Postprandial Musings

The dinner party is over. The guests have left, and in postprandial languor the host feels the emptiness that follows all gatherings after everyone is gone. As with every good dinner, planning and preparation took long hours of dedication and the actual party went too fast. There was so little time to talk to all those present, to listen to all that was being discussed by them, to make plans for a future similar encounter around the table.

The ideals of the slow food movement become so much more urgent as we find ourselves trying to cover hastily so much in such a short limited time. We need to adopt in our academic endeavors the slow pace of good cooking and prolong our research in a continuous and lasting process. The enthusiasm and encouragement shown by so many of the participants in the conference have convinced me that there is a need to continue planning and working for the long run, for a project that will last beyond the few days of an academic meeting.

One hopes, then, that the memory of the party we just had--a pot-luck of sorts as each one brought a distinct contribution to the feast--will not fade too soon and the conversations and the exchange of ideas and insights will continue for a long time as more people come to participate with us in the joy of talking about food and its complex meanings.

Let this blog serve for the moment as a meeting place for those who will like to follow the conversation they started during our three days of convivial academic dialogue. I will try to keep it active by providing regularly information about any developments of interest for our research and its propagation. Of course I would like to hear from those who could add to the usefulness of this instrument. In the following weeks I plan to mail to those who participated in the conference, and publish here, some proposals I am concocting while I muse about the now completed 5th Conference on Food Representation. . .

As organizers of the conference we are thankful for the interest, support and enormous contribution of all of the presenters who, after all, constituted the actual conference, and we are counting on them for future developments.