Masterclass 'Food, Memory, Heritage' - Allen Weiss

In assocation with research centre FOST, FARO will be holding a masterclass with Allen Weiss on Friday, June 4, 2010. Allen S. Weiss – writer, editor, translator, curator, playwright – is the author and editor of forty books in the fields of gastronomy, landscape architecture, performance theory, and sound art, including 'Feast and Folly: Cuisine, Intoxication, and the Poetics of the Sublime' (SUNY Press), 'Comment cuisiner un phénix' and 'Autobiographie dans un chou farci' (both Mercure de France). He recently published his first novel, 'Le Livre bouffon' (Le Seuil), and is currently working on the second volume of his culinary autobiography, 'La métaphysique de la miette', as well as a study of the relations between Zen gardens, pottery and cuisine. He teaches in the departments of Performance Studies and Cinema Studies at New York University.

Allen Weiss: “If I had to insist on a single principle in relation to the study of food, I would say that knowledge increases flavor. (This rings better in French: Le savoir augmente les saveurs.) Any text on food should have at least four requirements: it should make you want to eat, make you wish to read, make you desire to dine with the author, make you know thyself. In this context, I would argue that 'authenticity' is a term all too often misused and abused in the popular press, and misunderstood and depreciated in the academic milieu. I wish to propose a use-value of the term opposed to the often conservative, indeed reactionary use, and thus save the term for its inherent descriptive and theoretical values. For in all matters, I am vigorously opposed to any manifestations of lexical policing. Foucault spoke of Marx, Nietzsche and Freud as 'philosophers of suspicion'; in turn, I believe that we also need to be suspicious of those who are suspicious, and question the questioning of words. Thus I propose an examination of the origins and forms of my own taste, by means of examining my fetish dish – the stuffed cabbage – in the light of issues of tradition and innovation, dialogue and critique, authenticity and hybridity.”

Practical information

Friday, June 4, 2010, 3:00pm – 6:00pm, FARO, meeting room B (auditorium), Priemstraat 51, 1000 Brussels.

Registration fee: free – to register, please use the registration form below. Beverage and a small snack are included.

For more information, please contact Birgit Geudens, birgit.geudens@faronet.be