7 – 9 July at St Catz/Oxford & 10 – 30 July online

Feeling Ever More Normal and Energized for the Future

Our 2023 gathering combined the best of our in-person experience with our expanded global reach. Nearly 180 symposiasts traveled to verdant St Catz, enlivening and crowding the lecture theatre, discussion rooms, and dining hall with the buzz of engaged conversations. There was a very palpable sense that we had emerged from the shoals of the pandemic with an enduring path forward, as we welcomed an additional 125 symposiasts (including many who might otherwise not be able to journey to Oxford) during the two week Conference portion of the Symposium.

The “Weekend” at St Catz featured three stunningly original keynotes investigating the roles of Rules & Rituals in our lives, both through daily meals and in the more exceptional moments that punctuate our calendars. Forty-two live paper presentations were spread over Saturday and Sunday, along with our curriculum-driven shared meals, our after-dinner activities, and our additional plenaries, including invitations to join in our Wiki Club and Sifter “Ask” online workshops throughout the year.

Our space allows for a broad and diverse audience to help change the conversation, expand the table, and improve the plate.

The “Conference” opened on 16 July, and over the next two weeks, we explored (at a more leisurely pace through extended Zoom Q & A sessions) all 48 of the papers including 6 presented by those joining exclusively online. We talked with our guest chefs and our Young Chefs, probed the Keynotes, repaired to the kitchen for a participatory Kitchen Lab, and enjoyed workshops on Wiki editing and brainstorming The Sifter. All concluded on 30 July with a marvelous summarizing Keynote about embracing or breaking Rules & Rituals and the always-thrilling vote for the topic for a future Symposium.

We treasure the ability to break bread together, physically at St Catz and metaphorically through the extended community made possible through our cyber-connections. The ethos of the 2023 Symposium continues through year-long engagements via the Kitchen Table Conversations and collaborations with the Kitchen Lab, Wiki Club, and The Sifter. All this allows us to work productively towards our mission to change the conversation, expand the table, and improve the plate with renewed vigor and joy.

Scott Alves Barton’s Report

Please indulge my personal, introductory digression, but this year’s theme of Rules and Rituals hit home, for shortly after the Weekend at St Catz and in the midst of the online Conference, I returned to northeastern Brazil to resuscitate my (Covid-interrupted) ethnographic research into the intersection of sacred and profane Afro-Brazilian foodways through the religious rituals, trances, and shared meals of the Candomblé community. As always, the Symposium discussions informed my ideas while I was in the field.

I knew from my nearly fifteen years of work on the community that participants observe strict protocols during these ceremonies, such as gender-segregated seating, recommended clothing, and, not surprisingly, food.  Food offerings are placed on the temple floor, and most reflect the Afro-Brazilian roots of the Candomblé community. I saw agidá, shallow clay bowls filled with beans cooked in coconut milk, mungunza, a sweet corn and coconut porridge, efó, a Nigerian inspired stew of wild and cultivated greens, pirão, a condiment of toasted manioc meal mixed with red yams, and acarajé, black-eyed pea fritters, among others. There was also the occasional Portuguese-inspired dish, such as sarapatel, a pork, offal and blood ragout and coxinha de frango, the breaded shredded chicken encased in béchamel and fried in the shape of a Hershey’s Kiss.  All these foods became the comida de axé, dishes imbued with the sacred life force to invoke the power to make change. The same foods are served to congregants and guests at the end of the ritual ceremony and are highly desireable because as axé, they ostensibly give the consumer some of that sacred energy.

Plenary sessions

Keynotes

Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus

Food Rules and Rituals: Etiquette for the Cosmic Table

Dimitris Xygalatas

Rituals as Social Technologies

Martin Kullik, Jouw Wijnsma

Disruption of Rules & Rituals

Embracing or Breaking Rules and Rituals… What Can We Learn?

