On Thursday I will be participating in a roundtable discussion, hosted by the KJCC, alongside Lara Anderson (Melbourne), Melissa Fuster (Tulane) and Rosi Song (Durham).
Food is something that can unite but also divide us. We develop tastes and attachments to ingredients, dishes, traditions depending on where, when, and how we grew up, with whom we shared our meals, who cooked for us or for whom we prepared meals. To think about FOOD in the (GLOBAL) HISPANOPHONE world means to think about food across a wide geography, a long historical period, contact between people from different races, products from different fauna and flora, and, above all, to think of MOVEMENT.
How have food related products or practices traveled with people? How have these practices sustained them until they reached their destination? How have these products become part of their new environment (naturally or by will)? How, in turn, have new products and knowledge traveled back transforming landscapes and food practices that are now deeply ingrained in national imaginaries and how we understand traditional dishes or ingredients? This roundtable considers these questions as a starting point to think through together how these movements, unsurprisingly, happened at individual levels but also as consequences of systemic power changes, political interests, and the need for survival.
You can watch the roundtable in full on Youtube via the link below.