International Workshop: "Recipes and Flavors on the Move: the Circulation of Traditions and Ingredients Between the Mediterranean and the American Colonies", Paris, Institut national d'histoire de l'art – INHA, January 22, 2025.

Organizers: Maddalena Bellavitisl, Corinne Mencé-Caster, and José Manuel Santos Pérez.

Scholars in recent years have intensified their interest on the study of the cultural aspects of the colonial world, going beyond the purely historical and social analysis. They have been also looking at the whole context constituted by the expressions and habits related to the daily, intellectual and artistic life of the local populations and of those who found themselves traveling - in one direction or another - between Europe and the distant lands of ancient or recent discovery.

The question thus raised is related to the cultural heritage of the territories concerned, both tangible and intangible heritage, and therefore also a whole series of details belonging to the sphere of the senses and habits most closely linked to local traditions. Among these, of course, the most fundamentally intertwined with popular life and culture is that of food. Therefore, a research direction that looked precisely in this direction was needed, questioning food habits, raw materials, recipes, but also flavors.

The purpose of this workshop is therefore to propose a dialogue on colonial culture and food, but choosing to set the discussion according to a perspective of exchange and mutual enrichment, with a view to reconstructing paths and narratives that have seen the intertwining of knowledge and traditions.
Thus, the first part will be devoted to the interchanges, reception and perception of Mediterranean food culture in Latin America and vice versa, considering ingredients, recipes and tastes, while the second part will focus rather on material and iconographic culture, considering visual representations that depict this diffusion of flavors and the objects that had been involved in this process.

The workshop organizers, Maddalena Bellavitisl, Corinne Mencé-Caster, and José Manuel Santos Pérez, will welcome proposals for 20-minute contributions, in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese, on interdisciplinary topics that touch on the subjects to which the workshop is dedicated.

Those who are interested can send a one-page pdf with abstract and short bio to maddalena.bellavitisgmail.com by October 21, 2024.

Selections will be made at the beginning of November 2024.