GREENSBORO, N.C. – Foodies from far and wide can discuss and dine on the cuisine and cultures of Italy, Spain, Africa and the Carolina Lowcountry during Atlantic World Foodways, a conference being held Thursday through Sunday, Jan. 30-Feb. 2, in Greensboro.
Organized by UNCG’s Atlantic World Research Network (AWRN), the event will feature famed Lowcountry Chef Sean Brock, executive chef of Husk and McCrady’s restaurants in Charleston, S.C. Also featured will be Latin American food virtuosa Maricel Presilla, winner of the 2013 James Beard Award for Best Cookbook, “Gran Cocina Latina,” along with scholars and other chefs from around the region and as far away as London.
“We have designed a unique feast of ideas and food, an international and interdisciplinary conference exploring four great transatlantic foodways: the Carolina Lowcountry, African, Italian and Spanish/Latin American,” said Dr. Christopher Hodgkins, professor of English and AWRN director at UNCG. “Our conference will bring together inquiring minds and discerning palates as we ask how transatlantic contact combined and transformed old foodways, and how those foodways have transformed us all.”
Cosponsors are the O.Henry and Proximity hotels and specialty grocer The Fresh Market. Conference sessions will be held at UNCG in Elliott University Center, and on Sunday Feb. 2 at the Proximity Hotel. The hotels will host the meals: Lowcountry Day on Jan. 31 and Latin Lunch on Feb. 2 at Printworks Bistro at the Proximity, and Italian Day on Feb. 1 at Green Valley Grill at the O.Henry.
Information on costs, registration, conference sessions and meals is available at the website http://www.uncg.edu/eng/awrn/, by calling 336-334-4695 or emailing awrn@uncg.edu.
Food scholars can feed their appetites with a variety of panel discussions. A sampling of topics includes “A place at the table? The politics of Food”; “Studying, Marketing and Cooking Lowcountry Food”; “Reel meals: food and film”; “Organized crime and Italian food: an historical perspective”; and “Sea changes: culinary connections in the African Atlantic world.”
