Making Levantine Cuisine: A Critical Food Studies Symposium

The Levant is home to some of the most storied cuisines in the world, from the refined cuisine of Aleppo to popular street foods like falafel. Yet much of its centuries-old history remains unwritten, and there are few academic studies of its contemporary food cultures. What is Levantine cuisine historically, gastronomically, and culturally? Can studying the region’s food and foodways help us understand what constitutes “the Levant” or what counts as “Levantine,” and how it came to be? What does writing a region’s culinary history entail? This symposium aims to answer these questions and more with perspectives from history, anthropology, literature, and other disciplines.

The symposium is organized by Graham Pitts and Anny Gaul, with generous support from the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and the US Department of Education Title VI grant supporting the National Resource Center-Middle East/North Africa at Georgetown University.