Food Heritage

ACHS 2020 conference - Curated session proposal
Session organisers: Theano Moussouri & Georgios Alexopoulos
Session title: Food Heritage for Global Challenges
Session abstract: This ACHS conference session aims to explore the multiple ways in which food heritage and foodways can be actively involved in wider debates and discussions surrounding the environment, social welfare, cultural sustainability, identities of diaspora communities etc. The ever-expanding field of heritage studies and the emergence of critical heritage studies in particular have both embraced and solidified the notion of intangible cultural heritage and food has found its own place in this discourse as an important element. Food has traditionally been considered and valued for its nutritional qualities (a basic human need) and is inevitably part of a complex food industry with various implications on food security, sustainable development, climate change, biodiversity and food economy. Nevertheless, foodways, culinary heritage and eating traditions remind us that food encompasses a wide range of social and cultural associations and meanings that also impact on health, behaviour, choices and preferences. This makes it even more important for food heritage to be studied, conceptualised and debated within a multidisciplinary and pluralistic perspective that can bring together all of the afore-mentioned aspects (environment, economy, society, culture: echoing the so-called pillars of sustainability).
We would like to invited papers that examine a wide range of issues such as: • Migrant foodways • Food and identity • Food justice • Foodways and global mobilities • Embodied memory, sensory experience in making food and social change through everyday cooking practices • The adaptation of foodscapes to climate change • Urban food strategy • Sustainable eating, food choices and food education • Food safety and global challenges
Please send a 250-word abstract to the session organisers by Monday 28 October (2019).
Theano Moussouri: t.moussouri@ucl.ac.uk
Georgios Alexopoulos: georgios.alexopoulos@ucl.ac.uk

Spend three weeks during the summer exploring French culture and the cuisine of the Loire Valley through the lens of a camera. You’ll learn about film theory and French cinema. You’ll engage in specially curated screenings at Les Studios Cinémas. In partnership with the European Institute of Food History (IEHCA), you will employ the theoretical strategies and aesthetics learned in the classroom into your own film and media productions.
      This summer, films will focus on the theme of French Food Heritage and Culture. The city of Tours will provide the palate as you write, shoot, edit, and produce a short film. In the evenings, you can draw inspiration from all of the sights, sounds, and tastes that surround you.  
        The trip concludes with a three-day visit to Paris where you will discover the French capital with a fresh eye toward the history of film and art for which the city is known.

Cocineras tradicionales-traditional female cooks-are women of Mexican indigenous descent who embody the status of food tradition bearers and the "ethnic" components of Mexican foodways. In the climate of enthusiasm generated by the 2010 nomination of "traditional Mexican cuisine" as Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO, cocineras tradicionales are esteemed social figures and both a driving force and a symbol of Mexico's current food and tourism policies. This article is an examination of the power relations surrounding the making of this heritage identity. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Mexico City and the state of Oaxaca among cocineras, heritage agents, and cultural activists, it demonstrates how the economics and politics of culture turn food into a tool and a product, describes the strategies employed by various actors in this realm, and examines the ways in which recognition and material rewards are allocated in the field of food heritage.

This early report is an example of the scientific analyses I am undertaking within the Tourism Guidance Department, Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, at Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt, as a part of my doctoral dissertation, “Food Heritage of Ancient and Contemporary Egypt with Particular Emphasis on Meat Products.” This work aims to explore ancient Egyptian traditions and habits that remain active in Egypt today by drawing links between ancient and contemporary Egyptian cultural heritage, particularly food issues. The traditional cultural and social heritage of Egypt includes different types of meat and meat-based products and meals, cooking traditions, and eating habits. This dissertation particularly aims to survey and describe different meats and meat-based products in Egypt, both past and present. The importance of the study also stems from its contribution to data related to the mobility of food traditions through Egyptian history, with a particular emphasis on meat products. This present paper examines the foreleg of steers (“oxen”) so familiar to Egyptologists. Because most previous studies have attempted to explain only the religious importance of the foreleg, the study offered here explores another important facet of the foreleg, namely its nutritive value, to scientifically examine possible nutritional reasons for the Egyptians’ selection of this specific part of the steer as an essential element in their funerary offerings.

