The Memory of Taste: Migration, Identity and Culinary Culture

With Miriam Stock, Nevra Akdemir, Tan Morgül, moderated by Erkin Erdoğan 

Kitchen and food cultures are deeply intertwined with social history, carrying visible and hidden traces of economic conditions, political power, belief systems, and collective memory. This session approaches migrant cuisine not merely as taste or tradition, but as a historical archive shaped by displacement, adaptation, and resistance. Moving from everyday cooking practices to national food narratives, the discussion explores how food habits change through migration: which ingredients are preserved or replaced, how “national cuisines” are constructed, and how debates around purity, pork consumption, refinement, or authenticity emerge. Drawing on perspectives from food history and cultural studies, the panel considers how states, wars, propaganda, and diplomacy have intervened in what and how people eat—while also looking at how migrants reclaim agency through culinary practices.

Miriam Stock ist Geografin und Professorin für Kulturwissenschaften an der Pädagogischen Hochschule Schwäbisch Gmünd.

Nevra Akdemir ist eine in Berlin lebende Postdoktorandin und Aktivistin bei „Academics for Peace Germany“.

Tan Morgül ist ein in London lebender Forscher und Autor, der sich auf Lebensmittel und Craft-Bier spezialisiert hat. Tan ist Autor des preisgekrönten Buches über Esskultur „Raki and Fish: A Mediterranean Seafood Odyssey“.

Erkin Erdoğan ist Doktor der Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Dozent und Projektleiter bei AKEBI.