“Translating the Foods of the World” – A Call for Translations and Reflections on Translating the Worlds of Food

Gastronomica

Gastronomica is pleased to introduce a new journal section with an exclusive focus on translation(s).

Even recipes written in English a century ago need contextualization (if not actual translation of now-obsolete words and/or ingredients) for readers today. Such a task is even more complicated when it comes to translating and adapting centuries-old works from other languages into English, be they cookbooks, primers to survive famine or to cook with rationed foods, guides to “healthy” eating, or similar texts. Despite these challenges, making such primary sources more accessible to students and researchers around the world is critical to stimulating and maintaining the growth of diverse voices in global food studies.  

We therefore invite submission of

  • translations into English of key culinary texts originally written in any language (though currently not available in English), and from all regions of the world. Translations can be of entire texts, or part(s) thereof with critical commentary;
  • essays reflecting on the challenges and opportunities relating to such translations (for example, the need to develop new vocabularies to express indigenous concepts; how translators engage with historical non-English texts like recipes that may assume more information and insight than they provide, and how culinary terminology has changed over time in tandem with other historical developments and shifts);
  • collaborative works featuring two or more scholars in dialogue about a specific translation, and/or (but not limited to) any of the issues outlined above.

We envision clustering translations and other accepted submissions thematically or geographically, with an introduction by one or more contributors, or other invited subject-matter experts.

Essays or translations (with introductions, reference lists, and notes) should be between 4000-8000 words, and should be submitted via the journal’s ScholarOne platform and should otherwise follow the submission guidelines for Scholarly Submissions.

*Please note that we continue to invite all other forms of Scholarly and Food Phenomena submissions, including creative visual works such as photo essays (see art submission guidelines here), and pieces with a focus on food, justice and activism.

Bonus Podcast Dispatch: “The Next Issue”

Gastronomica

As a bonus finale to this season’s podcast series in collaboration with Meant To Be Eaten on Heritage Radio Network, we recorded a roundtable discussion at the 2021 ASFS “Just Food” conference which focussed on what both editors and readers can expect, and would like to see more of, in future issues of Gastronomica. Hosted by Lisa Haushofer, with contributions from Daniel Bender, Paula Johnson, and Amy Trubek.

Podcast Dispatches From Issue 21.2: Michaël Bruckert

Gastronomica

For our fifth series of podcasts produced in collaboration with Meant to Be Eaten on Heritage Radio Network, we sit down (virtually) with authors who have contributed to our recently published second issue of 2021, featuring articles on topics including commensality and creative collaboration, the politics of food systems, and race and representation.

In this episode, Editorial Collective member Melissa Fuster is joined by author Michaël Bruckert, whose recently published article (“Chicken Politics: Agrifood Capitalism, Anxious Bodies, and the New Meanings of Chicken Meat in India“) explores meat industrialization in South India. Recounting his fieldwork in the region of Tamil Nadu, Bruckert traces the commoditization of poultry, from farms, markets, and butcher shops to eateries, home kitchens, and consumers’ plates. In this global South context, he explains how recent developments in animal agriculture have changed how people think about chicken – as animal and as meat – and have in the process materially transformed the chicken itself.

Podcast Dispatches from Issue 21.2: V. Constanza Ocampo-Raeder

Gastronomica

For our fifth series of podcasts produced in collaboration with Meant to Be Eaten on Heritage Radio Network, we sit down (virtually) with authors who have contributed to our recently published second issue of 2021, featuring articles on topics including commensality and creative collaboration, the politics of food systems, and race and representation.

In this episode, Editorial Collective member – and editor of issue 21.2 – Paula Johnson welcomes V. Constanza Ocampo-Raeder to discuss her recently published article “When the Rainbows Bring the Crawfish,” which explores human-nature relationships through the social life of camarones, a Peruvian river crustacean. Drawing together stories of landscape, labor and gastronomic revival, Ocampo-Raeder distills the complexity of crawfish-catching from river to plate.

Podcast Dispatches from Issue 21.2: Eric Funabashi

Gastronomica

For our fifth series of podcasts produced in collaboration with Meant to Be Eaten on Heritage Radio Network, we sit down (virtually) with authors who have contributed to our recently published second issue of 2021, featuring articles on topics including commensality and creative collaboration, the politics of food systems, and race and representation.

In this episode, Editorial Collective member Bob Valgenti welcomes Eric Funabashi to discuss culinary experiences in Brazil following the initial migration of Japanese workers to São Paulo’s coffee farms in 1908 (as he explores in his recently published article, “Japanese Immigrants’ Pantry: Creating Eating Habits and Identities with Brazilian Ingredients”). Drawing on published cookbooks and immigrants’ private diaries, Funabashi shows how Japanese immigrants forged new culinary practices and identities in Brazil over the course of the 20th century.