OFS Young Chefs

Andiswa Mqedlana, Jonas Palekas, Minwoo (MJ) Jung, and Shannon Compton

Tools

The OFS Wiki-Club

Wiki-editing session with Roberta Wedge

The Sifter

The cyberworld of cookbooks in a searchable database

Meals & Receptions

After dinner events

Parallel sessions & papers

Panel 1: Food/Drink/Sin – Bernard Sunley Lecture Theatre
Ken Albala
— Fasting Regulations in the Reformation Era
Yiorgos Darlas
— Moderation in Greek Culinary Culture: The Example of Retsina
Richard Warren Shepro
— The Enduring Rule of Red Meat with Red Wine
Panel 2: Paradigm Shifts in Communicating Information – Room A
Jessica Carbone
— Boundaries, Bitters, and Puffing Guns: The Sensorial Unmaking of the Food Museum
Mandira Ghai
— From Recipes to Remote Work: Technology’s Influence on the Preservation and Evolution of Contemporary Food Rituals During COVID-19
James Edward Malin
— Connecting Crumbs: An Intellectual and Information Science History of Special Food Collections
Panel 3: Finding Home – Room C
Hei Kiu Au
— Fancy a Cuppa Milk Tea?: A Psychogeography of the Hong Kong Afternoon Tea Ritual
Kirsty Bouwers
— Negotiating the Availability and Consumption of Halal Food in Tokyo
Kate Thomas
— Regarding the Lesbian Potluck
Panel 4: Sovereignty and Control – Bernard Sunley Lecture Theatre
Noel Buttigieg
— Reforming Body and Soul: Malta’s Prison Food Experience 1920-1939
Cass Gardiner
— Corn, Beans and Squashing Colonialism: Anishinaabe Food and Law-Making
Hanika Nakagawa
— Changing Food Rules and Rituals in Indigenous Tokunoshima
Panel 6: Gastro-Ethnography – Room C
Tali Cohen
— From Farm (and Forest) To Table: The Food and Feeding Rituals of Benjamin and Ruth Koren
Devika Devika
— Exploring the Relationship between Rituals and Food at Oxford Colleges Formal Halls
Priya Mani
— A Diabetic’s Digest: What Following 183 People with Diabetes in India, Denmark, USA, and China Taught Me about Designing Rituals for Coping
Panel 5: Rules for the Almost-Taboo – Room A
Laura Kitchings
— Food Rules in the Pride Lands
Anders Sandberg, Len Fisher
— Never Eat a Pigeon with a Pumpkin: A Model of the Emergence of Food Superstitions
Khanh-Linh Trinh
— Fortune, Dog Meat, and Cosmic Accounting: The Vietnamese Feast of Bad Luck
Panel 7: Hospitality – Bernard Sunley Lecture Theatre
Janet Beizer
— Shrouding the Caucasus: Georgian Hospitality Rituals through the French Gaze
Jennie Moran
— What Would You Know, Derrida?
Panel 8: Racialized Environments – Room A
Andrea Broomfield
— Black, White, and Tan: The Rules and Rituals of a Jim-Crow-Era ‘Spook Breakfast’ in Kansas City, Missouri, 1935-1939
B. Jamieson Stanley
— Vegan Studies for the Global South? Negotiating Dietary Rules in a Warming World
Panel 9: Liquids, Miraculous and Otherwise – Room C
Jennifer Rugolo
— Slurping Certitude: The Evolving Evaluation Ritual of Specialty Coffee
Kate Ryan
— ‘Perfectly Civilised and Proper’: The Social and Cultural History of Blood as Food in Ireland
Panel 10: Hollowed and Hallowed Traditions – Bernard Sunley Lecture Theatre
Marti Buckley
— A Battle at the Bar: The Pintxo’s Conflict Between Codification and Authenticity in Real Time
Voltaire Cang
— Kaiseki Cuisine and the Meanings of Food in Japan
Nader Mehravari
— Eating and Feeding Rituals and Edicts in Persianate Societies: From Sofreh to Tārof, Nazri, and Beyond
Panel 11: Bread: The Staff of Life – Room A
Petra Kopf, Susan Weingarten
— Berches: A Ritual Bread in Its Cultural Contexts
Nicholas Tosaj
— Baking Bread and Building Ovens: Ritual, Sustenance and the Bread Ovens of Quebec
