Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery
Influential in its field,[2] the Oxford Symposium is the oldest such annual meeting in the world,[3] though a series of scientific conferences on the anthropology and ethnology of food began in the 1970s.
On this occasion Elizabeth David enunciated the rule-of-thumb that it takes a generation (a minimum of 25 years) for a newly devised dish to pass from the kitchen to the written record.
Claudia Roden joined the group on 11 May; by 18 May participants included Jane Grigson, Elizabeth Lambert Ortiz, Sri Owen and the Dutch food writers Berthe Meijer and Titia Bodon.
[14] Maria Johnson, speaking on "North Balkan Food Past and Present", showed photographs of two models found in archaeological excavations in Bulgaria and claimed to be as much as 7,000 years old, one of a bread oven and one of a loaf decorated with impressions of acorns.
Speakers in Near Eastern cuisines included Charles Perry, editor on the Los Angeles Times, who discussed "Three Medieval Arabic Cook Books".
Other major topics included the historical significance of the potato in Ireland, discussed by the social historian Jillian Strang and the food writer Joyce Toomre.
Many contributions consisted of recipes "with comments upon their composition and their culinary possibilities", a form unsuited to reprinting in the usual volume format; some of the others were published elsewhere.
[21] Fourteen remaining papers appeared in a two-year volume, alongside the 1985 symposium proceedings, under the section title "Cookery Books and the Transmission of Recipes".
Organised by Tom Jaine, restaurateur and restaurant critic, it was the largest symposium so far, with 150 delegates from Britain, many European countries, Australia and the United States.
[24] By this time the Oxford Symposium claimed imitators elsewhere in the world: there had been four recent conferences under the aegis of the American Institute of Wine & Food, while other series of symposia were under way in Australia, Turkey and New England (the latter hosted by the Culinary Historians of Boston).
Sami Zubaida of Birkbeck College spoke on "Oils and Fats in the Middle East", while Barbara Santich gave a historical outline of medieval thickeners.
Historical papers were given by Anna del Conte on 18th century Naples and Charles Perry on Near Eastern rotted condiments (including Murri).
The theme for 1990 was Fasts and Feasts,[32] and plenary sessions were addressed by Astri Riddervold, Bjorn Fjellheim and Marit Ekne Ruud.
Historian Phyllis Pray Bober spoke on "The Black or Hell Banquet", a kind of jeu d'esprit arranged by the emperor Domitian, by Grimod de La Reynière and others through history.
[39] Fat-tailed sheep recurred in Charles Perry's paper; June di Schino discussed and offered samples of the monastic confectionery of southern Italy, including (from the monastery of Santa Maria dell'Itria in Sciacca, Sicily) honey cookies made in the shape of a woman with three breasts.
Gastronomic events at the 1994 symposium included the most authentic Mexican meal yet seen in Britain, featuring huitlacoche and amaranth greens flown in from Mexico.
[40] The 1995 symposium, on the theme of Cooks and Other People, was the last to feature a Saturday do-it-yourself lunch to which symposiasts brought unusual foods from all over the world: organizers concluded this was "no longer possible with the present rules of hygiene".
This lunch ended with two spectacular dessert, instant ice cream (Peter Barham poured liquid nitrogen into a bowl of crême anglaise) and sorbet: Robin Weir used Château d'Yquem, the premier cru supérieur Sauternes, as the basis for this costly delicacy.
[41] Gillian Riley spoke on "Platina, Martino and Their Circle"; cooks under discussion ranged from Mithaecus to Dorothy Hartley and from Nikolaos Tselementes to Martha Stewart, while "other people" who had influenced cuisine included Alexander the Great, John Calvin and Nils Gustav Dalén (Nobel laureate and inventor of the Aga).
Helen M. Leach traced the history of the pavlova, Layinka Swinburne the use of ship's biscuit and portable soup, and Colin Spencer the spread of the rocambole.
Two American academics, both prolific food history authors, made early appearances: Ken Albala spoke on "Fish in Renaissance Dietary Theory", while Andrew F. Smith, traced the cultural links between garum and ketchup.
Kathie Webber spoke on a South African delicacy, Pondoland oysters.Two food scientists contributed, Harold McGee with reference to snake mackerel, orange roughy and their slippery lipids, while Nicholas Kurti (one of the earliest symposiasts) discussed the freshwater carp, catfish (Silurus glanis) and pike that were dietary staples in the Hungary of his childhood.
Among papers relevant to painting were Robert Irwin's "The Disgusting Dinners of Salvador Dalí" and Gillian Riley's study of the still lifes of Luis Meléndez.
[45] The 1999 symposium was heralded by Nicholas Wroe in the Guardian: "51 papers on the theme of Milk: Its Uses, Products and Substitutes, embracing history, health, chemistry and sociology will be delivered to an audience of 200 historians, scientists and writers as well as domestic and commercial cooks[6] Ove Fosså explored the true age of Norwegian gamalost cheese, and Carolin Young revisited Marie Antoinette's dairy (la Laiterie de la Reine) at Rambouillet.
The title of the joint paper by Gerald and Valerie Mars, anthropologist and historian respectively, was "Fat in the Victorian Kitchen: a medium for cooking, control, deviance and crime."
The published volume was edited for the first time by Richard Hosking,[51] an academic who worked in Japan for many years, a specialist in Japanese food, and a regular symposiast.
