Welcome from our President Claudia Roden
Our President, Claudia Roden, has long been a guiding light of the Oxford Symposium. Her books, among them the ground-breaking The Book of Middle Eastern Food and The Book of Jewish Food, have inspired food historians and sociologists as well as home-cooks and professional chefs for more than five decades. But it is her skill as story-teller – meticulous recorder of treasured memories – that makes her books irresistible.
Opening Keynote by Charles Spence. Gastrophysics: The Psychology of Herbs and Spices
Professor Charles Spence is an experimental psychologist at the University of Oxford, where he explores the impact that sight, sound and touch have on our perceptions of taste. With more…
Pragmatism in an Impractical Place: The Stubborn Cuisine of the Fogo Island by Timothy Charles and Jonathan Gushue
Pick up your virtual gathering-basket and fill your imagination with salty-juiced sea-rocket, a pod or two of beach-pea ; search the rockpools by the shore for bright green bunches of…
Bar
What is your own island life experience? Come and share over a glass of wine or a beer, and introduce yourself to even more new faces. Your hosts will be…
Panel 1 — Adulteration
This panel examines adulteration from different perspectives: the ‘dilution’ of herbs and spices when processed into blends that lead to a cultural devaluation of the prime ingredient; regulatory efforts to…
Panel 2 — Pot-pourri
Move over, hash brownies. These papers launch from the current interest in cannabis cookery to investigate both the original counterculture cookery books from the 1960s and ‘70s and the culinary…
Panel 3 — Colonialism
These papers view herbs and spices in the colonial context from opposite ends of the telescope: how did annatto move around the world courtesy of French colonial activity versus what…
Panel 4 — Agri-Culture: Identity, Politics, Discourses
This diverse panel explores how certain herbs and spices have been markers of identity; these papers explore their use as a tool expressing power dynamics within societies, as well as…