Oxford Symposium - 2007

While some of you - no, many of you - were gloriously pigging out at the LTH Picnic last Saturday, a few intrepid travelers made our way to Oxford - the modernist St. Catherine's College - for the 26th annual Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery, devoted to "Food and Morality."

Chicago was well-represented:

Antonius (Anthony Buccini) presented a paper, entitled "From Necessity to Virtue: The Secondary Uses of Bread in Italian Cookery." Who but our Antonius could make stale bread thrilling?

Bruce Kraig chose to be less provocative asking, "Why Not Eat Pets?" I worried he was crusin' for (another) bruisin'. And at a venue familiarly known as St. Catz.

Colleen Taylor Sen addressed "Jainism: The World's Most Ethical Religion." Remember our Jain dinner?

And Michaela DeSoucey and moi presented on "Virtuous Food: 'Conscientious Production' as Moral Imperative." She gave the presentation and I merely attempted to be provocative in the question period wondering whether if grass-fed beef was so hip, could grass-smoked beef be next?

Aside from the Chicago stars, Ruth Reichl, Raymond Sokolov, Chef Raymond Blanc, John Scharffenberger, and Ken Albala (with a new book on the History of Beans) enlivened the proceedings.

Next year the topic will be Vegetables.

Hi,

Congratulations! If you are home, then Bruce cannot be far behind.

Thinking out loud, I thought maybe we would do a mini-Oxford Symposium with all three Chicago originated presentations done on one day.

Again, thrilled to have Chicago so well represented there. One of these days I will make it to Oxford.

Regards,

I second your idea, C2!

GAF, before lunch as I was perusing the aisles at Whole Foods (a place where I rarely shop) I was pondering your topic in particular. I'd be very interested in your paper - wish I'd had time to chat today! It will be an interesting topic for a place like Patty's...

Just the idea of Gary delivering a talk on "Virtuous Food: 'Conscientious Production' as Moral Imperative" at a place like Patty's blows my mind.

This year's symposium had a theme that seems to have generated a lot of excellent papers (indeed, the submission level for 2007 was extraordinarily high) and that was certainly the case with those of my fellow members of the Chicago contingent. Luckily, participants have the chance to read the texts that are submitted for, with the parallel sessions, it is never possible to attend all the talks one wants to attend. But even so, since the presentations are not just readings of the texts, one does miss out on new material and, of course, the often fascinating discussions that follow. It was great to see Michaela, Gary and Bruce there and also to have the chance finally to meet Colleen Sen. I also had a chance to meet and chat with another food scholar who resides in Illinois, Carolyn Nadeau, who is a professor of Spanish down at Illinois Wesleyan in Bloomington.

All in all, a most memorable symposium... except the bits when I was blacking out on Rosie's Scrumpy...

Antonius