Exploring food as a lens for interdisciplinary research at UWC
Cape Town - Academics and students are encouraged to play with their food and take a bite out of interdisciplinary research. The University of the Western Cape (UWC) co-hosts the Critical Food Studies (CFS) programme with the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of Pretoria.
The Andrew Mellon Foundation has funded it for the past six years.
CFS has launched a book, Thinking Through Food in South Africa: Embodiment, Performance, and Representation. Critical Food Studies aims to broaden the scope of academic inquiry into food beyond nutritional aspects and studies about hunger, food insecurity, and food injustice.
This trans-disciplinary humanities project seeks to use food as a lens to examine various topics in interdisciplinary ways.
Prof Desiree Lewis, from UWC’s Women and Gender Studies and Principal Investigator at the CFS, said food has symbolic, communal, and spiritual meaning and that early philosophers spoke about how central food is to human experience and creativity.
“We aim to explore food in relation to human experience. In other words, think about identity construction. How do people create a sense of class when eating freshly cooked food? How do people create a sense of civility and even the way that food is represented in the media and in the visual arts?” said Prof Lewis.
The book has been in development over the past two years. It is a compilation of research and completed academic theses from students and academics at UWC, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and the University of Pretoria.
She added, “There were so many innovative and new research ideas that needed to be compiled into a book, and this is what we have done. Even if you think of the symbolism of certain ingredients, such as spices, in some instances, certain spices are symbolic and even sacred.”
Chapter 13 of the book is entitled Kitchens, Archives, and Cookbooks. It features a conversation with three UWC students about the cookbooks they produced for the 2023 Kitchen Histories module at the Department of Historical Studies.
Amber Poggenpoel is the author of the ‘Poggenpoel Cookbook’, which delves into the sacredness of spices in her family.
“My sister’s spice mix is secret. She says it’s her secret. When we bought fish and chips, she only ate the chips with what was called ‘Fisherman’s Spice’. We never knew what was in that spice, but Storm (her sister) decided she wanted to make it herself.”
With the help of their father, Amber’s sister has created a spice that is now a family secret: “Whenever my dad went away, he’d bring back spices for my sister to try and mix with other spices, until eventually, Storm came up with a mix that was exactly like the spice on the chips. And now we put it on everything - hot chips, fried fish, fried chicken, and even eggs. So, the mix is her secret, and she doesn’t want anyone to know.”
The plurality of cultures, religions, and experiences in South Africa offers numerous opportunities for further exploration in food studies, such as examining the hybrid nature of different cuisines and their complex histories.
The book will be launched on 9 December at 9:30 at the Iyatsiba Lab (66 Greatmore Street, Woodstock, Cape Town) at the Food & Feeling event.
This one-day event aims to explore relationships between food and the senses, examining how food and taste are complicatedly linked to memory, olfaction, visuality, and the tactile.
Weekend Argus