Laura Valli
— R(y)eluctance in the US – Maintaining Order through Othering
Panel 12: Sacred Spaces – Room C
Jack Hanlon
— Rituals of Hygiene in the Cathedral of Meat
Shweta Mohapatra
— Mahaprasad: The Sacred Food of Devotion and Ritual
Jennifer Moragoda
— The Impact of Early Buddhism on Food Rituals in Sri Lanka
Panel 13: Case Studies: Rules of the Group – Bernard Sunley Lecture Theatre
Diego Emiliano Jaramillo Navarro
— Jesus Christ’s Uncanny Godfathers in the Mexican Bureaucracy: Traditional Rituals in Workplaces around Tamales on Candlemas Day
Madeline Shanahan
— Maintaining, Adapting, and Creating Tradition on the Colonial Australian Christmas Table, 1788-1901
Anne Urbancic
— Large Double Double: How Tim Hortons Coffee Ritualizes Canadian Identity
Panel 14: Objects of Curiosity – Room A
Scott A. Cochran
— The Roman Napkin: From Simple Tools to Status Symbols
Nathalie Cooke
— Adults Also Play with Their Food
Florence Swan
— Rhyming Recipes: The Curious Case of the Liber Cure Cocorum
Panel 15: Moments of Abundance – Room C
Gabriela Berti, Jaime Lieberman
— The Hearth of a Culture and the Frankenstein Corn
Rebecca D. Mazumdar
— Rice Stories: Rituals of Prosperity and Fertility
Caitríona Nic Philibín
— Irish Harvest Rituals and Customs – A Study of Food in Irish Folklore Archives
Release of Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus Keynote Recording: Food Rules and Rituals: Etiquette for the Cosmic Table
Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus
— Food Rules and Rituals: Etiquette for the Cosmic Table
Pre-recorded presentations on: Liquids, Miraculous and Otherwise
Jennifer Rugolo
— Slurping Certitude: The Evolving Evaluation Ritual of Specialty Coffee
Kate Ryan
— ‘Perfectly Civilised and Proper’: The Social and Cultural History of Blood as Food in Ireland
Salma Serry
— Miraculous Water and the Concept of Barakah: Cooking with Rainwater, Water-Drinking Rituals, and Smoking Jugs in Saudi Hijaz
Pre-recorded presentations on: Food/Drink/Sin
Ken Albala
— Fasting Regulations in the Reformation Era
Yiorgos Darlas
— Moderation in Greek Culinary Culture: The Example of Retsina
Richard Warren Shepro
— The Enduring Rule of Red Meat with Red Wine
Pre-recorded presentations on: Sovereignty and Control
Noel Buttigieg
— Reforming Body and Soul: Malta’s Prison Food Experience 1920-1939
Cass Gardiner
— Corn, Beans and Squashing Colonialism: Anishinaabe Food and Law-Making
Hanika Nakagawa
— Changing Food Rules and Rituals in Indigenous Tokunoshima
Pre-recorded presentations on: Case Studies: Rules of the Group
Anthony F. Buccini
— Spaghetti – Never on Sunday… well, almost never: Structure and Rules in an Endocuisine
Anne Urbancic
— Large Double Double: How Tim Hortons Coffee Ritualizes Canadian Identity
Sean Wyer
— Saint Joseph’s Tables: The Changing Meanings of a Southern Italian Ritual
Pre-recorded presentations on: Moments of Abundance
Gabriela Berti, Jaime Lieberman
— The Hearth of a Culture and the Frankenstein Corn
Rebecca D. Mazumdar
— Rice Stories: Rituals of Prosperity and Fertility
Caitríona Nic Philibín
— Irish Harvest Rituals and Customs – A Study of Food in Irish Folklore Archives
Pre-recorded presentations on: The Recipe as Text
Naomi Guttman
— Early Twentieth Century Viennese Cake-Mix: Changing the Rules, Erasing the Recipe?
Florence Swan
— Rhyming Recipes: The Curious Case of the Liber Cure Cocorum
Pre-recorded presentations on: Objects of Curiosity
Scott A. Cochran
