All Symposiums
2023 - Food Rules & Rituals
The draft papers are now being edited, to be published in time for the 2024 Symposium.
Fasting Regulations in the Reformation Era
Fancy a Cuppa Milk Tea?: A Psychogeography of the Hong Kong Afternoon Tea Ritual
Shrouding the Caucasus: Georgian Hospitality Rituals through the French Gaze
The Hearth of a Culture and the Frankenstein Corn
Negotiating the Availability and Consumption of Halal Food in Tokyo
Black, White, and Tan: The Rules and Rituals of a Jim-Crow-Era ‘Spook Breakfast’ in Kansas City, Missouri, 1935-1939
Food Rules and Rituals: Etiquette for the Cosmic Table
Spaghetti – Never on Sunday… well, almost never: Structure and Rules in an Endocuisine
A Battle at the Bar: The Pintxo’s Conflict Between Codification and Authenticity in Real Time
Reforming Body and Soul: Malta’s Prison Food Experience 1920-1939
Kaiseki Cuisine and the Meanings of Food in Japan
Boundaries, Bitters, and Puffing Guns: The Sensorial Unmaking of the Food Museum
The Roman Napkin: From Simple Tools to Status Symbols
From Farm (and Forest) To Table: The Food and Feeding Rituals of Benjamin and Ruth Koren
Adults Also Play with Their Food
Moderation in Greek Culinary Culture: The Example of Retsina
Exploring the Relationship between Rituals and Food at Oxford Colleges Formal Halls
Never Eat a Pigeon with a Pumpkin: A Model of the Emergence of Food Superstitions
Corn, Beans and Squashing Colonialism: Anishinaabe Food and Law-Making
From Recipes to Remote Work: Technology’s Influence on the Preservation and Evolution of Contemporary Food Rituals During COVID-19
Versatile Ritual: Structure, Resistance and Culinary Virtuosity in the Israeli Mimouna
Early Twentieth Century Viennese Cake-Mix: Changing the Rules, Erasing the Recipe?
Rituals of Hygiene in the Cathedral of Meat
Jesus Christ’s Uncanny Godfathers in the Mexican Bureaucracy: Traditional Rituals in Workplaces around Tamales on Candlemas Day
Food Rules in the Pride Lands
Berches: A Ritual Bread in Its Cultural Contexts
‘That sweet is that fish, which is not fish at all’: A Note on Lenten Foods from a Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedia and Its History
Connecting Crumbs: An Intellectual and Information Science History of Special Food Collections
A Diabetic’s Digest: What Following 183 People with Diabetes in India, Denmark, USA, and China Taught Me about Designing Rituals for Coping
Rice Stories: Rituals of Prosperity and Fertility
Eating and Feeding Rituals and Edicts in Persianate Societies: From Sofreh to Tārof, Nazri, and Beyond
Mahaprasad: The Sacred Food of Devotion and Ritual
The Impact of Early Buddhism on Food Rituals in Sri Lanka
What Would You Know, Derrida?
Changing Food Rules and Rituals in Indigenous Tokunoshima
Irish Harvest Rituals and Customs – A Study of Food in Irish Folklore Archives
Slurping Certitude: The Evolving Evaluation Ritual of Specialty Coffee
‘Perfectly Civilised and Proper’: The Social and Cultural History of Blood as Food in Ireland
Miraculous Water and the Concept of Barakah: Cooking with Rainwater, Water-Drinking Rituals, and Smoking Jugs in Saudi Hijaz
Maintaining, Adapting, and Creating Tradition on the Colonial Australian Christmas Table, 1788-1901
The Enduring Rule of Red Meat with Red Wine
Vegan Studies for the Global South? Negotiating Dietary Rules in a Warming World
Rhyming Recipes: The Curious Case of the Liber Cure Cocorum
Regarding the Lesbian Potluck
Baking Bread and Building Ovens: Ritual, Sustenance and the Bread Ovens of Quebec
Fortune, Dog Meat, and Cosmic Accounting: The Vietnamese Feast of Bad Luck
Large Double Double: How Tim Hortons Coffee Ritualizes Canadian Identity
R(y)eluctance in the US – Maintaining Order through Othering
Saint Joseph’s Tables: The Changing Meanings of a Southern Italian Ritual
2022 - Portable Food: Food away from the Table
The papers are available to buy as the 2022 Proceedings.
