11 – 13 July at St Catz/Oxford & 18 – 31 July online
A few words about 2025…
We’re delighted to share some of the standout moments from this year’s Symposium, where our theme—Food and The Elements—sparked vibrant discussions, creative insights, and meaningful connections. Whether you’re a long-time Symposiast or visiting this page for the first time, a special welcome to those who’ve arrived here through personal recommendations or via BBC Radio 4’s Food Programme. We’re so glad you’re here. This year’s theme invited us to explore the elemental—from the atomic building blocks of flavour and nutrition, to the environmental forces shaping our food systems, to the cultural components that define how we cook, eat, and share. Presentations ranged from molecular gastronomy and climate resilience to culinary traditions and the joy of commensality. As Symposium co-founder Theodore Zeldin once said, “gastronomy is the art of using food to create happiness.” We hope these highlights offer a glimpse into that happiness, and inspire you to get involved.
Looking ahead to 2026, next year’s topic is Poverty Food—a theme that promises to open up urgent, complex, and deeply human conversations about scarcity, resilience, ingenuity, and justice in food cultures past and present. Visit our 2026 Symposium page to learn more and sign up for advance notice of ticket sales, calls for paper proposals, Young Chefs’ Awards, and other ways to take part in the Symposium community.
OFS 2025: A World of Elements, A Universe of Ideas
How do you capture the essence of a gathering that spans continents, cultures, and centuries of culinary wisdom? At the 2025 Oxford Food Symposium, we tried — and discovered that the answer lies in the elements.
Not just the classical four — fire, water, earth, and air — but in the elements of flavor, of chemistry, of culture, of care. This year’s theme, “Food and the Elements,” invited us to explore the building blocks of our culinary world. What we found was a dazzling constellation of ideas, tastes, and transformations.
Plenary sessions
Keynotes
Marion Nestle
The Elements: Food, Nutrition, Health, & Politics, 2025 Style
Ole G. Mouritsen
Elements of a Plant-Forward Cuisine
Théodore Kaboré
Agricultural Practices and Community Efforts to Restore the Fertility and Productive Value of Land in the Face of Climate Elements in the Sahel
Claude Fischler
Gastronomy in an Age of Gastro-anomy
Nader Mehrarvari
From Atoms to Appetites: A Scientific, Cultural, and Culinary Journey
Roundtable Conversation: Choosing Our Words about Technologies and Food
Sabine Apitz, Len Fisher, Marion Nestle, Anders Sandberg, Carolyn Steel, moderated by Cathy Kaufman
The Essence of Japan’s Chanoyu Tradition
Reiko Inumaru, Masako Kawaguchi, Yoko Kawaguchi, and Makiko Wake, introduced by Voltaire Cang
Meals & Receptions
Friday Dinner
An Ecuadorian Fire Feast: Char-Grilled Flavours from the Galapagos, the Andean Highlands, and the Amazonian Jungle
Devised by – Ana Ortiz of Fire Made UK; with Chef Tim Kelsey and the St Catz team
Welcome drinks – Benjamin Bridge NV Brut (Nova Scotia, Canada); London Black nitro beer from Anspach and Hobday; Homemade Agua Fresca (Guayasa tea, horchata, lemon, honey)
To start – Ceviche: Cod, neapia, gooseberry, crispy plantain, chulpi
Main course – Asado: Fritada – Spiced confit pork over the fire, crispy new potatoes with aioli, ember-cooked sweet potatoes, grilled courgettes with chimichurri dressing, smoked broad beans encebollado, and burnt chilli sauce
Dessert – Galapagos 75% chocolate espumilla, grilled pears, cacao pulp, macambo
To drink – George 2021, Gilvesy Winery, Lake Balaton Hungary
Váradi Furmint 2020, Gilvesy Winery, Lake Balaton, Hungary
Saturday Lunch
The Elements of the Algerian Kitchen
Devised by – Hanane Tancrede Abdelli (Mama Nissa, Paris) with Chef Tim Kelsey and the St Catz team
To start – Beetroot sesame dip, hmiss (roasted bell pepper salad), grilled beef and lamb keftas, chive yogurt sauce, olives and pickled red onions, and flatbreads
Main course – Summer vegetable barley couscous with harissa
Dessert – Orange flower water-scented fruit and yogurt, bradj (date semolina bars), and makrouts el louz (almond cookies)
To drink – Fruity iced tea, mazgran (Iced Lemon Coffee), minty green tea
Saturday Dinner
ទឹកឡើងត្រីស៊ីស្រមោច, ទឹកហោចស្រមោចស៊ីត្រី
“When the water rises, the fish eats the ant; when the water recedes, the ant eats the fish”. A culinary depiction of the Great Tonle Sap lake, its unique hydrodynamic complexity and how it has influenced the life of Cambodians for centuries.
Devised by – Joannes Riviere (Cuisine Wat Damnak, Cambodia) with Chef Tim Kelsey and the St Catz team
To start – ស្ងោរជ្រក់ក្រៅឆ្នាំង
Smoked fish broth, prawn, frog leg and fire ants powder
Main course – ប្រហុកចំហុយ, ប្រហុកខ្ទិះ, បុកប្រហុក
A presentation of prahok, Cambodian traditional dry season staple food,
braised with coconut, pounded with mushrooms, steamed with eggs, served with Cambodian rice, herbs, flowers and crudités
Dessert – ទឹកកកឈូស
Cambodian shaved iced dessert with coconut milk and all sorts of toppings
To drink – Raison D’Etre Cider 2019, Ross-on-Wye Cider (Peterstow, UK), Moorcroft S.V. Perry 2022, Ross-on-Wye Cider (Peterstow, UK), Elderberry Gose, Earthale (Oxford, UK), Verbs n.a. (Oxford, UK)
Sunday Lunch
An Exploration of Modern Humors Through Food
Devised by – Young Chefs Tugba Gurson Caglar, Lihle Mahambehlala, and Ali Murat Soylu, with mentor Jennie Moran, Chef Tim Kelsey, and the St Catz team
To start
REASSURANCE – Chicken Tea with Savoury Biscotti
TRUST/ RISK – Use fabric to blindfold yourself. The person opposite you will feed a spherical edible object. Reciprocate with the person sitting opposite you.