— The Roman Napkin: From Simple Tools to Status Symbols
Nathalie Cooke
— Adults Also Play with Their Food
Pre-recorded presentations on: Finding Home
Hei Kiu Au
— Fancy a Cuppa Milk Tea?: A Psychogeography of the Hong Kong Afternoon Tea Ritual
Kirsty Bouwers
— Negotiating the Availability and Consumption of Halal Food in Tokyo
Kate Thomas
— Regarding the Lesbian Potluck
Pre-recorded presentations on: Paradigm Shifts in Communicating Information
Jessica Carbone
— Boundaries, Bitters, and Puffing Guns: The Sensorial Unmaking of the Food Museum
Mandira Ghai
— From Recipes to Remote Work: Technology’s Influence on the Preservation and Evolution of Contemporary Food Rituals During COVID-19
James Edward Malin
— Connecting Crumbs: An Intellectual and Information Science History of Special Food Collections
Pre-recorded presentations on: Hospitality
Janet Beizer
— Shrouding the Caucasus: Georgian Hospitality Rituals through the French Gaze
Jennie Moran
— What Would You Know, Derrida?
Pre-recorded presentations on: Hollowed and Hallowed Traditions
Marti Buckley
— A Battle at the Bar: The Pintxo’s Conflict Between Codification and Authenticity in Real Time
Voltaire Cang
— Kaiseki Cuisine and the Meanings of Food in Japan
Nader Mehravari
— Eating and Feeding Rituals and Edicts in Persianate Societies: From Sofreh to Tārof, Nazri, and Beyond
Pre-recorded presentations on: Gastro-Ethnography
Tali Cohen
— From Farm (and Forest) To Table: The Food and Feeding Rituals of Benjamin and Ruth Koren
Devika Devika
— Exploring the Relationship between Rituals and Food at Oxford Colleges Formal Halls
Priya Mani
— A Diabetic’s Digest: What Following 183 People with Diabetes in India, Denmark, USA, and China Taught Me about Designing Rituals for Coping
Pre-recorded presentations on: Foreign Holidays
Diego Emiliano Jaramillo Navarro
— Jesus Christ’s Uncanny Godfathers in the Mexican Bureaucracy: Traditional Rituals in Workplaces around Tamales on Candlemas Day
Rafi Grosglik, André Levy
— Versatile Ritual: Structure, Resistance and Culinary Virtuosity in the Israeli Mimouna
Joshua Lovinger
— ‘That sweet is that fish, which is not fish at all’: A Note on Lenten Foods from a Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedia and Its History
Madeline Shanahan
— Maintaining, Adapting, and Creating Tradition on the Colonial Australian Christmas Table, 1788-1901
Pre-recorded presentations on: Racialized Environments
Andrea Broomfield
— Black, White, and Tan: The Rules and Rituals of a Jim-Crow-Era ‘Spook Breakfast’ in Kansas City, Missouri, 1935-1939
B. Jamieson Stanley
— Vegan Studies for the Global South? Negotiating Dietary Rules in a Warming World
Pre-recorded presentations on: Bread: The Staff of Life
Petra Kopf, Susan Weingarten
— Berches: A Ritual Bread in Its Cultural Contexts
Nicholas Tosaj
— Baking Bread and Building Ovens: Ritual, Sustenance and the Bread Ovens of Quebec
Laura Valli
— R(y)eluctance in the US – Maintaining Order through Othering
Pre-recorded presentations on: Rules for the Almost-Taboo
Laura Kitchings
— Food Rules in the Pride Lands
Anders Sandberg, Len Fisher
— Never Eat a Pigeon with a Pumpkin: A Model of the Emergence of Food Superstitions
Khanh-Linh Trinh
— Fortune, Dog Meat, and Cosmic Accounting: The Vietnamese Feast of Bad Luck
Pre-recorded presentations on: Sacred Spaces
Jack Hanlon
— Rituals of Hygiene in the Cathedral of Meat
Shweta Mohapatra
— Mahaprasad: The Sacred Food of Devotion and Ritual
Jennifer Moragoda
— The Impact of Early Buddhism on Food Rituals in Sri Lanka