Cured, Fermented and Smoked Foods : Proceedings from the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010

The subject of this year's Symposium is one of the most fecund branches of food studies, ranging across a surprising variety of ingredients.

The international gathering that is the Symposium responded vigorously with a series of essays touching on the foodways of cultures like Korea, China, Ethiopia, ancient Rome, Japan, Transylvania, Indonesia, Turkey, Canada, United States, Ireland, Cyprus, Siberia and the United Kingdom, not to mention central Asia, Holland, Alaska, Africa and Israel. As well as wandering the globe, the authors travel in time drawing on disciplines such as archaeology, orthodox history, oral history and iconography.

There are discussions of the role of cured meats in the military diet, the long history of salt cod in the mediterranean, the art of making sausages in ancient Israel, the anthropology of Ethiopian starch fermentation, the medical history of marmalade and the science of the dry fermentation of sausages. Authors include from America, Ken Albala, Charles Perry, William Rubel and Zona Spray Starks; from Turkey, Aylin Tan and Prescilla Mary Isin; from England, Gillian Riley, Sri Owen, Fuchsia Dunlop and Rosemary Barron, and from Israel, Susan Weingarten.