Our appetites whetted, we returned to the final panels of the day. Panel 7 married two closely related papers involving “The Literary Aesthetics of the East: Chinese Stone Fruits.” Zihan Guo and Wandi Wang, both doctoral candidates, shared their vast knowledge of Chinese literature (and in Wang’s case, goodies to taste) with us: Guo’s subject was cherries in medieval China, often used as political gifts, while Wang focused on plums and olives, including a tasting of Chinese cured olives. Panel 8 blended practical knowledge with “The Cultural Politics of Preservation.” Eleanor Barnett dove deeply into the history of fruit preservation in England, while Danille Christensen traced the tensions between expert and lay knowledge in home canning.

Despite an intermittent sprinkling from the heavens, we enjoyed aperitifs and nibbles in the garden before adjourning to the glassed-in dining hall for the luscious dinner celebrating the culinary diversity to be found in Southern India’s forests. The meal opened with kokum solkadhi, a tart fruit (unknown to many of us) from the forests of Western Ghats, mixed with coconut milk into a refreshing drink, and was followed by a chorus of dishes (including our only meat dish of the weekend, a succulent duck curry) executed by chefs Zacharias, Kelsey, and the St Catz team. After dinner, symposiasts enjoyed the hands-on experience of making botanical cordials under the expert direction of Gerhardus Geldenhuis, with everyone’s personal blend a tasty memento to bring home. Others enjoyed a mellow virtual tour of the new Botanic Gardens of the FoodMuseum, led by its director, Linda Roodenburg.

Sunday morning dawned with a last opportunity to enjoy the buffet of fruit and floral jams contributed by symposiasts to enhance the breakfast tables. Our final keynote, delivered by Dr Christina Mazzoni, “Love, Magic, and the Bittersweet Flavor of Oranges in Italian Culture,” explored oranges since their introduction in the High Middle Ages. Whether as magical fruit in fairy tales, golden orbs enlivening wintertime Florentine gardens, harmless weapons pelted in mock warfare in Renaissance festivals or encapsulating contemporary labor issues, oranges inflame the Italian imagination. Amongst the many fascinating stories Mazzoni shared was one of the earliest: how Catherine of Siena tried to sway Pope Urban the Sixth through a parable (and gift) of oranges she candied herself. Following this keynote was the eagerly awaited formal introduction by Cameron Stauch of this year’s Young Chefs, Phoebe Boatwright, Sarah Cremona, and Iines Råmark, along with their mentor, Cordula Peters. The Young Chefs could make only cameo appearances, dashing back to the kitchen to put the finishing touches on Sunday lunch, entitled “Root to Bloom.” After a break for coffee and the all-important casual chats, we moved to the morning’s parallel sessions.

Panel 9, “Empowered by Ancient Wisdom,” became the inspiration for the November Kitchen Table on Indigeneity.  At St Catz, the papers offered a preview: Cass Gardiner wrote on the forest as a food garden to those who can appreciate the wealth contained therein; Camila Marcias discussed the resilience of indigenous food systems in the Ecuadorian Amazon, and Hanika Nakagawa, poignantly decried UNESCO policies on the island of Tokunoshima that interfere with sustainable ancient traditions.  Panel 10, “Upsetting the Conventional Apple Cart,” caused us to question so many conventions that mark our foodscapes. Ken Albala brought his eye and hand for carving to an exploration of functional wooden dining implements whose sensuous forms become extensions of the diner. The duo of Len Fischer and Anders Sandberg invited us to rethink Linnaeus’s classification system, the arbitrary dogma of the botanical world. And designers Leonie Hochstrasser and Katharina Mludek provoked us with the idea of the intentionally ‘designed’ apple as a postmodern object: what is the role of design in the food system? Panel 11, “Alternative Realities,” brought different ways of imagining the world to St Catz. Whether through Jolin Chan’s exploration of the idealized, if exclusionary, frontier mentality and #cottagecore aesthetic, Sara Clugage’s unwrapping of the fictional Broken Earth trilogy, in which the hunt for food in a climatically devastated Earth is a major (and cautionary) focus, or the equally terrifying doomsday dystopias of America’s “preppers,” documented by Rebecca Mazumdar, the garden is paramount.

A leisurely lunch followed these challenging (in the best sense) papers. The Young Chefs’ lunch was a superb coda to our structured meal curriculum, filled with vivid pantone colors and visual puns; especially noteworthy was the “interactive garden salad, with carlin pea hummus and rye soil,’ a flat flowerpot of edible joy. 

