Paper short abstract:

The paper addresses the issues of healthy food and well-being as well as the utopian dimension of nutritional and culinary advice literature of 1900s-1930s in Estonia. We focus primarily on the advocacy for vegetables and vegetarian diet in the context of rapidly modernizing food culture.

Paper long abstract:

The paper addresses the issues of healthy food and well-being as well as the utopian dimension of nutritional and culinary advice literature by turning to cookbooks, handbooks and magazine articles of the 1900s-1930s in Estonia. We focus primarily on the advocacy for vegetables and vegetarian diet in the context of rapidly modernizing food culture. We want to examine culinary and nutritional discourse of the period that followed the examples of Nordic and European countries. The existing peasant culinary heritage was redefined by emerging local nutritional and cooking experts. The latter, in turn, shaped what today is considered a prominent part of the classical Estonian cuisine.

Food of vegetarian origin was given high value using moral, economical as well as scientific arguments. Various experts advised how to use more vegetables on the table suggesting that the modern kitchen should become a laboratory in which an informed housewife rationally applies culinary knowledge based on nutritional science. In addition to recipes and sample menus seasonality, locality and healthiness of vegetarian food was stressed. More radical approach saw the future of the diet mainly or solely in vegetarian food, in utopian visions raw vegan food was recommended as the healthiest, purest and most likely preventing all diseases. Although some suggestions from that period were never fully adapted in people's everyday food culture, the culinary and nutritional heritage represented in advice literature is worth reconsidering in the context of contemporary food consumption.

Paper short abstract:

The margins between recipes for culinary meals and those for medical purposes are rather fluid. Thus, many historical cookbooks contain recipes for medical applications as well. This mixture can be regarded an early wish for “wellness”, which nowadays gains new importance or at least interest.

Paper long abstract:

As the margins between recipes for culinary meals and those for dietetics or medical purposes are rather fluid, many historical cookbooks contain recipes for internal and external medical applications as well. The mixture of recipes for meal preparation and those for medical purposes can be interpreted as indicator for an early wish for "wellness", which nowadays gains new importance or at least interest.

Especially in herbal books there are, besides a lot of recipes with strictly medical goals or the idea to protect against pestilences, many of them which could be classified under "wellness". They were intended to facilitate e.g. a good digestion, to stimulate one's appetite or to strengthen the body, as the example of a hand-written Carinthian cookbook from ca. 1800 illustrates. Preparations for internal as well as external use show the wide range of possible applications.

Lots of recent herbal books reuse this concept. They contain recipes for the kitchen as well as for cosmetics and herbal remedies. Besides those following "classical" paths like that of Hildegard of Bingen, many of them value "grandmother's advice" and play with this imagination. In contrary, others lay stress on the modern aspects of the use of herbs in different contexts.

Paper short abstract:

The aim of my paper is to introduce and analyze early Finnish cookbooks published in North America during the first two decades of the 20th century. The primary purpose of my study is to analyze the context in which the cookbooks were used. In my analysis, I will discuss what purposes the cookbooks served.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of my paper is to introduce and analyze early Finnish cookbooks published in North America during the first two decades of the 20th century. The primary purpose of my study is to analyze the context in which the cookbooks were used. In my analysis, I will discuss what purposes the cookbooks served. Were they compiled for Finnish immigrants who needed information about ingredients that would work in the American kitchen and names of the ingredients in English, or were they merely guide books for Finnish women working as maids in American families? That, I hope, can be concluded from the recipes in the cook books. I will also discuss whether the cook books also have advice on how to behave in North America, how to become "a decent American".

Even though a lot of research has been written on experiences of immigrant women lately, that field still is neglected. Focusing on cookbooks contributes to a gendered understanding of the social processes involved in migration. Cookbooks were primarily even if not solely used by women.

Paper short abstract:

Based on my ethnomusicology field research in Mexico I would like to present a paper devoted to song texts of local musicians-poets from the south of Oaxaca state in which they pass information on local delicacies from spices trough a variety of dishes including drinks and alcohols as well.

Paper long abstract:

Joanna Dubrawska-Stępniewska (PhD student at Warsaw University, Department of History, Institute of Musicology, Poland)

Eating tixinda and drinking tepache (comer tu tixinda y beber tepache)

Mexican society regards food as their national heritage, especially dishes made of corn, like tortillas or any kind of salsas, which basic ingredient is the famous chili pepper.

Based on my over two-years ethnomusicology field research in Mexico I would like to present a paper devoted to song texts of local musicians-poets from the south of Oaxaca state in which they pass information on local delicacies from spices trough a variety of dishes including drinks and alcohols as well.

The works of local musicians reflect the vision of the life of the whole society. Content of those texts is to affirm the life of the littoral part of Mexico. The songs not only praise the beauty of the nature but also describe the way of celebrating important events, which can be confirmed in the lyrics, can't exist without music, food and alcohol.

The compositions of local musicians are almost as a guide to local culinary culture. One may find traditional recipes for preparing a particular dish in between the song lyrics.

Most of all the songs describe the context of drinking local alcohol called mezcalem , the method of preparing the ritual dish called mole and a specific kind of spice tixinde. Above that the singers tell about the ways of getting those delicacies or regional fish dishes, such as the soup called caldo de bacoco.

