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Food and culinary practices can carry memory across generations, geographies, and histories. This book, a collection of oral histories centred on interviews with elders, traces various journeys from Italy to Switzerland, Bulgaria to Turkey, and across regions of India, revealing how migration, war, gender roles, and political upheaval shape culinary practices. From antifascist Pastasciutta to Maharashtrian home cooking, each contribution shows how recipes, kitchen spaces, and shared meals function as living archives of resilience and belonging. Blending scholarly insight with creative expression, the book positions food as both intimate memory and collective history, inviting readers to see their own family tables as sites of remembrance.
Mallory Cerkleski is a historian of food and a doctoral candidate in History at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy. Her research examines the history of food rationing, everyday life, and state-society relations in twentieth-century Kerala, India. Beyond her research, she serves on the board of the Graduate Association for Food Studies and is a co-editor of the Graduate Journal of Food Studies.
Contents
List of Figures
Introduction. “Introduction: An Edible Lieu de Mémoire: Food, Memory and Oral History in Practice”
Mallory Rose Cerkleski
Chapter 1. “‘No One Slept Where the Ravioli Dried’: An Oral History of Food, Memory, and the Making of an Italian American Life”
Mallory Rose Cerkleski
Chapter 2. “Building Communities through Food: How Pastasciutta Can Bring Us Together”
Irina Aguiari
Chapter 3. “Tastes of Home: A Grandmother’s Journey from Sardinia to Switzerland Through Food and Memory”
Emma Shanti Berger
Chapter 4. “Familiar Foodways: An Intergenerational Conversation Through Kitchens”
Gea Cignozzi
Chapter 5. “Muhacir’s Moving Cuisine: Food and Immigration from Bulgaria to Turkey during the Balkan Wars of 1912–13”
Batuhan Eren
Chapter 6. “Why Is Our Maharashtrian Food Different from Theirs? Tracing My Mother’s Culinary Journey Through Time and Geography” Surabhi Supekar
Chapter 7. “From Mandi to Shimla and All the In-Betweens: A Cultural Exploration of Memory Through My Mother’s Food Experiences” Gaurish Shyam
Conclusion. “Reflections on the Project: Making the Mundane Formal”
Mallory Rose Cerkleski
References
Index