Enfilade

From ArtHist.net:

Recipes and Flavors on the Move: The Circulation of Traditions and Ingredients between the Mediterranean and the American Colonies
Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA), Paris, 22 January 2025

Organized by Maddalena Bellavitisl, Corinne Mencé-Caster, and José Manuel Santos Pérez

Proposals due by 21 October 2024

Scholars in recent years have intensified their interest in cultural aspects of the colonial world, going beyond purely historical and social analysis. They have also been looking at the whole context constituted by the expressions and habits related to the daily, intellectual, and artistic life of the local populations and of those who found themselves traveling—in one direction or another—between Europe and the distant lands of ancient or recent discovery. The question thus raised relates to the cultural heritage of the territories concerned, both tangible and intangible heritage, and therefore also a whole series of details belonging to the sphere of the senses and habits most closely linked to local traditions. Among these, of course, the most fundamentally intertwined with popular life and culture is that of food. Therefore, a research direction that looked precisely in this direction was needed, questioning food habits, raw materials, recipes, and flavors.

This workshop therefore proposes a dialogue on colonial culture and food, choosing to set the discussion according to a perspective of exchange and mutual enrichment, with a view to reconstructing paths and narratives that have seen the intertwining of knowledge and traditions. Thus, the first part will be devoted to the interchanges, reception, and perception of Mediterranean food culture in Latin America and vice versa, with a consideration of ingredients, recipes, and tastes, while the second part will focus on material and iconographic culture, considering visual representations that depict this diffusion of flavors and the objects involved in the process.

The organizers, Maddalena Bellavitisl, Corinne Mencé-Caster, and José Manuel Santos Pérez, welcome proposals for 20-minute contributions—in English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese—on interdisciplinary topics addressing the subjects to which the workshop is dedicated. Those who are interested can send a one-page PDF file with an abstract and short bio to maddalena.bellavitis@gmail.com by 21 October 2024. Selections will be made at the beginning of November 2024.