Connecting past to present - a long term view of changing crops, agriculture, and foodways in northern Sudan
Dr.Philippa Ryan
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Lo
Globally agriculture has become increasingly focused on an arrow range of species during the twentieth century. Agricultural practices have been rapidly changing in northern Sudan, mirroring these trends. Ethnobotanical, archival and archaeological approaches we reused to investigate crophistories. Fieldwork in Nubian villages showed several currently minor cereals and pulses were previously major subsistence crops. Much of the information about crops changes since them id-20 th century, and about their beneficial traits, cultivation and processing was in the memories of elderly farmers and can now be considered endangered knowledge. This paper discusses changes within local cropping patterns and foodsystems in recent decades, and perspectives from the recent and ancient past on the long-term cultivation and previous importance of several of today’s minor foodcrops.
Gastronomy in the Capital of Europe: a Very Short History
Prof. Dr. em. Peter Scholliers
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
If food is a means of communication, which message would a city’s food scenery carry? This question is particularly relevant with regard to the city of Brussels, the non-official capital of the EU. Central to the talk is the interaction between city and the supernational organisation or, rather, between Brussels’ restaurant owners, cooks, waiters, culinary journalists on the one hand, and the many local, national and especially international diners on the other. The talk starts with the emergence of the modern Parisian restaurant in Brussels in the 1800s, assessing the influence of the French haute cuisine. It continues by considering the growth of a local, identifiable cuisine throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, to end with a survey of the post-1945 developments. Overall, the is sue of identity construction by using food and the so-called gastronomic diplomacy will be addressed. Alas, no food or beer tasting