Leaving the table reluctantly, we returned for our final parallel sessions. “Stories of Resilience,” the theme of panel 12, compared Lindsay Foltz’s field work in formerly abandoned gardens in the depopulated villages of Bulgaria with Lotta Ortheil’s investigation of urban food forests focusing on preserving traditional, non-western foods in Rio de Janeiro. Marcia Zoladz, also writing about Rio, analyzed the environmental harm of the highly successful, non-native jackfruit tree and the efforts to ameliorate their overwhelming presence. Panel 13, “Wild Things. . . You Make My Palate Sing,” brought out guest chef mentor Cordula Peters’ love affair with foraging in southern England. Co-authors Rachel Tharmabalan and Jeremy Morell argued that communities relying on wild edible plants needed a louder voice in global food discourse, given their environmental adaptability and nutritional benefits; they used the knowledge of the indigenous Orang Asli of Malaysia as a case study. The last panel, “Marketplace Case Studies: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Fruits,” juxtaposed journalistic reporting with the promise of literary investigation of ancient Roman sources. Ivy Lerner-Frank’s ‘Rip Van Winkle’ awakening (brought by a 20-year absence from Canada) to the ubiquity of the haskap berry at farmers’ markets in Quebec inspired her study of the introduction and growing popularity of what is popularly known as les camerises. By contrast, Karen Pinchin and Simon Thibault traced the Belliveau apple, from its introduction in Nova Scotia in the 1760s to the steep decline —close to extinction—resulting from corporate economics and governmental policies. Lastly, Erzsebet Kovacs proposed to investigate the meanings of fruits in the Roman culinary grammar.

Our final formal hour at St Catz brought opportunities to engage with the symposium’s Wikipedia maven, Roberta Wedge, or to learn more about The Sifter database for historical culinary research with “Ask” leader Gary Thompson, Joe Wheaton and Kate Saines.  Others could speak with the new publisher of the OFS proceedings, Janet Joyce, founder of Equinox Publishing, Ltd. As a parting treat, we enjoyed ice lollies from Novice Ice, a local Oxford company that promises to “lick the planet into shape” by mashing surplus berries and other flavors into what the Americans would know as popsicles; proceeds from this ingenious utilization of waste help support people in the local community living with invisible health problems.

While leaving St Catz is always bittersweet, many of our in-person attendees and our extended online participants enthusiastically reconvened a week later to launch the Conference section of the Symposium. Over the next two weeks, we reexamined the 39 papers presented at St Catz in extended Zoom sessions and added seven new ones to the symposium roster, authored by symposiasts unable to attend the St Catz Weekend. 

Working on the theme of “Gardens as Commercial Enterprises,” Carla Baker painted a disturbing portrait of ecological colonization through the importation of British apples to Tasmania. Garden historian Malcolm Thick delivered a masterful analysis of changes in fruit and vegetable cultivation for commercial markets from the 16th century through the coming of the railroads; increasingly efficient transportation to markets extended  the reach of intensive agricultural techniques beyond a cart ride to market towns and London. In the other new panel, “Location Matters,” Anthony Buccini added to his prolific work on Mediterranean cuisines with an homage to, and investigation of,  Charles Perry’s “olive line,” dividing Mediterranean cultures from Anatolia to the Iberian peninsula between those that include cured olives (not just the oil) in cooked dishes and those that don’t. Although he guarded his conclusions as “preliminary” and subject to further research, the depth of analysis is striking. Paired with Buccini was Shrinagar Francis’s lyrical ode defining gardens as historio-cultural  artifacts, ultimately leading to the analysis of the hibiscus and its role as a transplant from Africa into Caribbean gardens, where it fed enslaved populations and continues “to connect communities of African descendants.”  

Joining the “Stories of Resilience” panel was Danielle Jacques, whose paper documented redlining maps in the United States ust before World War 2, which worked to devalue real estate in low-income neighborhoods that typically were home to minorities and the immigrant “Other.” The racism was evident, as kitchen vegetable gardens had been prized for demonstrating the industriousness of homeowners in Victory Gardens and antidotes to Depression economics; instead, these redlined gardens were “dirty.”  The panel on “Literary Aesthetics of the East” welcomed the lushly illustrated paper investigating Hindu mythology in which the authors, Soham Kacker and Deepa Reddy, queried what the flora mentioned in the Śaiva literature might look like. Working with illustrator Chippy Diac Vivekanandah, the result was the glorious Śivas Flora. Priya Mani joined “Marketplace Case Studies” with her paper on the mango wars and the cultural, social and economics tensions over India’s favored Alphonso varietal and new competition. Each of these online-only papers made invaluable contributions to the symposium.

In addition to further probing and enriching the paper presentations, we spoke at length with each of our keynote presenters, guest chefs, and cider experts. We enjoyed virtual workshops on Wikipedia and The Sifter and Brigitte Kampmann, along with Barbara Segall and Sarah Wyndham Lewis, presented a stunning Kitchen Lab on growing herbs for bees and people. But all good things draw to a close, and we reconvened on Sunday, 28 July, for a last chat with the Young Chefs, Rick Shepro’s beautiful summation of the Symposium, and the always kooky—no-democracy-deficit vote for the symposium theme three years hence. Masterfully orchestrated by Editor Mark McWilliams and Technical Director David Matchett, several rounds of voting resulted in a resounding victory for “Food and Time” as our 2027 theme. And then, it was time to say farewell until we could resume our monthly online events during the academic year.

Thanks to all those who contributed to the success of 2024, whether as presenters, panel hosts, chefs, cooks and waitstaff working under extraordinary circumstances, and the other St Catz support staff. A special shout-out goes to David Matchett’s curated playlists, Jake Tilson’s luxuriant artwork for the 2024 logo, menus, and banners, and Elaine Mahon’s tireless labors diligently to keep the Zoom rooms in order. But most importantly, a massive ‘thank you’ to all the symposiasts who again made the Oxford Symposium a thought-provoking, intellectually exuberant and genial experience, changing conversations, expanding the table, and improving the plate.