2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

This “lightning” panel showcases the ways that people from both inside and outside the academy bring food from the past to the present.  We will examine how educators use culinary studies – especially archival recipes, historic foodways, “recreated” foods and drinks, the recovery of heirloom varietals, and the preservation of the culinary tools and kitchens of illustrious chefs – to engage both students and the general public in study of the past.  Our aim is to explore the promises and challenges of using culinary studies in this way: how do we facilitate complex intellectual conversations about consumables? How do culinary sources foster engagement with students (traditional and non-traditional) and how do they convey the value of our work to the general public? How do we ensure that we are telling the stories of marginalized or underrepresented people?  What are the risks and rewards when we seek to understand the past by recovering its culinary landscape?  We will bring public historians, chefs, archeologists, and museum curators into conversation with both junior and senior academics as we seek to better understand how “Alt-Ac” and “Trad-Ac” educators approach their culinary work.  Each presenter will offer their insights via a mix of different media (traditional history, digital humanities, visual culture, and “hands-on” food experimentation) and we invite the audience to act as commentators and participants in the panel by tasting historic foods, reading old recipes, analyzing images, and walking with us through blogs and websites as we explore public engagement with the culinary past.