Commensality and Cultural Heritage: Bringing the Foodways of the Middle East and Its Diasporas to the Table

Heather J. Sharkey; Karène Sanchez Summerer

doi:10.21827/6883292eb0d00

Commensality and Cultural Heritage: Bringing the Foodways of the Middle East and Its Diasporas to the Table

Authors

Heather J. Sharkey (ed)

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1847-0639

Karène Sanchez Summerer (ed)

University of Groningen

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7051-0802

Synopsis

Food holds an important place in people’s lives and in the social values of individuals and groups, shaping identities along religious, ethnic, linguistic, and national lines and according to gender, class, place (including identification with particular towns or landscapes), and other variables. In the Middle East and among Middle Eastern diasporic communities today, culinary culture remains a source of deep pride, while reflecting ethical values that people place on sharing food with guests or with others in need. Regarding food as part of their cultural heritage, peoples of Middle Eastern origin are aware of illustrious culinary traditions that go back centuries and even millennia to innovations in agriculture that benefitted human societies at large.

This book explores the theme of “commensality,” which implies being at the same table while respecting differences among those who share a meal. At the same time, it considers the study of cultural heritage among Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Middle East and in associated diasporas through foodways — customs regarding the preparation and consumption of food. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this book argues for the centrality and import of the Middle East and its diasporas within the flourishing field of Food Studies while setting agendas for future research.

With contributions by Heather J. Sharkey, Karène Sanchez Summerer, Joud Alkorani, Jehan Nizar, Artis Patriks Mazalis, Seda Bahar Pancaroglu, Imme Koster, Hélène Jawhara Piñer, Florien Kroodsma, Anna Maria Beylunioğlu, Erdal Tüt, Frits Heinrich, Annette M. Hansen, Reem Samed Al Shqour, Joanita Vroom, Lars Baumann, Weston Kennedy, José Rafael Medeiros Coelho, Patrick Lewis, Amir Sayadabdi,

Publisher: University of Groningen Press
Broerstraat 4 9712 CP Groningen

Cover design / Typesetting & design: LINE UP boek en media bv, Riëtte van Zwol
Photo front cover: Men in field, NINO, Frank Scholten collection, photographic print 18: 108.
Photos back cover: J. Alkorani, A. M. Hansen and F. Heinrich

You can order our printed books via the order button, distribution is handled by our partner Publisher kleine Uil. You can also purchase our books through the regular bookshops.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Total downloads: 472

Author Biographies

Heather J. Sharkey

is Professor in the Department of Middle
Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of Pennsylvania
(USA). During the 2024–25 academic year, she was a senior fellow in
the Faculty of Arts at the University of Groningen and an Oliver Smithies
Fellow at Balliol College, University of Oxford. Her books include Living with Colonialism: Nationalism and Culture in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (University of California Press, 2003); American Evangelicals in Egypt: Missionary Encounters in an Age of Empire (Princeton University Press, 2008); and A History of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Middle East (Cambridge University Press, 2017). She is currently writing a book on global microhistory in the Nile Valley.

Karène Sanchez Summerer, University of Groningen

is Professor and Chair of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) and co-director of the Centre for Historical Studies. She specializes in the relational cultural and social history of the Ottoman- and Mandate-era Levant, with a special focus on Greater Syria, Palestine and its communities. She is currently investigating foodways, Biblical orientalism and photographs in Mandate Palestine.