The Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery

July 17, 2014 12:04 PM

The Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery is an annual weekend conference discussing food, its history, and culture. Since 1981 the papers presented at the Symposium have been collected into a conference volume called the Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, most of which have been made available for free in their entirety via Google Books. Each volume consists of about 25-40 papers surrounding the theme of that year's Symposium (e.g. Eggs, Authenticity, or The Meal).

The Symposium website claims that there are PDF downloads available, but none seem to exist anywhere online. Similarly it claims that Proceedings from Symposia prior to the most recent three years are available on Google Books, but the most recent available volume is 2007's Food and Morality; volumes for 1984, 1992, and 2002-2003 are also missing. Nonetheless, that leaves 22 volumes and approximately 670 papers available online.

posted by jedicus (8 comments total)

I look forward to the learned scholars publication of The Oxford History of the Potato Crisp.
posted by infini at 12:09 PM on July 17, 2014

This very cool. Anyone know is there anyway to get these transferred to mobile devices?
posted by Pantalaimon at 12:45 PM on July 17, 2014

So I found the PDFs: when you are viewing the book on the google website, click on the gear symbol on the right upper corner and it will give you option for PDF download, but a few of them are missing.
posted by Pantalaimon at 1:00 PM on July 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

I am slightly acquainted with the author of this paper on ratatouille and even heard him present a version of it live in Chicago a number of years ago. Suffice to say, you will not believe how much it is possible to know and say about the subject. There is no end to the fascinating places unfettered scholarship may dive.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 1:08 PM on July 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

Wow. Thank you!
posted by xammerboy at 1:19 PM on July 17, 2014

oh wow. oh wow. oh wow.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 10:04 PM on July 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

you total jerk i was planning on getting stuff done this weekend
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:32 PM on July 17, 2014

A fantastic article about the River Rats of Chillicothe, Illinois (north of Peoria) in the volume on "Authenticity."
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 1:33 AM on July 20, 2014