This cookbook project aims to gather various narratives (autobiographical, fictional, biographical and ethnographic) that foreground descriptions of dishes and their ingredients and/or recipes. Contributions would therefore range from memories of dishes made by others during childhood, favourite personal meals, dishes that have made an impact while travelling or eating out etc.
The cookbook aims to extend an existing body of recipe books/cookbooks published by the University of Pretoria, with the special focus of this one being voices and tastes from three different regions: the Western Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. This project is a continuation of the 5-year inter-institutional Critical Food Studies Programme (https://criticalfoodstudies.org.za) and its work thatspecifically explored three regions. While South Africa’sfood and cuisine landscape is extremely hybridised, distinct trends and legacies also characterise different regions. This is due to a range of factors – including histories of migration, colonial and apartheid social engineering, precolonial and indigenous legacies, the inventiveness of communities and groups in experimenting with locally accessible ingredients. We expect that the narratives will home in on these and related factors, so that rather than offering purely personal accounts, they would uncover cultural, gastronomical and socio-political complexities. The latter may include recipes that also reflect in some ways the gastro-politics of these three regions as well.
Call for Contributions:
This is a humanities focused project and not a traditional recipe book that concentrates on gastronomy or cultural studies. Instead, we are looking for stories that integrate the social histories of food stuffs (particularly ingredients), foodwork, and the sensorial narratives that depict aspects of belonging and identification.
We will select a total of 30 recipes – 10 ‘recipes narratives’ from each of the 3 regions i.e. Western Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
Cookbook Format:
Given the broad aim and varied format, the book will have both scholarly and general appeal and will, therefore, target public humanities scholars and aspiring cooks of all stripes as its primary audience. The cookbook will be digitally produced for open access dissemination. The digital format will allow for each ‘recipe narrative ’to include creative and interactive modes of critical interrogation. We are looking to pioneer a new accordion book to demonstrate the unfolding nature of ideas, engagements and entanglements. This example (https://youtu.be/INTeAUuWxW4) is a physical version and offers a way of envisioning an e-book format that will operate on similar principles. We aim to incorporate music, videos, art works, digitally immersive constructs to add to the creative interpretation of how the book ‘unfolds’.
Publisher:
The book will be published by UP under the Emerging Scholars Initiative (ESI Press). ESI Press has produced a variety of scholarly as well as accessible but critically engaging publications including the recent HumanEATies cookbook that won Best in the World in the University Press category at the 29th Gourmand International Awards in 2023 (see https://esipress.up.ac.za). It is anticipated that this work will be an invaluable contribution to the existing repertoire of the Press.
About the editors:
There will be several editors involved in this project, with each working with others to source and solicit engaging pieces. The editors are: Bester, Rory (UWC), Lewis, Desiree (UWC), Moletsane, R (UKZN), Reddy, Vasu (UFS/UP) and Thuynsma, Heather (UP).
All are senior academics with strong interests in public humanities and accessible knowledgeproduction. Most are connected to the Critical Food Studies Programme and have worked – through research, teaching publications orsupervision – extensively in the area of humanities approaches to food.