Food and the City Conference, February 24 – 25, 2012

Boston University, Photonics Center, Room 906

Food and the City, an initiative of Boston University’s History Department, is pleased to announce a two-day conference dedicated to a historical discussion about the relationship between food and cities. The event will encourage multi-disciplinary, global perspectives and explore how the history of feeding cities could inform the design and practices of urban food systems in the future.

For registration and program information click here

My book on the Porta Palazzo market will be out in April. You can order it on the University of Pennsylvania Press site.

Porta Palazzo

The Anthropology of an Italian Market

Rachel E. Black. Foreword by Carlo Petrini

240 pages | 6 x 9 | 11 illus.
Cloth Apr 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4406-9 | $49.95s | £32.50 | Add to cart
A volume in the Contemporary Ethnography series

Porta Palazzo, arguably Western Europe’s largest open-air market, is a central economic, social, and cultural hub for Italians and migrants in the city of Turin. Open-air markets like Porta Palazzo have existed for centuries in Europe; although their function has changed over time—traditional markets are no longer the primary place to buy food—they remain popular destinations. In an age of supermarkets and online commerce, markets offer unique social and cultural opportunities and bring together urban and rural worldviews. These factors are often overlooked in traditional economic studies of food distribution, but anthropologist Rachel E. Black contends that social relations are essential for building and maintaining valuable links between production and consumption.

From the history of Porta Palazzo to the current growing pains of the market, this book concentrates on points where trade meets cultural identities and cuisine. Its detailed and perceptive portraits of the market bring into relief the lives of the vendors, shoppers, and passersby. Black’s ethnography illuminates the daily work of market-going and the anxieties of shoppers as they navigate the market. It examines migration, the link between cuisine and cultural identity, culinary tourism, the connection between the farmers’ market and the production of local food, and the urban planning issues negotiated by the city of Turin and market users during a recent renovation. This vibrant study, featuring a foreword by Slow Food Movement founder Carlo Petrini, makes a strong case for why markets like Porta Palazzo are critical for fostering culinary culture and social life in cities.

I will be giving a talk on wine & memory at Boston University’s Anthropology Department next week. This will be a dry run of the paper I am presenting in November at the American Anthropological Association meeting in Montreal.

Graduate Lunch Series Talk

Friday, November 4,    12:00

Anthropology Seminar Room, 232 Bay State Road, Boston, MA

Wine offers a unique opportunity to explore the concept of taste memory. Based on ethnographic research conducted in Piedmont, Italy, this paper will present two taste memory projects that articulate some of the theoretical questions underlying taste and time. The first example is the Banca del Vino in Pollenzo, Italy. The driving motivation behind this special cellar is twofold: first, wines are aged longer than the usual release time so that consumers can enjoy them once they near what is deemed their maximum potential. Second, there is an extensive collection of old wines in this bank that is intended to help preserve taste memory. These wines will help young winemakers and those in the wine trade understand the taste of wine over the longue durée. One complication in this project is that wine is organic and continues to evolve over time. Like human memory, wine’s sensory elements fade as it ages. The second ethnographic example is the “infernöt” that holds the wine memories of small wine producers, which often consist of bottles dating back to the beginning of the family’s production history. These collections are important for reminding the current winemaker of the main sensory themes of the wines and they help in giving the wines a consistent style. This paper will explore the ways in which wine banks and private family collections can be used as historical ‘documents’ that require a unique cultural interpretation involving the senses.

A light lunch will be served.  RSVP to palmerm@bu.edu

BU Today reporter Leslie Friday came out to my urban agriculture class and wrote a wonderful article about the experience. The course was a lot of fun and I think everyone learned a great deal about everything from organic gardening to ecological citizenship and phenomenology. I miss the class and look forward to teaching it again the future.