Presentation of the Issue on Cuisine & Performance

Ivan Magrin-Chagnolleau

To Cite this Article

Magrin-Chagnolleau, I. (2016). Presentation of the Issue on Cuisine & Performance. p-e-r-f-o-r-m-a-n-c-e, 3.

Gastronomy is an important part of our culture. The way we eat says a lot about who we are, what culture has shaped us, and the choices we have made concerning our food and the way we eat it. Gastronomy is surrounded by many rituals, and we often perform the way we eat. Besides, since we need to eat every day, we are engaged in rituals and performative acts related to gastronomy every day.

So when Allen S. Weiss suggested to me that we do a special issue of the journal p-e-r-f-o-r-m-a-n-c-e on Cuisine and Performance, I was very enthusiastic from the very beginning. It took us a lot of time to assemble this issue, choosing the contributors, getting their contributions, reviewing them, and coordinating academic essays and artistic contributions, and Allen did most of the work on that. But here we are, very proud to present you with a very untypical issue dealing with various performative aspects of cuisine and gastronomy.

I am also particularly happy with this issue as it is the first one that really looks like what I had envisioned when I founded the journal p-e-r-f-o-r-m-a-n-c-e, a place where scholars and artists can meet, while pursuing the same goal, though through different means: get a better understanding of who we are as human beings, and how we express who we are academically and artistically.

Many thanks to Allen for his proposal, and for engaging with me in putting this issue together; many thanks to the various contributors for their original proposals and their patience; and many thanks to the scientific committee for supporting us from the very beginning.

To taste without moderation!