In a world of wheat and rice we follow the path of rye

Conclusion of the 1st International Food Symposium: Nutrition is leaving culture for leisure

The Center for the National Intellectual Reserve of Moscow State University hosted the first in Russia international scientific and practical symposium dedicated to the history of food and human nutrition traditions, as well as prospects and trends in this area.

Of course, from the point of view of the layman, culinary art can hardly be attributed to the field of academic science. However, in fact, food in the process of the historical development of society and specifically in the field of regional studies, ethnography, anthropology, intercultural and interpersonal human communication not only plays an outstanding role, but also belongs to an important section of the material culture of mankind. “This area is no less important than literature, religion, even morality. For “there is no conversation without lunch,” says the dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Regional Studies of Moscow State University, Doctor of Philology, Professor Galina Molchanova, who delivered the keynote speech “Gastics in Intercultural Communication”. Gastika, let us explain, is the name of the science of the sign and communicative functions of food and drinks, of food intake, of the cultural and communicative functions of potions and treats.

So it turned out to be a true feast of the mind. About a hundred experts from different countries spoke at the plenary and breakout sessions and round tables (about 300 were expected). Everyone knows that Italian cuisine is beyond competition, but, as Anna Pavlova (Moscow, MGIMO) noted, food has almost never been depicted in Italian art in itself, all images of food there are deeply symbolic, starting with the frescoes “Feast of the Soul” from the Etruscan tomb . The same is true in the still lifes of the Christian era - the sign of sin here, oddly enough, is a pear, and the apple is a positive sign symbolizing integrity. Wine is a way of bringing oneself into the state of the gods.

Marina Zagidullina (Chelyabinsk) recalled that initially humanity developed on the basis of civilizations of wheat, maize, and rice. Maize has now been supplanted by competitors, leaving behind wheat and rice. But in Russia, which was going its own way here, food was based primarily on the cultivation of rye. The general global trend is as follows: food is leaving the sphere of culture for the area of leisure, getting rid of the symbolic component and being reduced solely to saturation, “refuelling”. Even Vladimir Vernadsky predicted the possibility of human autotrophy, i.e. direct, without the mediation of the plant and animal world, the synthesis of food from solar energy as a stage of liberation from the body shell. Now Victor Pelevin in the novel “Love for Three Zuckerbrins” describes the transformation of a person into food for phantoms.

The co-founder of the symposium, the Academy of Gastronomic Science and Culture, having disappointed some guests with the tasting and research nature of the accompanying buffet table, promises to publish the best, in its opinion, reports in a special collection. For free.

Alexander LUSY