Connecting food choices, cultural knowledge and food heritage

This seminar presents findings from a study carried out as part of BigPicnic, a European Commission’s Horizon 2020 project. BigPicnic brought together members of the public, scientists, policy-makers and industry representatives to develop exhibitions and science cafés. Across 12 European and one Ugandan botanic gardens participating in the study, we surveyed 1189 respondents on factors and motives affecting their food choices. The study highlighted the importance that cultural knowledge holds for understanding food choices. The findings underline the importance of the impact of food preferences and choices on achieving sustainability but also indicate that heritage is a key parameter that has to be more explicitly considered in the design of research and policies on a European and global level.

The seminar open up for discussions concerning the presented project and possible use/synergies towards tourism and heritage, and culinary tourism.

Theano Moussouri is Professor of Museum Studies at the Institute of Archaeology UCL, and has been the Director for the Centre for Critical Heritage Studies at UCL (joint research centre UGOT and UCL 2016-2022). Moussouri is an internationally renowned scholar on heritage and museum studies as well as culinary heritage and sustainability.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/people/theano-moussouri-professor-museum-studies

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/impact/case-studies/2022/apr/bigpicnic-events-help-shape-debate-around-food-security