Negotiating Food Heritage Interpretations: Experiences of a Project at the Estonian National Museum (original) (raw)
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Museums’ contribution to the notion of food heritagisation
Deleted Journal, 2024
In this paper the authors explore how various agents-such as museums, destination companies or small businesses-have actively contributed to food heritagisation on the Lofoten Islands in Northern Norway. By examining the thematic elements and storylines that these agents convey to a broad audience, and by considering their role in the tourism sector, we assert that their collaboration serves as the driving force for preserving and promoting culinary traditions. We specifically focus on the significance of 2 of 18 museums as pivotal institutions in shaping identity. We employ the concept of food heritagisation and test it on the Lofoten Islands as our primary example. Our findings offer an analysis of the challenges and opportunities faced by agents who contribute to food heritagisation on the Lofoten Islands. Moreover, we argue that museums, in conjunction with other local agents, are playing an increasingly influential role in the process of food heritagisation particularly in regions with high tourism. Ultimately, we conclude that the heritagisation of food on the Lofoten Islands represents an overall positive step towards fostering more sustainable and innovative forms of tourism.
Edible Heritage: The Use of Food and Foodways in Multisensory Museum Encounters
Sensory Tourism: Senses and SenseScapes Encompassing Tourism Destinations, 2024
This chapter explores how Scandinavian museums work to create and invite multisensory museum encounters through the use of food and foodways in dissemination practices. A renewed focus on sensory experiences within museums have been part of a general shift to make museums more interactive and engaging for contemporary visitors, a shift which has led some to argue that museums care more about entertainment than education. This chapter aims to nuance this view and to show that there is no great divide between experience and knowledge production, but rather a constructive dialogue. Drawing on data from an online survey with responses from museums in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, as well as interviews with museum professionals and visitors, the chapter aims to explore how foodas a cultural experienceis understood, practiced, embodied and sensed within museum settings, and how this is incorporated into the museum's traditional role of communicating knowledge.
A Taste of Intangible Heritage: Food Traditions Inside and Outside of the Museum
Etnološka istraživanja, Vol.1 No.10 Siječanj 2005:57-62, 2005
As nourishment, food consists of tangible, material substances which humans consume. But the knowledge and practice of food preparation, etiquette of eating and symbolic meanings tied to various foods are all intangible. How does this affect the work of museums?
Master of Arts Dissertation (Distinction), International Heritage Management, University of Birmingham UK, 2023
This research aims to establish the best interpretative strategies to present food histories, narratives and displays in Maltese museums. Given the limited presence of Maltese food in local restaurants, this study seeks to explore how tourists can engage with Maltese food culture and history through museums. Drawing from international examples of food museums and exhibitions, insights from local food curators, historians, chefs, and writers, and the results of a survey eliciting how target audiences would like to experience the interpretation of food in museums, this research endeavours to address the inadequacies in food interpretation narratives within Maltese museums, where current practices often remain object-centric. Rooted in these elicited themes and strategies this study suggests branded museum cafes and a multi-sensory and immersive Museum of Maltese Food as possible mediums for local and foreign visitors to encounter typical Maltese dishes and both historical and contemporary foodways.
Stakeholders and Experts in Culinary Cultural Heritage
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2023
This article is about culinary authenticity as a cultural heritage issue. Our purpose is to establish a distinction between experts and stakeholders that, as we demonstrate, is neglected by the ongoing debate and is critical for addressing the problem posed by culinary authenticity.
Marco Romagnoli, 2019
The 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage paved the way as the first international and binding instrument to safeguard 'intangible cultural heritage'. ICH is a relatively newly-defined concept by UNESCO, differentiated from the category of UNESCO World Heritage related to the 1972 Convention. This shift of paradigm-from tangible to intangible, from 'cultural objects' to 'cultural processes', and from protecting to safeguarding-constitutes a renewal of the definition and management of immaterial manifestations as well as their inscription on the UNESCO ICH Lists. In 2010, the Traditional Mexican Cuisine, the Mediterranean diet and the Gastronomic Meal of the French were inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. These inscriptions represented a step forward in UNESCO's recognition of new heritage categories and, more specifically, the consideration of gastronomy with regard to its symbolic, identity and ritual role in societies. From 2010, more gastronomic elements made it to the List. Nevertheless, academic research on food heritage mainly analysed case studies about cuisine and food instead of providing theoretical perspectives, and the effects of food heritagisation on the UNESCO List are far from having been thoroughly studied and evaluated through fieldwork. The aim of this paper is to explore the ways in which heritage is constructed 1) starting by defining cultural heritage, Intangible Cultural Heritage and gastronomic heritages, 2) continuing to challenge the actual feasibility of heritagising gastronomy and the social practices associated therewith, via UNESCO, and 3) ending with some reflections on the reasons for the great interest in inscribing food heritage with UNESCO.