Cucumber cacik spheres,
Kimchi watermelon
Main course
Chaos Life Salad – An accumulation of the stories, memories, and heritage of our three young chefs. Shepherd’s sorghum salad with curried apricot dressing
Hidden Things – Smoked trout, seasonal vegetables, horseradish dressing, quinoa
Self-determination kofta – Get involved. Wrap lentil koftas in lettuce and dress with muhamarra sauce
Dessert
Sweet FOMO – A different dessert at each table. Feel free to roam.
Ice cream sundae; Rhubarb strawberry Eton Mess; Caramelized peaches, lemon verbena cream, caramelized puff pastry squares
We would like to thank Hannah Rhodes from Hiver Beer / Slow Food in the UK for her help with sourcing drinks to accompany our meals.
After dinner events
Elisabeth Luard, Ken Albala, and Birgitte Kampmann
Painting the Elements: An Exercise in Edible Art
Carolyn Steel & Cathy Kaufman
Opening the Conversation: Old & New Technologies to Meet Today’s Challenges
Ole Mouritsen
Taste Experiments: Umamification by an Ancient Recipe
Cathy Kaufman
A Night at the Movies: Screening of “Umami” (2022), a comedy-drama about a heavily-lauded fictional French chef’s search for the elusive fifth taste
Parallel sessions & papers
Technology Meets Nature
— Air, Foams, Nitrogen, Helium, Smoke: The Use of Elements in Molecular Cuisine
— Elemental Uptake in Food: From Terroir to Terror
— Protein: Cinderella Superfood
— From Caramelization to Cousoumeh: A Case for Transitioning to a New Ideal Type Pelau Pot
Interdependencies: Human and Nature
— Feast of the Four Elements: La Pêche à Pied/Coastal Foraging in Mont-Saint-Michel Bay
— The Sustainability Stones, or, How Traditional Food Pairings Can Save the Marine Environment in French Polynesia
— Milk and Cheese as Incarnations of the Elements: Respectful Co-existence Instead of Aggressive Suppression
— The Paradox of Abundance: Water and Food Insecurity in Uganda’s Rwenzori Region
— Cocina del rancho: The Cuisine of the Rancho
Where there’s smoke. . .
— Rygeost: Smoke, Soil, and Tradition
— The Death of Fire and the Rebirth of Magical Cooking
— Wok Hei in the Making: Changing Tools, Skills, and Tastes in the Guangzhou Kitchen
Bitter/Sour
— The Flavour of Bitterness in Rituals of Trauma: From the Jewish Passover Seder and Beyond
— Beyond the Lemon – A Comprehensive Exploration of Elements of Sourness in Persian Cookery
Transmissions and Transformations
— Food Ink: The Elements of Style in Cookbook Illustration
— Elements of an Amazonian ‘Uber-Superfood’: The Case of the Aguaje (Mauritia flexuosa)
A Few Grains of Salt
— Ashes Without Borders: Culinary Histories And Practices
— Salt Legacies on the Costa Brava: The Brine Ladies of L’Escala
— Elemental Himalayan Food Traditions: Salts of Kumaon and Himachal Pradesh
By Land or By Sea: Remapping the Elements
— Considering Fire and Water: Cooking and Drinking in Steerage during the North Atlantic Crossing
— Super Saffron and Virtuous Vanilla: Can Terroir Be Synthesized?
— Sheltering from and with the Elements: Island Vignettes Past and Present
— An Essential Element of Harmony and Hegemony: Royal Navy Foodways in the Age of Fighting Sail
Systematizing the Elements: Humorologies, Cosmologies, Calendars, and Beyond
— Elements, Flavours, and Food in Three Premodern Physiological Systems
— Elements of Time: Calendrical Complexity and Culinary Continuity in Southern Italy
— The Five Tastes, Five Colours, and Five Cooking Methods in Shōjin Ryōri: Historical Development and Modern Practice in Japanese Zen Temple Cuisine
— Cosmic Cooking: Changing Dietetic Patterns in Medieval Islam
Revisiting the Periodic Table
— Food for Thought: The Story of Elements and the Brain
— Lithium: Early Missteps to Critical Element for Food, Energy, Medicine
— Calcium, Cornerstone of Mesoamerican Civilizations: The Importance of Nixtamalization in the Creation and Maintenance of Traditional Mexican Food Systems
— HAute Cuisine: Considerations on Edible Gold
What’s Love Got to Do with It?
— Nourishing Atmosphere, Flow, & Floating Feelings in a Kyoto Kaiseki Kitchen: Chef Muroi and the Relationality of Food
— The Human Element: Automation, Robot Waiters, and the Disappointing Future(s) of Perfect Food
— Food as Transmission
Animal/Edible
— Meat(y) Encounters: The Element of Caste in Late Nineteenth-Century Colonial Western Indian Meat Markets
— The Creation of Adam: From the Elements to the Edible
Zoom in for a closer look at Jake Tilson’s poster for this year’s symposium
Tune into the BBC Radio 4 – The Food Programme for insights into this year’s symposium
