[Gandur] Fyrirlestur: Tastes that travel: Mexican food and ingredients in the global marketplace: 30. nóv. kl 12 í Odda 205

[Ólafur Rastrick]

*Tastes that Travel: Mexican food and Ingredients in the Global 
Marketplace*

Open lecture by Melissa Biggs

30.11.2017, 12:00-13:00; Oddi-205

What happens when local and regional cuisines become popular outside of 
their points of origin? Over the last two decades, Mexican gastronomy 
has experienced a global boom, especially after its 2010 inscription 
into UNESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Restaurants opened 
by Mexican outside of Mexicopresent dishes that rely on regionally 
specific ingredients—particular varieties of chiles, herbs, or grains, 
for example—while internationally recognized chefs such as René Redzepi 
travel to Mexico to learn about Mexican ingredients and techniques. This 
talk provides a brief history of the “Mexican boom,” and explores the 
routes of Mexican ingredients and dishes as they move from Mexico to 
other parts of the world. What kinds of relationships are established 
between Mexican producers and foreign markets? How does online marketing 
and purchasing affect the relationships between producers, providers, 
and chefs? And what happens when traditional ingredients are refashioned 
into products intended for a global market?

*Melissa Biggs* is a social anthropologist whose research interests 
include cultural politics and representation, critical heritage studies, 
nationalism and indigenous rights, and food culture. From August 2016 
until May 2017, she was a Fulbright-García Robles scholar based in 
Guadalajara, Jalisco, México. She is currently an independent scholar 
based in Guadalajara. She is affiliated with the National School of 
Anthropology and History's permanent seminar "The Cuisines of Mexico and 
their Histories."