From the Ritual to the Street: Çiğ Köfte as an Example of Food Culture Change
Dietary Advice for Travelers from the Mid Sixteenth Century to Early Seventeenth Century with Two Test Cases: Michel de Montaigne and Fynes Moryson
We Are Open, Says the City
Urban Nomads and Vagabond Food: Eating Away from the Table in Nineteenth-Century France
When the Lord Eats Away from the Table: Outdoor Food in Indian Gaudiya Vaishnavism
Cunard and Collins: Portable Food and Evolving Notions of Customer Service at Sea, 1840–1880
From ‘Peanut Weddings’ to ‘Beef Stands’: The Socio-Culinary History of Chicago’s ‘Italian Beef’
Achar: An Unexpected Stowaway on the Ships of the Dutch East India Company
Food for Travel, Travel for Food: The Story of Ekiben
The Raw and Disorder: Portable Feast, Blood, and Raw Meat Salads in the Contemporary Political Movements in Thailand
Consider the Lunchbox
Wondering about the Wandering Tiffins: Preliminary Steps towards a History of Multi-Tiered Food Boxes
Savour the Flavour?: A Portable History of Instant Coffee
Pulling the Rabbit Out of a Half Loaf: The South African Bunny Chow
Mobile Gastronomies: A Case Study of Food on Wheels Culture in Hyderabad, South India
The ‘tacos de canasta’ (Basket Tacos) in the University: An Example of the Close Relationship between Informality and Mobility
An Exploration of Food Mobility through the Cultural Practice of Koseli in Contemporary Nepal
Fair Food to Walk With
Dispatches from the Chicken Sandwich Wars
Istanbul’s Portable Food Practices in the Case of Dolma
Provisioning for Adventures: Meanings of Paddington Bear’s Marmalade Sandwiches
Serving the Global Nation: Menus from the Royal Dutch Airlines
Saraband for the Greek Picnics of the 1950s to 1970s: Keftedes (Meatballs) against Zwan (Luncheon Meat); La Vache qui Rit Processed Cheese and the First Canned Dolmades (Stuffed Vine Leaves)
Don’t Eat Out: The Lactating Virgin in Twelfth-Century French Sculpture
Eating in Public in Antiquity: Honorable or Obscene?
Food for the Final Journey: Feeding the Soul in Hindu Death Rituals
Sweets in the Pockets: Food, Gender and Indulgence in Early Modern Spain
Picnicking in Iran: From Cemeteries to Ski Slopes, Caves, Traffic Circles, and Beaches
Food on the Move: Commensality inside an Indian Train Compartment
An Army Marches on Its Stomach: Portable Foods in War and Peace
Going to the Gahambar: Tradition and Invention in Parsi Community Feasts
The Perils and Promises of Portability: Sweets and Snacks in Modernizing Japan
Connected Food: Preserving Traditional Food Practices via Portable Foods
Leaf-Wrapped Food Packages: Supporting Movements from the #endsars Protests to Migration
Jewish Cooks in Medieval Fustat (Old Cairo): A ‘Non-Kosher’ Case from the Fourteenth Century
A Rational Approach: Portable and Practical Eating 'Beyond the Seas'
Hoosh, Dogs, and Seal Meat: The Role of Food in the Race to the South Pole
Evolution of Dhabas and the Fading Practice of Safari-Khana
From the Steppe to Space: Portable Power of Qurut!
