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.
Click here to see the video
Gastropopulism: food and identity politics
Central to citizens’ physical survival and social identity, food can play a central in role in politics, the organized effort to define, manage, and determine goals for communities at all scales. Ingredient, dishes, and eating customs may end up becoming tools - or...
Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite: Food and Inequality
Irony and a keen sense of the absurdity of contemporary consumer society allow Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho, director of the global hit film Parasite, to deal with surreal plot lines while emphasizing the tangible elements of everyday life - including food - as...
The Mediterranean Diet between Heritage and Design
Having grown up in Rome, Italy, it is always nice to find myself in a place where the smells, the colors, and the flavors of the food remind me somehow of my own culinary background. In particular, tomatoes are a marker of home. Plump, tasty, aromatic, they were a...
From Bread Lines to Pea Soup: Notes on Food and Politics in Socialist Poland
Squarely at the center of conversations and controversies about what Poland is and should be in the future, food has great political value due to the nation's recent past as a socialist country in the USSR sphere of influence, its post-socialist transformation, and...
Building community in a Shanghai neighborhood garden
China is still in flux, a complex country with layers and layers of history and stories. In any metropolis, upscale real estate and old buildings coexist. Affluent citizens may live in proximity of rural migrants, while ignoring their existence. A community garden in...
Imagining a Different Food System
What would a better food system look like? Is it possible to turn debates around food politics and popular culture into arenas where a positive dialogue could develop between groups looking at the world from different points of view? Could food become an arena where a...
Tequila and Power: Salma Hayek’s “Monarca” on Netflix
In Salma Hayek's "Monarca" on Netflix, three siblings from the Mexican 1% learn how to manage their lives and their family Tequila company between personal vicissitudes, corporate intrigue, and the social constraints that the narrative presents as powerful as any...
Food, Migrants, and the Making of Traditions
For migrant communities, food is more than just physical sustenance: it produces meaning and sense, creating infinite culinary variations where ingredients, dishes, and meal structures can express agency, pride, comfort, but also embarrassment and cultural...
Wine, Potatoes, and Canned Soup: Food in Contemporary Polish Plays
Food appears where one would less expect it, including the stage. In a few contemporary Polish theater plays, it represents on the one hand a tangible sign of economic wealth and a reassuring proof of economic success, on the other the cause of tension between comfort...
Promoting food heritage abroad: a case study from Spain
Can food heritage be activated as a development tool to promote and support local productions and traditions, both nationally and abroad? What negotiations and compromises are necessary to make it available and understandable to consumers? During the time spent in...