2019 Food and Power

In 2019, Symposiasts can look forward to more than 40 papers addressing expressions of power in and through food. If what we prepare, cook and eat has the power to define our place in society, it also has the ability to communicates provenance, ethnicity, religion, ideology, and aspirations. Respect for culinary habit and farming traditions can be employed to encourage respectful tourism, reinforce national pride, and preserve regional diversity, thereby diluting the effect of industrialization of farming and the globalization of the food-supply. But perhaps most importantly, food – the cooking and serving of a meal – has the power to connect family and society, to tell a story of strangers or enemies coming together, to change mood, trigger memories, create emotions, touch the heart and, most powerfully of all, to express love.