Beyond the Recipe: writing food and memory
2026, (Gentler) Futures Festival (PT)
'Serve immediately’, these instructions end, but who to? Even a thousand recipes don’t make a meal.' - Thom Eagle, First, Catch (2016)
What sits within a recipe? What sits outside of it? Who decides? This workshop looks into the possibilities of the recipe format and its potential for storytelling, delving into the metaphorical values of food and its surrounding processes, elements, stories and contexts. If food is a language, how and where do we speak it? What are the gestures involved in cooking, feeding, eating; growing, harvesting, sharing? How can textures, colours, flavours and smells communicate ideas, feelings or visual impressions—and vice-versa?
In this session, participants will have the chance to discuss the making of a recipe, unveiling its potential for imagination, creativity and thinking beyond instructions. Together, we deconstruct recipes, making use of their structure to write sensorially about food, memory and personal experience.
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