CFP for Special Issue in Food, Culture and Society: Less Palatable, Still Valuable: Taste, Agrobiodiversity, and Culinary Heritage
Type: Call for Papers
Subject Fields: Area Studies, Environmental History / Studies, Public Health, World History / Studies, Social Sciences
CFP for Special Issue in Food, Culture and Society
Less Palatable, Still Valuable: Taste, Agrobiodiversity, and Culinary Heritage
People
across the world eat many things that they would readily admit are not
particularly tasty. Contexts include economic boycotts, dietary
restrictions, ritual meals, and hunger. Taking into consideration that
taste and palatability are culturally conditioned, this special issue of
Food, Culture, and Society
explores the relationship between taste and value by focusing upon
cultivated and wild food plants that are perceived to be
socio-culturally important even as they are characterized as bland, less
delicious, and even “bad.” This special issue brings attention to cases
in which edible plants considered less palatable are valued because
they contribute to agrobiodiversity, healthfulness or well-being,
symbolism, ritual use, or as culinary heritage. This special issue
considers the following questions: How do taste and value intersect and
affect each other? When do communities savor less appealing flavors?
What do social patterns, semiotics, and historical changes tell us about
the place of distinctly less appealing, sometimes even unappealing,
flavors and food crops? How do sociocultural factors, including
environmental conservation, healthfulness, and the maintenance of
tradition shape the valuation of taste? In pondering these questions,
the articles in this special issue will suggest ways of incorporating
the “less delicious” into the safeguarding of agrobiodiversity and
culinary heritage and the promotion of healthful foodways. In this way,
this issue as a whole will contribute a new dimension to studies of
conservation, heritage, and nutrition by exploring when and why people
eat what their taste buds do not find most delicious and practical ways
to protect and promote edible plants with less appealing taste profiles.
Papers
on underrepresented cultivated or wild edible plants that emphasize the
diversity of social conceptions of “taste” and deliciousness are
particularly welcomed, as are those that examine the links between the
socio-cultural constructions of taste and biodiversity maintenance or
loss. The special issue will incorporate a broad geographic scope,
including “less delicious” food crops in Japan, India, and indigenous
Papua New Guinea and Brazil. Papers that complement these case studies
will be considered, especially those focusing on regions such as Africa,
Europe, and Southeast Asia.
If you are interested in submitting a paper to the special issue, please send an abstract to Greg de St. Maurice (gregdestmaurice@ad.ryukoku.ac.jp) and Theresa Miller (millerth@si.edu) by 28 January 2016. The deadline for complete first drafts of papers is June 2016.
Contact Info:
Greg
de St. Maurice (Ryukoku University, special issue co-editor), Theresa
Miller (Smithsonian Institution, special issue co-editor)
Contact Email: