Just as food can unite people in shared identities, it can also erect walls that define The Other, as this panel demonstrates. How does a food move from one enjoyed…

The modernist adage, ‘form follows function,’ implies that design is teleological, a mechanical application of obtaining an efficient result. But what is the role of imagination? This panel explores contemporary…

Science fiction, by definition, is an act of the imagination, but even the most resourceful aliens need to eat. Part of this panel investigates the futuristic foodways of these other…

Identity is a negotiation between an individual’s sense of self and the cultural milieu in which the individual is situated. This panel illustrates the tensions faced in creating one’s identity,…

This panel questions the nostalgia and mythic confidence in France’s agricultural heritage, the spiritually motivated community supported agriculture in rural New York that offers a ‘full diet’ to subscribers, and…

Is bigger better? You bet! This panel highlights the politics and meaning-making behind early American foods that were designed to prove the abundance of the fledgling new nation, from the…

The printing press economically brought literature to countless readers in the early modern world; newspapers brought cheap daily content into the public forum, while television broadcast programs into many thousands…

Prehistoric, early, and subaltern foods typically lack documentation, challenging scholars to find creative and alternative ways of understanding and reconstructing these foods and their origins. This panel demonstrates different methodologies…

The apogee of French gastronomy in the nineteenth through early twentieth centuries brought forth a cascade of culinary literature, maps promoting gastronomic tourism, and, eventually, the Michelin guide. This panel…

As foods move from their places of origin to shores near and far, cuisines inevitably change with these new influences. These papers explore how the imagination has incorporated New and…

The medieval world had no lack of lands of Cockaigne, utopian realms where food was plentiful, luscious, and readily available. This panel describes three medieval approaches to idealized consumption, whether…