Page 40 - Newsletter-Hotel & Hospitality industry

ARCHAEOBROMA:

t The First All India Conference

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g on Food as Culture

ARCHAEOBROMA: Archaeology, Sociology, History & Ethnography
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n The first ever Conference on the Archaeology, Sociology, History and Ethnography of Food in
India was held from 5 May 2018 to 6 May 2018 at the University of Mumbai (Kalina) under the
aegis of Instucen Trust and the Centre for Extra Mural Studies, University of Mumbai
i
Food is one of the most ubiquitous objects on values, food is rarely seen as such, although it is
s everyone's agenda. After air and water there is central to the mundane as well as celebratory

nothing more important to our survival. It's a lives of people. Food carries with it multiple
u multi-billion dollar business and its associations of culture including social privilege
permutations and combinations are limitless.
and deprivation, wealth and poverty,
B Amongst the most popular books are conservatism and liberality. To different foods
are attributed connotations of identity and drift,
cookbooks and they are continuously flying off
the shelves. The restaurant business is one of good and bad taste, and notions of comfort and
a the most romanticised and most gritty. Food estrangement. Of all cultural traits, it is food that
has undergone the most acculturation and
shows on TV and other media have greater
transmission across boundaries, as well as
TRPs than many a soap. Yet there is very little
i serious academic research into food. Not food evolution over time and space. It is a
as nutrition. Not food as farm produce. But food geographic, social, cultural and economic
d as an expression of culture, of cultural values, indicator. It is the stuff that memories are made
as the stuff that has determined who we are and
off.
n why we are what we are, food has rarely The India Study Centre (INSTUCEN) Trust and
the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies (University
received meticulous study of its cultural
aspects. And finally, there is very little if no of Mumbai) presented the first All India
I research on the history of the various foods that Conference that will focus on the cultural aspect

we take for granted in our Indian kitchens. of food. In its various sections, the conference
Where art, architecture and literature are easily tried to address the orthodox as well as
seen as the expression of a culture and its alternative ways of looking at food. The first