Cooking Summer by the Beach: Wellness Policies, Modernity, and Eurocentrism in Three Egyptian Cookbooks (1950-1968)
Pemmican: An Ideal Trail Food
‘The Clever Dining Car Conductor’: The Creation of a Luxury Dining Experience on the Move in Britain, 1879-1948
Portable Poetic Commensality: Reflections on the Use of Food Language in Ancient Israel’s Pilgrimage Songs (Psalms 120-134)
Travelling Silver for Those Not to the Manor Born: Old Sheffield Plate and Electroplated Silver in Travel Equipage and Cutlery, from 1730 to the Belle Epoque
Food for Walking: Food on the Backs of Travellers on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro
Inside the Box: Eating on the Rails in Japan
Sticky Fingers on the Keyboard: Al Desko Dining in the Age before Deliveroo
2021 - Food & Imagination
The papers are available to buy as the 2021 Proceedings.
Imaginary Diets, Edible Masculinities: Pirate Food in History and Fiction
Chaat: Why India’s Beloved Snack Is also a Feat of the Imagination
Eat, Lose, Imagine
Delicacies Real and Imagined: Food and Drink as a Diplomatic Gift
Poetic Wisdom and Food for the ‘Savage Mind’: Greek Tamisos and Provençal Toma as Evidence of Ancient Celtic Cheesemaking
The Infidels’ Drink: Coffee Encounters and Transformations in Early Modern Malta
‘Imagine a zoo …’ – Show and Surprise Dishes in German Medieval Cuisine, an Homage to the Medieval Chef
Edibly Ever After: The Foods of Seventeenth Century French Fairy Tales
European TV Dinners
Waterloo Porridge and Plentiful Yorkshire Teas: Food and the Creation of Northern English Identities in Mid-Nineteenth Century Novels
Imaginary Feasts: Virtual Meals in a Second World War Prison Camp and in COVID Times
Celebrating the Franco-Russian Alliance: French Chefs as Purveyors of Influence and Creators of Culinary Imagination
Imagination and Food in the Black Diaspora
Food and Foodways in Science Fiction
Saving Food in Bulgaria: Imagining Hopeful Futures Through Quiet Food Sovereignty
A Conceit of Coney: Britain’s First Television Food History Programme - How Philip Harben Pulled a Rabbit out of a Castle to Imagine what Food Broadcasts May Have Looked like in Elizabethan Times
Feast for the Soul: Food Imaginaries in a South Indian Performance
Food as Fun and Fantasy in the Old Comedy of Ancient Athens
The Curious Case of Nala’s Mirror on Cooking: Innovation in Medieval Indian Cookbook Writing
Stories Full of Recipes
Materializing the Culinary Dreamscape: Maps, Guidebooks, and the Role of Terroir in (Re)Constructing the Myth of the French Gastronomic Utopia
Cogito ergo sum meditati: I Think, Therefore I Imagine!