Resumo: Os eventos do Partido dos Comes e Bebes (PCB) reúnem várias dezenas de macaenses em Lisboa para celebrarem um calendário de eventos que, à semelhança do que acontecia em Macau, marcam também as suas vidas em Portugal. Neste enquadramento, o PCB e as suas festas constituem uma forma de integração, funcionamento e manutenção da comunidade macaense no país de acolhi-mento, proporcionando aos que nelas participam um lugar de memória para a construção de uma identidade macaense, sobretudo por meio da saudosa comida que se identifica, cheira e saboreia, de resto, a principal atração destes encontros. Neste artigo procurarei demonstrar como a produção de reuniões de comensalidade por parte do PCB revelam ser não só uma expressão de comunhão entre os vários membros da comunidade, como reforçam ainda o sentimento coletivo da permanência do grupo ao longo do tempo. Para além disso, analisarei de que forma a reivindicação e manutenção de uma cultura e etnicidade específica macaense tem vindo a ser reforçada pelos poderes políticos de Macau e da China através da patrimonialização imaterial de itens culturais como a gastronomia macaense, inscrita na lista do Património Cultural Imaterial da Região Administrativa Especial de Macau da República Popular da China (RAEM). Palavras-chave: Macaenses, Diáspora (Portugal), Património gastronómico. Abstract: Events of The Food and Drink Party (PCB) bring together in Lisbon several dozens of Macanese to celebrate a calendar of events, the same way as in Macao, also marked their lives in Portugal. In this context, PCB and its parties are a way of integrating, operating and maintaining the Macanese community in the host country providing to those who participate, a place of memory for the construction of a Macanese identity through feelings of longing for the traditional food they can there identify, smell and taste, and the main attraction of these meetings. This article will demonstrate how the production of PCB reunions of commensality revel an expression of communion among the various members of the community and reinforce group's collective feeling of permanence over time. In addition, it will be analysed how the claim and maintenance for a specific Macanese culture and ethnicity has been strengthened by the political powers of Macao and China across the immaterial herita-gisation of cultural items such as the Macanese gastronomy, inscribed on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (Macao SAR).

This paper explores critical directions in the study of cultural heritage and, in particular, food heritage research. Its goal is to deliver insight into local perspectives produced outside mainstream heritage organisations. Strategies implemented jointly by peasant farmers of rural Peru and NGOs committed to promoting cultural resurgence show how food discloses the symbiotic relation between nature and culture in these indigenous worlds, and allows for claims grounded in indigenous social, political, and economic imaginaries. The initiatives described in this paper develop within transnational networks of partners and interlocutors but outside of universalist pretensions. They constitute food heritage that differ from that of global cultural actors such as UNESCO and the United Nations by addressing only the needs of local communities and not complying with mechanisms that bring prestige and revenues to states and powerful cultural entrepreneurs. Globally nurtured but locally implemented, these locally-based initiatives seek out and take advantage of opportunities in strategic, proactive fashions.

The article presents a study on the profile of the visiting public to the 23a Firatast Una fira boníssima and perceptions regarding its organization, and the gastronomic and cultural elements presented during the event. The methodology employed is both qualitative and quantitative, using direct observation, survey questionnaire scripts with 119 participants, and in-depth interviews with the festival’s managers. The highlight of this research is to have identified that, although originally created for commercial purposes, the festival has gradually turned into a cultural event and is now perceived by its public as a tool for enhancing and promoting the techniques and traditions of Catalan cuisine.

Este artigo tem por objetivo demonstrar de que modo a sociedade conimbricense praticou a primeira das obras de misericórdia corporais: Dar de comer a quem tem fome”. Pretendemos apresentar como se proveu o sustento alimentar dos pobres e doentes, na cidade de Coimbra, ao longo da Idade Média, e como, dessa forma, se cuidou de corpos fragilizados tanto pela miséria, como pela doença. Primeiro, no contexto de desenvolvimento da designada “economia da salvação”, analisaremos os legados testamentários compostos por géneros alimentares ou quantias em dinheiro destinadas a comprar estes produtos para os pobres. Neste sentido, é nosso objetivo verificar que alimentos compunham esses legados, para perceber quais os mais frequentemente repartidos pelos indigentes e enfermos da cidade, e analisar como se distribuíam ao longo do calendário. Num segundo momento, centraremos a nossa atenção no provimento alimentar oferecido pelas confrarias e hospitais de Coimbra, responsáveis por acolher pobres e doentes, que aqui encontravam condições básicas de sobrevivência. Destacaremos o Hospital de Santa Isabel e o Hospital de
S. Lázaro, para os quais se conhecem as rações individuais distribuídas a partir de 1328 e 1329, respetivamente.

This paper aims to analyse how the first corporal work of mercy, “To feed the hungry”, was practiced by the Coimbra’s society. We intend to present the way the poor and the sick were fed in the medieval city of Coimbra, and also how their bodies weakened by poverty and disease were care. First, in the context of the development of the “economy of salvation”, we’ll analyse the testamentary donations to the poor of food or the money to buy it. Thus, it’s our purpose to confirm how these legacies were comprised, to understand which food was most often given to the city’s poor and sick and the alms distribution framework along the calendar. Secondly, we’ll focus in the food offered by Coimbra confraternities and hospitals, which provided basic survival conditions to the poor and sick. We’ll emphasize the examples of Saint Elisabeth and Saint Lazarus hospitals, for which we know the individual provisions distributed since 1328 and 1329, respectively.

Em 1896, uma empresa de nome “Empreza Culinária” fez-se anunciar no “Annuario Commercial”. Sediada em Lisboa, integrava um mercado pontuado por vários estabelecimentos comerciais como pastelarias, confeitarias e restaurantes que disponibilizavam serviços de venda de refeições prontas, destacando-se destes pelo serviço exclusivo de produção e pela venda de refeições com possibilidade de entrega ao domicílio, cujas encomendas assentavam numa curiosa rede de tabacarias de renome a si associadas. Dois anos depois, em 1898, a empresa investiu numa estratégia publicitária mais estruturada e iniciou a publicação dos menus de refeições semanalmente em um dos jornais de maior tiragem da capital, o “”. A evolução da comunicação da “Empreza Culinária” com os consumidores, a forma como usou a imprensa periódica e os serviços que fez publicitar permitem conhecer com maior pormenor a natureza e a logística de uma empresa de venda de refeições “take-away”/”delivery” muito próxima dos modelos atuais e que se apresenta como um tipo de serviço alimentar original à época.