Paper short abstract:

The trend in society shows an awaken interest towards preindustrial housekeeping. We are encouraged to grow vegetables and to pick wild berries. Shaping purity, authenticity and locality is central when visually presenting food and illustrating recipes.

Paper long abstract:

A hundred years ago cookery books or booklets with recipes was all about written descriptions. It was up to the reader to imagine how the dish will end up, if trying to prepare it. In the twentieth century however, the importance of visual interpretation increased at a steady rate. Today visual communication is a major part of daily life, often appealing to emotions in being narrative in a more abstract manner. When it comes to presenting food, we have moved on from presenting the actual products or the final result, to visualizing moods, milieus and generally wellbeing. In a picture of a cow, or of a sunset in the archipelago, we read in a story about roots, traditions and locality.

In the North nature is a natural part of the cultural tradition and it is imaginary connected to a vision of an unspoiled environment and therefore a better life. I intend to look at how the visual communication is used in the context local food connected to nature, roots and heritage. Is it a new concept, or is there also a connection to previous cookery book illustrations to be found?

Paper short abstract:

Eating is not merely the matter of survival, it also 'tells many stories' about the organisation of social life. This presentation uses the example of margarine and butter to elaborate on newly emerged industrial cuisine that increasingly seems to dominate contemporary European foodways.

Paper long abstract:

In the 'realm of things,' food has a unique position. Its primarily function is the nourishment of the body, therefore, assurance of the survival (see Counihan 1999, Farquar 2006, Lupton 1996). Yet, eating is not merely the matter of survival, it also 'tells many stories' about organisation of social life. Edibles are helpful to understand how social distinctions are established and reproduced (see Bourdieu, 1984). Studies of 'social life of things', food in particular, have also proven to be a fruitful when theorising complex social phenomena and impacts of macrostructural forces on local communities (e.g. Collingham 2006, 2012; Miller 2005; Mintz, 1985). This presentation uses the example of margarine and butter to point out specific tendencies that increasingly seems to dominate contemporary European foodways. Interestingly, margarine emerged in second half of 19th century as a result of a competition proposed by emperor Louis Napoleon III of France in order to invent a cheap substitute for butter to feed the army and the poor. Using this example, I aim to show various discourses behind the spread of relatively newly emerged industrial cuisine and suggest that contemporary food politics, which is characterised by industrial production and put into motion by capitalism, can be analysed as a site of Foucaultian 'bio-power' (see Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982). It is precisely in this sense, that the 'grandmother's culinary advice' can become a meaningful site of resistance and even the matter of life and death in times of hunger and overall material scarcity.

Paper short abstract:

Renewed interest in traditional food knowledge creates new food experiences. I consider those in West Cork, Ireland who have worked to create a more traditional life through food production, and question how outsiders help to renew interest in traditional Irish foodways and shape regional identity.

Paper long abstract:

Traditional and domestic skills often associated with women such as dairying have recently seen a resurgence, with many embracing such traditional food production for the first time. A renewed interest in such traditional knowledge can create new and meaningful food experiences for both the maker and the culinary tourist. Such types of food events have become increasingly popular in the region of West Cork, Ireland. Looking specifically at those who have worked to create a more traditional or "homemade" life through food production, I call into question how often outsiders to this region have helped sprout a renewed interest in traditional Irish foodways, and the role food culture can play in shaping national and regional identity. These outsiders are mostly women and often non-Irish nationals. While in the past Ireland has not been usually associated with a rich and varied food culture, it has in recent years regained a better sense of its traditional and historical food memories. Part of this resurgence in food culture can likely be attributed to dedicated food producers. But did it take these producers to restore and recreate Ireland's "lost" or forgotten foodways? How have these West Cork producers reignited and created regionalised identity, but also created new food experiences, specifically new food memories that have helped to reshape the individual and collective Irish food experience? These are some of the questions and contemplations I offer to my discussion of contemporary Irish foodways examined through a regional lens.

Paper short abstract:

The aim of the proposed paper is to analyze cultural functioning of ciulim, traditional local food prepared in Lelów (Częstochowa County, Silesia Voivodeship in the Southern Poland) and to describe how it is used to create idealized Polish-Jewish past in local politics of history.

Paper long abstract:

Ciulim is traditional local food prepared in Lelów, small village located in Częstochowa County, Silesia Voivodeship, in the Southern Poland. The most distinctive feature of ciulim is the process of its preparation - it is cooked in a big pot and then put into bread oven for approximately twelve hours. The recipe and the way of preparing ciulim is considered local heritage. At the same time, it is a symbol of Polish-Jewish coexistence in Lelów, as ciulim derives from Jewish cholent. Ciulim and cholent are therefore the "main characters" of Polish-Jewish Festival of Ciulim - Cholent, which has been organized in Lelów since 2003.

After the Second World War and the extermination of Jewish community, Lelów has no Jewish inhabitants. However, it became a destination for Hasidic pilgrims from Israel and United States, who visit the grave of tzaddick David Biederman (1746-1814). In proposed paper I would like to analyze how local narratives on ciulim and cholent and their origins are used to create a myth of peaceful coexistence of Poles and Jews in Lelów over centuries. I would like to explore the understanding of the Festival of Ciulim - Cholent as an element of the strategy for regional development, as well as an important aspect of promoting openness and tolerance among local inhabitants towards Hasidim visiting Lelów.