There are more than 15,000 historic house museums (HHMs) in the United States (Godfrey). Outnumbering McDonald’s restaurants, they are the meat and potatoes of Americans’ public history experience, representing by far the nation’s commonest museum genre (Godfrey, Zupan). As domestic spaces, most historic houses include food facilities--kitchens, dining rooms, fields, barns, outbuildings or gardens--in which audiences encounter American food history and construct evolving understandings of the edible past. In an era in which food commands civic debate and individual fascination, food experiences in HHMs have the potential to be personally powerful as well as to help build community capacity for creating more sustainable food systems. Too often, though, historic houses fall short of offering such generative experiences. At their worst, they are downright misleading, failing to interpret food-related topics in ways that are faithful to historical realities while also connecting to issues and ideas of import to the wider society. This capstone project identifies factors in interpretive planning that contribute to this gap, critiques current best practices for interpretive planning, and proposes a modified approach designed to support HHMs in developing food history interpretation that is well-founded, inclusive and relevant to contemporary concerns.
A Review on the Notions of Food Heritage Conservation
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences
The topic heritage has been researched more these days for the simple reason that it needs researching. It can be tangible to the senses and intangible as abstract ideas which both are equally susceptible to extinction. In the intangible heritage, food is despite its tangible dynamic sensorial attributes, it is also non-material in existence as the true heritage lies in the ideas, recipes, methods, cultures, and practices of making rather than the food itself. These instances mentioned, also could mean for varying comprehensions across the globe. This paper argues on the global differences in the basics of food heritage and its aspects as well as how it is compared to Malaysia's notions of the topic. Inevitably, this includes the issues of traditional food authenticity, as elusive features of perfection, are deemed to be obligatory. Understanding the basics is vital for Malaysia to strengthen its food heritage antiquity against globalization's compromises. Henceforth, this review article discusses the perceived authenticity and introducing artisanal food to better understand the heritage food's production.
Scaling up and down the edible heritage. Food and foodways as terrains of cultural friction
Transboundary Heritage and Intellectual Property Law, 2022
Food and foodways have come to the forefront of debates on intellectual property and cultural heritage. On the one hand, they involve visceral and deep affects. On the other hand, they encompass crucial concerns for rural populations, ranging from biocultural knowledge to food security, strategic territorialisation, and market participation. This chapter argues that the heritagisation of food taking place within the frameworks established by national governments and international organisations is inherently transboundary in character as its effects are never expected to be dealt with at the local level only, thus putting pressure on local populations who see themselves at risk from being marginalised by heritage policies implemented in their living areas. By focusing on recent controversies in Brazil and Mexico, the chapter argues that a scalar approach offers analytical benefits in examining food heritage governance and the heritagisation of food, as it sheds light on how these processes breed notable disjuncture between global and local perspectives on gain and loss.
Culinary Heritage - Tracing, shaping and reshaping food culture from the Middle Ages to the present
Culinary Heritage - Tracing, shaping and reshaping food culture from the Middle Ages to the present, 2024
This anthology explores food and cultural heritage from various eras to show how food history helps us understand the past, present, and future. It provides new insight into local food cultures and focuses on the creative use of historical food culture for the future. The chapters cover new research on medieval food culture, starting with the Viking ship excavation at Gjellestad, which sheds light on early Norwegian fishing culture. Others address animal husbandry, cultivation, and food processing on medieval farms, and the dietary practices of monastic orders based on Cistercian rules. The history of beer brewing is also highlighted, along with the transition to traditional Nordic cooking after the Middle Ages, influenced by global food trade. Finally, the book discusses the radical changes in Norwegian food culture over the past hundred years, partly driven by developments in the restaurant industry. Culinary Heritage is illustrated with recent photographs taken by the authors, as well as historical images from various collections.