The 11th New Zealand Symposium of Gastronomy
Christchurch, November 25 & 26, 2017
ARA Institute of Canterbury
Symposium Theme: Everyday

Food and food-related activities are important, yet often taken-for-granted parts of our everyday lives. The biological imperative that makes eating a necessity usually makes us look at it as a mundane practice. Cooking, too, especially in its ‘domestic’ context, may seem insignificant and uninteresting. Shopping for food, chopping and washing ingredients, and cleaning up after a meal rarely seem poetic or even important. However, the very everydayness of these activities can evolve into meaningful cultural and social symbols, depicting individuals’ or societies’ relationship with different issues ranging from nutrition, health and hygiene to gender norms, national identity and memory. By looking at the everydayness of food-related activities, we come to understand how societies feed themselves, and therefore, we get a better understanding of their cultures, their past, present, and future. By observing and studying everyday food-related practices, habits, and values that are constantly being passed in ordinary kitchens from one generation to the next, we can open a window to also understanding non-everyday foodways such as those practiced in sacred rituals, mourning, and celebrations.

Organisers welcome scholars, cooks, armchair gastronomers and food enthusiasts to present their research, discuss their viewpoints, and be a part of the 11th New Zealand Symposium of Gastronomy with the main theme of ‘Everyday’, to be held in Christchurch (25 & 26 November, 2017).

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Everyday cooking/eating practices
• Food and identity (gendered, national, etc.) in everyday life
• Everyday food choices
• Historical, cultural and economic aspects of everyday food
• Fast food and slow food
• Routinization of everyday life
• Everyday food and ethics
• Everyday food and memory
• Everydayness and Non-everydayness
• The production, cultivation and distribution of everyday food
• Politics of everyday food

Please send your abstract (max 150 words) and a short biographical statement (max 100 words) before Monday, July 31, 2017 to either Sam or Amir (or both).

They will also be happy to answer any questions regarding the symposium.

Notification of acceptance will be sent out by Thursday, August 31st, 2017.