Reconsidering the Culinary Imagination
Caste: The Main Character of Indian Food
Food, the Imagination, and Social Resistance in Sandra Cisneros’s Woman Hollering Creek
Food and the Irish Short Story Imagination
Big Cheese: Cheese and American Imagination
Steak or Salad? Food, Gender, and the Victorian Imagination
Defining Good Food Design through Case Studies from Turkey
Imagination and Food (and Drink) in the Novels of Iris Murdoch
Fish and Foreigners: The Case of Hot Salmon in Early Modern England
The Hen that Laid a Tofu Egg
‘My Dear Miss Eddington’: Reader Letters and Early Twentieth Century Food Media
Singapore’s Rising Hawkers: Food, Heritage, Imagination, and Entrepreneurship
Persian Tahdig: A Canvas for Culinary Imagination, Innovation, and Artistry
‘Broiling is the poetry of cooking’: The Imaginative Symbolism of Gridirons and Broiling in Nineteenth-Century Food Writing
The Spiritual in the Sensual, the Sensual in the Virtual: Modern-Day Spirituality through a Community-Supported Farm
The Cookbook Whisperer: How Maria Guarnaschelli’s Powers of Imagination Redefined Recipes
New York’s Artisanal Oyster Farmers: Creating the Wild(ish) Oyster
The Birth of a Legend: Mole de Guajolote and Mestizo Identity in the Imaginary of Post-Revolutionary Mexico
Food Reimagined: Diasporic Identity and Authenticity
‘Bileti’ to ‘Desi’: Global Foodways and the Re-Imagining of Bengali ‘Modern’ Cuisine in Late Colonial Bengal
‘Coming from a Place of Impossibility’: Imagining a World without Taste
Have It Your Way: Elizabeth David and the Problem of Norman Douglas
Making the Ordinary Exotic: The Role of Literary Imagination in the Rise of Gastronomic Tourism in Early Twentieth-Century France
Food Looks like a Lady: Designing Gastronomy through Ritualized Seduction
Incredible Edibles: American History in Chocolate, Cheddar, and Confectionary Forms
Reading the Cookbooks of Communist Romania: A Very Intimate Defence
Stirring Up Historical Imagination: Promoting the Teaching of History through Food-Based Pedagogy
Boundary, Body, Ban: Moral Transformation of Gamey Flavour (yewei 野味) in China
Food in Sabbath Table Hymns: A Taste of the World to Come
Teaching Cookery Gets Personal: Harnessing Imagination to Feed the Will to Learn
A Short History of Science Fiction and Fantasy Tie-in Cookbooks
2020 - Herbs & Spices
The papers are available to buy as the 2020 Proceedings.
The Rise and Fall of Certain Herbs
A Visual History of Basil
Season to Measure: Measurements in Early Culinary Recipes and their Relation to Medicine
Melegueta or Grains of Paradise: To be ‘Pepperish’
Cheating the Senses
Traveling with a Hairy Heart, or Where Cooking with Annatto Can Take You
A Twenty-First Century Spice: A Journey to Madagascar and the Promise and Peril of the Wild Tsiperifery Pepper
A Journey Back in Taste: Herbs and Spices in Medieval German Cuisine
Shichimi: The Spice, its Trade, and Centuries of Food Business Survival in Japan
Cannabis in Your Spice Rack
Green Gold of the Galleons: Culinary Spices or Medical Supplies? Economic Plant Journeys from Mexico to the Philippines in the ‘Age of Empire’
‘But the spices are my love’: Understanding the Significance of Spices in Indian Diaspora Fiction
Now Entering Hyperspice: The Boomer’s Last Hurrah
The Struggle for Za’atar and Akkoub: Israeli Nature Protection Laws and the Criminalization of Palestinian Herb-Picking Culture
Grass Fed: Cannabis Cooking in the United States
‘Half-Coloured with Turmeric’: The Visual Function of Spices in Early Modern Britain
The Savoury Course at Oxford and Cambridge Colleges
Vodka in Early Modern Muscovy: Foreign Doctors, Travelling Herbalists, and the Tsar’s Kitchen
‘Pound pepper and lovage’: The Use of Spices in the Apician Recipe Text
Foraged Food of Nepal: Stinging Nettle, is it a Super Food?
