Video
In a selection of talks and interviews, Fabio Parasecoli discusses on camera his research in food studies, food history, and food design, as well his work as a food writer.
Food: A Systemic Approach
Knowing where our food comes from is important to us as consumers and as citizens, allowing to make more careful choices. During this lecture I gave in Warsaw, Poland, I explore different conceptualizations of the global food system, together with the structures, flows, and stakeholders that compose it.
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Food and Film
In this talk I gave for the Sagan National Colloquium at Ohio Wesleyan University I explore the presence and meaning of food in film.
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Design in Global Brooklyn
What do the fashionable food hot spots of Cape Town, Mumbai, Copenhagen, Rio de Janeiro, and Tel Aviv have in common? Despite all their differences, consumers in each major city are drawn to a similar atmosphere: rough wooden tables in postindustrial interiors lit by edison bulbs. There, they enjoy single-origin coffee, kombucha, and artisanal bread. This is ‘Global Brooklyn,’ a new transnational aesthetic regime of urban consumption. I discuss it in this short talk at the World Food Design Day 2021, organized by Fork.
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Italy in the Global Food System
On the occasion of the presentation of my book Food (MIT, 2019) at the NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò I examine how Italy and its culinary culture have become part of the global food system, and what that means for the future.
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Al Dente: A History of Food in Italy
Listen to this short chat with author Michele Scicolone about the history of food in Italy.
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Rice in Italian Food Culture
In this video (in English, with Polish subtitles), I explain the recipe for risotto and make it together with Jarek Walczyk, president of the Polish Chef Club, The video is introduced by Toruń University professor and food historian Jarosław Dumanowski. I also discuss how rice became part of Italian food traditions, with influences from the Arabs and the Spaniards.
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Italian Food Cultures and the Environment
In this video, shot at the University of Minnesota in September 23, 2015, I speak about food culture in Italy and its relationship with the environment in conversation with Dan Philippon, Associate Professor of English and co-convener of the IAS Environmental Humanities Collaborative.
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Gnocchi and the Columbian Exchange
In this video (in English, with Polish subtitles), I give the recipes of gnocchi and make it together with Jarek Walczyk, president of the Polish Chef Club, The video is introduced by Toruń University professor and food historian Jarosław Dumanowski. I also discuss how that dish is a symbol for the Columbian Exchange and of how new products from the New World, such as potatoes and tomatoes, became part of Italian food traditions.
Mediterranean Diet, Intangible Heritage and Sustainable Tourism
Can the traditions and and the food productions connected with the Mediterranean Diet – from agriculture to fisheries – be activated to establish sustainable forms of tourism? I discussed the topic in New York, on January 15, 2019, during the Italian Mediterranean Style: One-day symposium at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute.
Food Forward: A Geometry conversation
In an ongoing effort to stay current on today’s food landscape, Geometry sat down with me, to discuss the attitudes and behaviors that are shaping our eating and grocery shopping habits. Here are 5 key insights that came out of that conversation.
City Food: Street Food in Warsaw
In this video (you can see an update on the research project and Mateusz Halawa (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences) are conducting in Poland. Here I share some observations on street food in Polish cities, as part of the international research project City Food.
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Looking for exposure: Gastrodiplomacy in Central and Eastern Europe
Central and Eastern European countries have been producing books about their cuisines as a form of gastrodiplomacy. Will such initiatives succeed in giving more visibility to these food cultures? For those like me who were introduced to Ukrainian cuisine (or, at...
Searching for Italy: CNN, Travel, and Food
Almost one year into the pandemic, Stanley Tucci’s new show on CNN, Searching for Italy, provides pleasant succor without wallowing too much in pastoral fantasies or good savage characterizations. What can be better than enjoying a stroll in the creative, buzzing mess...
What does Global Brooklyn look like?
The photo gallery that accompanies the Global Brooklyn book is now online! There are many reasons that convinced us to launch the gallery. Visual digital media have supported the global diffusion of Global Brooklyn, its looks, and its feel, from fonts to the plating...
The Present and Future of Food and Technology
Illustration by Pablo Delcan. Here is a brief excerpt of my article in The Food Issue of the MIT Technology Review, in which I reflect on how the impact of technology on the food system depends on political choices and the priorities we embrace as a society. The issue...
Food on the Frontier: First Cow
What counts is not the uniqueness or the fanciness of what one cooks, but the sense of comfort and satisfaction food provides, the consolation, the sensations it brings back, or the fantasies it creates with fragments of memories and emotions. All of which can be...
Untested Flavors: Understanding Food through Design
Photo: a dessert at Epoka restaurant, Warsaw, Poland What is design for in a food course that does not include making anything? How can we leverage design methods and practices when students don’t built, shape, or even taste food? It is almost the end of the semester,...
Seasons and Leisure: Time, Food, and Cooking in Polish Food Media
With Agata Bachórz What’s the value of time? How do we invest it in shopping, cooking, and eating? How do we balance convenience with comfort and pleasure? And how choices about time express who we feel we are as individuals and communities? At times, looking at...
My First Impressions of Food in Poland
I was looking at old notes, and I realized it was precisely in the fall of four years ago that my contact with the food of Poland happened. I thought it would be fun to go back to the first posts I published and share some of those first impressions. After four...
No Food in the US Presidential Debates
A sense that the food system has overall withstood the COVID-19 shock has prevailed, with little or no discussion about lessons learned and possible improvements or interventions. Food in the US remains a private or, at most, a local matter. As I watch presidential...
What the Real People Eat: Nativist Food and Fascist Aesthetics
Food constitutes an important feature in today’s nativist movements. It prompts us to reflect on how embodied and emotional politics bypass organized ideologies, coming across as spontaneously flowing from the ever bubbling spring of the “real people,” regardless of...