"Feeding the World" - The Festival Histoire et Cité explores our food

 

From March 28 to April 2, the Festival Histoire et Cité explores the theme of food under the title "Feeding the World". It takes place in Geneva and Lausanne and is hosted for the first time in Neuchâtel. Dialogue, reflection, sharing! A vast program of activities awaits the public, along with many special meetings. Histoire et Cité invites researchers from all horizons, as well as personalities with a unique perspective on the past: writers, filmmakers, journalists and artists.

 

Food is at the heart of the way human groups have structured themselves over time. What do we eat in each era, in different places, depending on whether we are a woman or a man, destitute or wealthy, with whom and in what way? Where do foodstuffs circulate, and to what extent does their (in)availability affect the security and development of peoples? How are tastes and culinary traditions formed? Where does the political dimension of food lie? What does the food of the future look like? 

 

So many questions that this 8th edition of the Festival Histoire et Cité proposes to answer by inviting to its table historians Marie-Pierre Rey, Georges Vigarello, Nicolas Werth, Alessandro Stanziani, Sylvain Venayre, writers Elisa Shua Dusapin and Ananda Devi, journalist Nora Bouazzouni, the chef and historian Philippe Ligron, or the comic book writer Aurélia Aurita, among others.

 

The senses on the alert

In addition to conferences, round tables, film screenings, exhibitions and book presentations, there are also participatory formats: a raclette performance, a literary bike ride, historical meals (in Geneva, Lausanne and Neuchâtel), culinary workshops, guided and theatrical tours, a climate café and a film quiz. Seeking to understand food in its historical context undoubtedly requires the mobilization of the five senses.

 

Contrasting flavors

From the pleasures of the table to asceticism, from breastfeeding to fasting, from the Paleolithic diet to the agri-food industry, from the quest for exoticism to the resources of the land, from the banquet to the hunger strike, from diplomacy through the plate to planned famine, from gastronomy to junk food, from globalized trade to autarky, from cannibalism to vegetarianism, from religious prohibitions to the condition of fat people, "Feeding the World" explores contrasting flavors.