Perils of Popularity: How Popularization Leads to Ultimate Degradation
The Road That Spices Travel is No Longer Silk
Captain James Cook, Scurvy, and the Use and Misuse of Herbs
The Chile Diaspora: Unravelling Evidence from Sixteenth Century Botanicals
‘Good Old Things’: The Transformation of Wild Herbs from Common Sustenance to Aristocratic Luxury in Early Modern England
Saffron and Šavu’ot: A Note on Jewish Memory and Pharmacology
Stone Curry: P. perlatum as a Secret Spice in Indian food
Cinnamomum Zeylanicum: Continuing Voyages of Discovery
What Does Prestige Taste Like? The Divorce of Saffron from Its Cultural Context
‘A Spice of Idolatry’: Seditious Spices and Ginger Anxieties in Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair
Season with Money, Knowledge, Civilisation, and Exchange: Culinary Herbs and Spices during Colonial Rule in the Congo (1885 to 1960)
‘This is all very well, but where in Ireland can you get fresh tarragon?’: Myrtle Allen and Herbs: Towards the Creation of an Irish Food Identity
“I got hot sauce in my bag, swag.”: The Diasporic Roots of Hot Sauce in Black American Culinary Culture
The Geopolitics of Saffron and the Puzzles of Saffron Arithmetic
Pepper and Paradox in the Roman Imagination
The Wild Yuzu: Japan’s Little Treasure
Ambiguous Aromatic Umbellifers and Other Obscure Characters: On the Intricacies of Recreating China’s Culinary Past
The Curious Case of Asafoetida
Food for the Soul: The Rabbis’ Cinnamon
Herbs and Spices in the Court Cuisine of Medieval Cyprus: Food in the Cyprio-Gallic Style
Lessons from the Chilli in China
İsot: The Pepper on Hot Rooftops
2019 - Food & Power
The papers are available to buy as the 2019 Proceedings.
Challenging the Power Relations: Hybrid Foods in a Palestinian Town in Israel
Ammachis: Challenging Gender Norms in Sri Lanka’s North
Imagining Fritter Power: Diaspora Centered at the Margin
Shooting them Softly: Photographing Lower-Class Eaters in Belle Époque Paris.
Gastrodiplomacy and the UK Diplomatic Network
‘Under the Cover of Savory Vapors’—Opossums, Power, and Jim Crow Politics.
Sushi, Sake, and Women
Potlach: Ceremonial Food and Family Power.
‘Using their native cunning’: Oxford College Servants and Their Perquisites in the Nineteenth Century.
Food as Power in the Letters of Isabelle d’Este
Food Production, Consumption and Resistance by Japanese Americans Incarcerated by the US Government During World War II
Muckamuck: Restaurants, Labour, and the Power of Representation.
Hunger Strikes as Weapons of Resistance inside Farms and Prisons in the United States
Eating French, Being French: Gastronomy and National Identity in Contemporary France
Food, Identity Politics, and Political Correctness in the UK
Marx in my Food Technology? …the Recent Dialectical Emergence of Post-Modernity in Cuisine.
Counter Narratives: American and Canadian Feminist Restaurants from 1972-Present.
Weaponizing Food: Communism, the Democratic Transition and Transformations of Taste.
Sugar and Show: Power, Conspicuous Display and Sweet Banquets During Henri III’s 1547 Visit to Venice
Canadian Women, Government, and Power at the 1917 Food Control Convention
Making Yakiniku Japanese: Erasing the Korean Contribution from Japan’s Food Culture
American Community Cookbooks and Women’s Empowerment in the 19th and early 20th Centuries.
The Power of Eating Together, or the Story of Why Banquets were the Core of Marriage in the Past
Not in One Place: Parenteral Nutrition and Time-Space Compression.
Encounters of Food and Power in the Australian Colonial Contact Zone. Hanover M Vale – The United States’ Attempt to Restructure Philippine Foodways Following the Philippine-American War.
Meat and Power in Communist Romania.
Going Hungry in the Magdalene Laundries (1922-1996)
Everything but the Kitchen Syndicate … France’s First Trade Union for Female Cooks.
Sustainable Gastronomy: Power and Energy Use in Food – Is It Possible to Fight Climate Change through Cookery?
‘Mom’ vs the FDA: How Laurie Nolan made the FDA Change the Tilefish Warning and Then Cooked Dinner.
A Food Utopia? Imagining Libya in Italy’s Liberal Empire.
‘To Make the Whole World Homelike’: Gender and Power in the Food Revolution
True Bread, Pizza Napoletana and Wedding Cakes: The Changing Ways Legal Power Has Shaped Bakers’ Lives.
The Culinary Identity Constructions of the Eaton Sisters
Lebanese Sea Power: Food and the Phoenicians. Cordula Christina Peters – Staging: Exploitation of young dreamers or generosity of successful chefs?
