Paper short abstract:

Food is at the heart of all cultural expressions. Cooking invites a tasting of identities as a unique form of knowledge production. However, through the processes of social change, food heritage is ‘fragile’ wealth. By adopting a sensory approach, food cultures can be preserved in ‘silo’ archives

Paper long abstract:

Food is a sensory manifestation of cultural heritage through flavours, colours, textures, ways of preparing and place. It expresses history, memory, (un)doing, and resilience. Foodways can tell a sensory story at the heart of all cultural expressions in its creative composition. More so, the act of cooking becomes a performance inviting a tasting expressing of these intrinsic identities as a unique form of knowledge production. However, processes of social change, and in particular colonisation, have disrupted the transmission and practice of intangible cultural heritage. As such, food heritage is ‘fragile’ wealth in its diversity, as it is ‘nonrenewable’ once lost. By adopting an explorative and sensory approach that is socially embedded it is possible to document identity as expressed through food. Through this, the recipes, memories and lived experiences of the performer can be preserved. The recipes and meals, as markers of identity and heritage, will become a treasured and valuable factor for empowering local and marginal communities and thereby enable vulnerable groups to participate fully in social and cultural life. By doing so, a recovery of this food knowledge may present itself again as a new form of imagery and taste (each attempt to recall the recipe may garner new experiences, creativity and flavours) as creating silo archives may nourish, save and document the memory, forms and practices of food.