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a critical mind is as essential as a critical palate |
Culinary RestorationThis stream seeks to define and facilitate optimal networks of cultural, artisanal and agricultural synergies to inspire vibrant food and community relationships. Sustainable gastronomy posits that a resilient and sustainable food system cannot operate without vital culinary restoration strategies complimenting government supported food policy. Key to culinary restoration is the artisan. For they are the ones that feed the indefinable passion we have for tastes that move us. Art has always spoken to the heart, not the intellect. As such farmers of heritage foods, artisan food producers, organic farmers, chefs who work with their foods are all artists whose passion for their work speaks to our own passions. This is the food that creates healthy cultures. |
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Artisan Food ProducersArtisan food production and farming practices are critical to Culinary Restoration. Artisans value skilled labour, creativity, purity, and heirloom products. Through their art they ensure biodiversity, nutritional integrity, organic farming methods, and the development and maintenance of culturally significant cuisines. Their art thrills body and soul. |
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Food production is an art and a choice - farmers should never be slaves. Do not support the enslavement of others for the production of your food.These are images of child slaves in West Africa used in the farming of cocoa beans to make chocolate. Find Out More: >> All About Chocolate and >> Chocolate & Slavery |
Restoration through Education: Sustainable Gastronomy Tastings
A significant component of sustainable gastronomy’s culinary restoration is the critical education tastings. Food, after all, is delicious and affects several of our major senses. We are taught from a young age how to experience, understand, and perform many of the major arts like dance, painting, and music. Yet how often do we get a chance to experience and learn about the art and history of the food that fuels our lives and passions?
Sustainable Gastronomy Tastings were first developed for my professional writing courses offered at the Victoria School of Writing. The underlying philosophy of a Sustainable Gastronomy Tasting is that a critical mind is as essential as a critical palate. Cuisine does not happen in a vacuum of a single bite – it is an intimate and immediate connection to ecological and social systems far removed from the table. Through taste one enters a series of implicit and explicit relationships that bind the taster to elements and issues around the world.
Sustainable Gastronomy Tastings embrace the artisan and aesthetic relationship by providing unique taste opportunities while contextualizing them within social, cultural, and political human history. These tastings explore the ecological, economic, and social costs of modern appetites and production methods. Ideally, a good tasting will feed the mind, soul, and body.
This form of taste education is not about snobbery or exclusivity. It is about understanding how a food has shaped human history and societal structures while at the same time exploring how that food has changed with the impacts of modern industrial unsustainable food systems. The packaging may be prettier but the palate never lies.