From Switzerland to South Caucasus: Colonial Legacy, Artisanal Dairy Farming, and Gravyer Cheese.
Cannibalism and Power: Resituating the Narratives of Post-Soviet Foodways Through Vladimir Sorokin’s Feast.
The Shared Power of Hunger Artists and Viennese Actionists.
Empire of Wheat: Bread, Power and Colonialism in the French Empire (1890-1940).
There’s a Crisis. There’s a Crisis: The Power of Laws and Lies in the Italian Fascist Kitchen
Subsistence Depression in Alaska: Who Gets Paid?
The ‘Power’ of Health in Soul Food: Perspectives from Edna Lewis and Vertamae Grosvenor.
Cooking in Calais: Examining the Creation of Food Sovereignty when Distributing Food in the Jungle.
2018 - Seeds
The papers are available to buy as the 2018 Proceedings.
Reclaiming Diversity of Taste.
On the Culture of Cheese.
Eating Life Force: The Meaning of Seeds in the German Alternative Food Movement.
Seeds in the Story of the Paradise of Pleasure and the Myth of the So-Called Mediterranean Diet.
The Naked Barley ‘Thorebygg’ in Traditional Farmhouse Ale Brewing in Norway.
Neapolitan Pastiera: The Religious Significance of Wheatberries and Socio-Culinary Complexity in Southern Italy.
The Sesame Seed and ‘Japaneseness’.
From Peasant Food to Posh Ingredient: A History of Buckwheat in Brittany.
Field Selection in Plant Breeding: Different Ways of Knowing Seed. Castro, Bel – How Coffee Killed A Town: Investigating the Rise And Fall Of Coffee In Lipa, Batangas.
Seeding the Future: Curry, Sausages and Tea in Hong Kong and Macau.
Preparing Seeds for Palatability: Chicken Guts and Chefs’ Tools.
Fenugreek in Modern North Africa: Seed of a Forgotten History.
A Land of Wheat: In Search of the Lost Grain of Israel/Palestine.
The Long and Simple History of the Dibble and Its Cousins.
‘The answers to our ancestors’ prayers:’ Seeding a Movement for Health and Culture.
Pomodori Puri: Fruits of Empowerment in Deledda’s The Church of Solitude.
Planting the Seeds of Good Food Citizenry.
The Seed of Hope: Acorns from Famine Food to Delicacy in European History.
European Immigrants‘ Vegetable Gardens: Food and Memory in Early 20th Century Brazilian Coffee Plantationsy’
Illegal seeds: Nowadays Taste Doesn´t Matter.
Growing and Eating God: Tracking the Mental Image of Wheat in Traditional Romanian Communities.
Seeds in Art.
Toil, Misery, Sieves, and Geometry: A Brief (Personal) History of Flour Milling Over the Last 105,000 Years.
In a Sense, Imperfect: Seedlessness and the American Quest for Convenience in Fruit.
Chocolate and Vanilla: Seeds of Taste.
Replenishing the Seeds that Made Southern Cookery.
Choice of Seeds, Not Only a Practical Matter: The case of Bambara Groundnut in Tanzania.
Zoochory: Animals Spread Seeds in a Dung Deal.
Traveling Seeds: How Mexican Wheat Hybrids Became the Seeds that Feed the World.
Revisiting the Acorn-Eater: The Case of the Arkadians in Greek Antiquity
Food of the Gods, or Seed of the Devil?
The English Quest for Novelty: Kitchen Garden Seeds from Abroad from the Sixteenth to the Early Eighteenth Centuries
Seed-Time: Sex, Politics and Sustainable Dining at the Fin-de-Siècle.
The Centrality of Traditional Seed in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Mustard in the Talmudic Literature.
The Potential of Cultivating Rice (Oryza Sativa) in Canada
Karakilçik Bugdayi and Its Promise for a Better Food World
