Two new SOAS centers, the Food Studies Centre and the Centre for Migration and Diaspora, were launched yesterday evening with a lecture from Professor Sidney Mintz of Johns Hopkins University.
Prof Mintz, best known for his work Sweetness and Power: The place of sugar in modern history, gave an excellent talk about how food makes culture and the influence of food from the New World on the cuisine of the Old World and vice-versa. Great cuisines do not happen in isolation. "Keep locality and culture in mind," he advised the capacity audience at Brunei Gallery. We were then treated to spicy foodstuffs migrated from Tooting.
You were at a Mintz lecture?? Nice. I just read Sweetness and Power for my class a couple weeks ago. Can't say it's a page-turner, but this ideas were very interesting. He talks about the evolution of sugar from an exotic spice of the rich, to caloric supplement for the poor, and eventually to an everyday commodity for all...
ReplyDeleteyes, the lecture was very enlightening. too bad the only thing he mentioned about the philippines is that china got the kamote from mexico by way of manila. hahaha!
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