A recent collaborative workshop delivered by researchers at the University of Sheffield’s Institute for Sustainable Food (ISF) and The Culinaria Research Centre at the University of Toronto, delved into the fascinating world of global food provisioning. From the historical journeys of popular beverages like beer to the contemporary challenges of food security, the two-day workshop explored how food systems function across the globe both historically and today.
The Histories & Geographies: Circulating Food & Drink Around Global Provisioning event was a two-day hybrid workshop held at the University of Toronto campus, intended to highlight the collaboration between the two universities.
Professor Siobhan Lambert-Hurley and Professor Phil Withington, both from the University of Sheffield’s School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities, attended and were key speakers at the event.
Researchers from both universities have previously collaborated as part of the 'Forgotten Food: Culinary Memory, Local Heritage and Lost Agricultural Varieties in India’ project, funded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund Knowledge Exchange Grant.
Led by Professor Lambert-Hurley, the Forgotten Food project aimed to preserve and revive lost culinary traditions in India. Bringing food historians, sociologists, literary scholars and plant scientists into dialogue with heritage practitioners, authors, cooks and street vendors, the project addressed challenges linked to local communities and food sustainability in India.
The Culinaria Research Centre was a project partner for this. Professor Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, worked with partner lead, Dr Jayeeta Sharma, Associate Professor for the Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences, Culinaria Research Centre and Graduate Department of History at the University of Toronto, to organise panels at academic conferences to showcase the project's research and oversee procurement of heritage rice seed. The two researchers also co-edited a special issue of Global Food History on 'Forgotten Food Histories of South Asia'.
It has been a pleasure to work with Jo Sharma and Culinaria on the Forgotten Food project since 2019. Our shared interest in recovering and growing heritage rice varieties, in particular, resulted in important collaborations benefiting Indian farmers, crop diversity and local heritage initiatives. We welcome the chance to build on this project partnership by instituting more formal collaboration between Culinaria and Sheffield’s ISF going forward.
Professor Siobhan Lambert-Hurley
School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
Day one
Dr Jayeeta Sharma from the University of Toronto, opened the event by sharing insights into past and future research, highlighting the connection between the University of Sheffield's Forgotten Food project and Institute for Sustainable Food, and the University of Toronto's Feeding City Lab and Culinaria Research Centre.
An academic workshop took place involving a variety of speakers from both universities, who discussed topics from the history of Britain’s intoxicant economy and rice cultivation to modern farming practices and food retail.
Day two
Day two saw an informal roundtable discussion on the theme of 'Cultures and Futures of Heirloom Food Crops', which was open to scholars, students and public participants. Co-organised with the Jackman Humanities Institute Working Group ‘Theorizing Scholar-Activism and Global Food Sovereignty Movement’, the discussion focused on Rampur’s ‘Heirloom’ rice (University of Sheffield Speakers) and ‘Traditional’ rice of Tamil Nadu & Kerala (University of Toronto Speakers).
The event was held in the Culinaria Research Centre Kitchen Lab. Attendees could experience a taste test and other sensory engagement with two heritage rice varieties produced by the Forgotten Food and Feeding City Lab projects: raktashali (a red rice from south India known for its nutritional and medicinal properties) and tilak chandan (a highly aromatic short grain rice from the north of India).
The hybrid nature of the workshop enabled academics and partners in India to take part in the discussion, including local historian Tarana Husain Khan, and farmer and agriculturist Birendra Singh Sandhu. As part of the Forgotten Food project and on behalf of the Sheffield research team, Sandhu grew heritage rice varieties like hansraj and tilak chandan that had become extinct in the region.
It was clear from our visit to Toronto that there are strong synergies between Culinaria and ISF. Both bring together wide-ranging interdisciplinary expertise; both seek to understand food systems and practices in the past and the present; and both are committed to enabling food sustainability, security, and equity in the future.
Professor Phil Withington
School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
Whilst in Toronto, Siobhan and Phil also ran a successful panel titled, ‘Recovering the History of Comestibles Since 1500: Sources and Methodologies’, at the Social Sciences Historical Association conference. The panel, which took place on Saturday 2 November, brought together the following food projects from the UK and Ireland:
- Practice-based interdisciplinary approaches to early modern diet: The FoodCult brewing Project- Susan Flavin, Trinity College Dublin
- Interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the history of tobacco consumption in Western Europe- Sarah Inskip, University of Leicester; Anna Davies-Barrett, University of Leicester
- A People’s Archive of Food Memories: Oral Histories from India in Pandemic Times- Siobhan Lambert Hurley, University of Sheffield
- Legal Testimonies and Historical Ethnography- Phil Withington, University of Sheffield.
Outside of their recent work in Toronto, Phil and Siobhan have each received a prestigious Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust for 2024-27 for work on histories of food and drink. The School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities is the only department in the country to be awarded two of these prestigious fellowships, out of a total of 28 awarded in the UK.