Success, decline, relaunche and cultural heritage; this multidisciplinary work asks questions as to the causes and mechanics of trajectories for food products in Europe and the Americas. The authors try to understand how and why certain products declined, were side-lined, disappeared or even found a second-wind, at a much later date. Questions of decline allow for a better understanding as to how a food fits into evolving consumer habits; demonstrating how such products arrive at the point of sale and how competition, ultimately, affects the market helps to reveal how renowned local products became part of the cultural heritage. Food choices and their constraints, the direction of the food production industry, public health, the environment – all are questions vital to a complete understanding of the products.Situated at the crossroads of agriculture, food production, territorial development, relaunches and cultural heritage; all are present in this work.

Entre succès, déclin, relances et patrimonialisation, cet ouvrage pluridisciplinaire interroge les causes et les mécanismes des trajectoires des produits alimentaires en Europe et sur le continent américain. Il vise à comprendre comment et pourquoi certains produits déclinent, disparaissant totalement ou bien renaissant plus tard.

La problématique du déclin permet de mieux comprendre comment un aliment s’inscrit dans des modes de consommation en perpétuelle évolution, parvient à se diffuser sur le marché, à acquérir une certaine renommée, avant de se voir concurrencer par d’autres, jusqu’à devenir une culture résiduelle. Elle conduit à interroger les choix alimentaires et leurs contraintes, les orientations du secteur agroalimentaire, les questions de santé publique, d’environnement, etc. Au carrefour des enjeux contemporains de l’agriculture, de l’alimentation et du développement territorial, les questions de la relance et de la patrimonialisation des produits sont largement présentes dans ce livre. Les études de cas proposées mettent notamment en lumière les ressources économiques, mais aussi patrimoniales, identitaires et politiques, que peuvent représenter ces produits oubliés.

Food heritage, like heritage in general, has been considered both a socio-cultural construction ̶ which can symbolically represent an identity ̶ and an added-value industry. The political-cultural logic emerges from the desire to recover cultural elements which, having disappeared or being in the process of disappearing, are considered an expression of identity. The commercial logic, on the other hand, tends towards appropriating as part of " heritage " anything that can be turned into a commodity, either because of its dimension as entertainment or as an object of consumption. These dimensions can be either exclusive or complementary. Based on what has happened so far, it can be stated that all the knowledge and practices related to the production, transformation, distribution and consumption of food, and which are transmitted across generations within a region or community, make up a collective heritage. All of these elements are manifestations of an important biocultural diversity ̶ they constitute an irreplaceable common legacy and occupy a specific space, still to be defined, within the agri-food universe. The diversity of terms used to designate these different elements ("traditional", "typical", "specific", "authentic", "local", "premium"...) points to the difficulty of characterising and assessing this knowledge and these practices. The main obstacle lies precisely in the cultural dimension of heritage. It involves aspects which are difficult to objectify or " normalise " , such as memory, tradition, identity, transmission and behaviour. Another difficulty is that it is a living heritage in many different ways, with all the problems involved in its management and maintenance. In addition, turning something into heritage causes a shift in its status, turning products specific to a local culture into premium products appreciated beyond their place of origin. Therefore, this conversion into cultural heritage, with its immaterial, fluctuating and pliable nature, becomes difficult to manage for the various stakeholders involved. Many state and regional governments are actively seeking to learn about the food heritage of their populations in order to promote policies for production development and to boost local development through the promotion of local products and cuisine. Local cuisines are increasingly becoming resources that can be exploited as part of the tourist offer. The tourism and catering industries not only contribute to the promotion of traditional cuisine and its possible recovery, but also to its transformation and redefinition, under varying and sometimes conflicting parameters: on the one hand, the "selection", "reduction" and "simplification" of specific dishes and products considered to be representative, and on the other, their "idealisation", "replication" and propagation.

Cucina, società e politica. Le arti e il cibo. Modalità ed esempi di un rapporto 3 | Convegno. Bologna, 8-9-10 ottobre 2018.

Convegno realizzato con il sostegno economico del progetto PRIN 2015 e con la collaborazione del progetto CoHere, WP6 Food as Heritage.

Partecipanti 8 ottobre:
M. Montanari, L. Capriotti, D. Ognibene, Panem et Circenses, A. Gaspari, M. Pigozzi, L. Pasquini, I Porciani.

Partecipanti 9 ottobre:
A. Campanini, F. Lollini, A. Grieco, V. Innocenti, D. Domenici, A. Tranchina, F. Lollini, P. Porta, M. Centanni, M. Montanari, R. Pinto, V. Boudier, P. Palazzotto.

Partecipanti 10 ottobre:
G. Marrone, M.A. Bilotta, M.C. Di Natale, C. Antolini, M. Zambolo.