Day Program

Lectures

1. Lecture by Prof. Dr. Katarzyna Cwietka 

‘The way to a man's heart is through his stomach: Gastrodiplomacy in Japan and Korea

The associations between France and champagne, Italy and pizza, Japan and sushi, Mexico and tacos, England and fish and chips etc. have histories that stretch back several decades and to varying degrees were constructed with the help of state engagement. However, the growing emphasis on the place–food connection is no longer an amusing footnote to international relations, but an increasingly powerful force pushing national interests forward.

The term ‘gastrodiplomacy’ first appeared in print in 2002 in the Economist, in connection with a report on the global promotion of Thai food, and has since developed into a core concept within the public diplomacy arena. It is defined as a form of public diplomacy that highlights and promotes the awareness and understanding of a national culinary culture among a foreign public. Simply advocating a food product does not equate with gastrodiplomacy. Rather, following the principles of place branding, gastrodiplomacy denotes a more holistic approach to raising international awareness of a country’s edible national brand through the promotion of its culinary and cultural heritage. This lecture will focus on gastrodiplomacy in Japan and Korea, placing these developments within the context of culinary globalization and the global liberalization of trade. 

2. Lecture by Dr. Albena Shkodrova-Desmet

From Garden Cities to Industrial Canteens: Feeding the European New Towns between 1920 and 1960  

As the Twentieth century advanced through waves of food insecurity, brought upon by World Wars  and economic crises, politics across Europe increasingly focused on modernizing food  production, trade and consumption. The contemporary welfare state was in the making across the  affluent first world. With it, minimal standards settled to prevent hunger among population. 

In the East and in the West, more and more European states aligned along the ideal to provide  food security and promote healthy diet. But on a continent, divided by contrasting ideologies, the  best path to achieve such goal was far from agreed upon. The visions of modernizing foodways  varied across borders and cultures, evolved in time, diverged and converged. From early 20th  century attempts to build garden cities, in which the best of rural and urban would come together,  to large-scale plans to feed nations with industrial, state-subsidized food in professionally staffed  canteens, they covered a universe of possibilities. What did they have in common and where did  they part? 

In my talk, I will walk you through the ideas and practices of food procurement in New Towns,  which were built between 1920s and 1960s in different parts of Europe. Planned from above  according to a master plan and built almost on a tabula rasa, these urban projects synthesized  the dominant ideologies and strategies. They offer a peak into how ideals for feeding urban  populations changed upon clashing with reality, and how the contemporary European foodways  were shaped by the dominant food politics after the Second World War. 

3. Lecture by Dr. Melissa Calaresu

 Food ways and food experiences on the Grand Tour in 18th-century Naples

The Grand Tour attracted northern Europeans to the Italian peninsula to visit ancient sites and aristocratic galleries but also to experience life in the cities of Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples. In Grand Tour accounts, British travelers often complained of the greasy and unfamiliar food that they received in guesthouses during their travels and were often nostalgic for the eating of roast-beef, a foodstuff which came to define their national character in contemporary caricatures. The household accounts of the Welsh landscape artist, Thomas Jones, allows us to test these familiar tropes and analyze the consumption patterns of Jones, his Danish common-law wife, Maria Moncke, and two young daughters, who lived in Naples for three years between 1780 and 1783. The extent of their ‘alimentary acculturation’ is revealed in these detailed accounts which show family members and servants buying a range of fresh and processed seasonal foods from the streets and shops of the city which were, in turn, provided by a local network of food makers from the hinterland around Naples. The city was also connected to wider trade networks which met the alimentary needs of elite Neapolitan residents – sugar from the French and British colonies, cheese from Holland and England, and wine from France and Portugal. Of course, Jones and his wife had their own alimentary tastes and traditions which may not have been sustainable in their household within this specific urban environment. This paper will explore the complex food ways which provided for the many inhabitants of this capital city and the food experiences of a Grand Tour household in the creation of food identities.