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Call for papers - 10th Portuguese-Brazilian Colloquium on Heritage, History and Cultures of Food

Submission of proposals until June 19

19 april, 2024≈ 3 min read

Everyday Tables & Festive Tables

Just like breathing and sleeping, the act of eating is essential for human existence. However, the necessity of eating is enveloped by a cultural dimension so complex that it shapes the very formation of communities, each distinct in its relationship with time, territory, customs, and sociability.

If human beings must have a QUOTIDIAN relationship with foodstuffs, the daily meals we are already entrenched in culture. Do individuals eat alone, or with their families? What meal arrangements allow for everyone to get on with the hustle and bustle of their day? Who serves the meal in families, schools, workplaces, canteens, and restaurants?

Defining a quotidian meal is complex: it involves, firstly, access to food, as well as its quality and preparation. It is also conditioned by economic and cultural acceptance. From a sandwich on a park bench to a packed lunch, fast food on the go, street food, a snack in a café, or a meal in a shopping centre and the snack bar. Is a QUOTIDIAN dinner already a meal on the verge of the FESTIVE? What about coffee after lunch, afternoon tea, the Sunday lunch? Are there clear boundaries between the quotidian and the festive, or are they interchangeable categories?

The FESTIVE is characterised by its exceptionality. It serves, firstly as a focal point for sociability, another human need. A day, an event, a memory, a community, a patron, gather affections, interests, and convergences in a specific table. There, FESTIVE FOOD is abundant, varied or selective, often spectacular or strange in its symbolism. The FESTIVE demands food, but not presented as a mere means to satisfy a primal need. Instead, the food acts as a central element in ritual acts, gestures, and representations of power, ostentation, wealth, prodigality, conviviality, and sharing.

Submissions on this topic should explore these dual axes of reflection or engage them in dialogue.