We have to eat to survive and thrive. Yet, at the same time, food choices and eating habits reveal strong social distinctions that are constantly being replayed and renegotiated throughout the course of our lives. Food operates on so many levels: as key to our personal appreciation of our own health and well-being, defining and building family relationships, enhancing community solidarity, marking time and key events, as well as acting as a means to assert doctrinal conformity. Evaluations of eating habits evoke strong feelings of superiority or inferiority and our constant interactions are key to the transmission of culture.

This seminar reviewed the complexity of our relationship with food, using contemporary, historical and archaeological examples to support the arguments presented. It was also intended to encourage participants to consider their personal eating habits as culturally imbued and sociologically significant.