Seminar - August 2016
An Avignon Table, 1772-73
Professor Emeritus Barbara Santich
For the August Food Values Research Group Seminar Series, we are pleased to present Professor Emeritus Barbara Santich.
The archives Galéan de Gadagne, held in the Vaucluse departmental archives, include a document of great interest to food historians: the accounts of the household of Gaspard II de Fortia de Montréal for the years 1772-1773. M. Pradel, the household steward, was meticulous in his record-keeping, noting precise quantities and prices for all food purchases, and often their end-use. In the absence of printed cookbooks for the period, these accounts open a window on to the domestic life of a noble family and provide valuable information on meals and eating habits in eighteenth-century Provence.
When: Friday, 12th of August, 1-2 PM
Where: Ira Raymond Room, Barr Smith Library, North Terrace Campus, University of Adelaide (click here for campus map)
Barbara Santich designed and initiated the Graduate Program in Food Studies, planned the Graduate Program in Gastronomy and developed the core courses, and teaches in the Graduate Certificate in Food Writing. France and Australia remain at the centre of Barbara's research interests. Her most recent book is Bold Palates: Australia's Gastronomic Heritage (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 2012). This book explores the stories behind the foods, dishes, ways of cooking and ways of eating that are considered distinctively and characteristically Australian, from indigenous ingredients such as kangaroo and native currants to the now-Australianised pumpkin and passionfruit and the very Australian inventions of puftaloons and mango & papaw chutney. As a food writer Barbara Santich has contributed to numerous Australian newspapers and magazines as well as overseas publications including The Journal of Gastronomy, Petits Propos Culinaires, the New York Times and Slow (quarterly magazine of the International Slow Food Movement). She contributed extensively to the Oxford Companion to Food, edited by Alan Davidson, has presented papers at many Australian and overseas conferences, and is a regular participant at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. Barbara is a member of the Editorial Board of Petits Propos Culinaires and, until it ceased publication in 2007, was also on the Editorial Advisory Board of Slow. She was the founding chair of the Scientific Commission for the Australian Ark of Taste (2003-2007).