Get ready to celebrate food with Food Dialogues

Image supplied: Food Dialogues will be returning to physical spaces this year

How are digital technologies disrupting our food system? What will be the impact of cultured meat? How has food shaped the spaces and places that define our city? These and other questions will be explored in Cape Town during the two-week 2022 Food Dialogues programme through a range of experiences: from expert panel discussions to hands-on cooking classes for grown-ups and kids, walking tours, communal meals and art installations.

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Food Dialogues offers the chance to connect with our future food shapers in person and while there is much to feed all senses, the essence of Food Dialogues is to engage in a critical conversation about how food shapes and enables our lives, explore the unjustness of our food system and how we can move towards one that helps us to flourish as people, families and society.

The programme will consider our present-day societal relationship with food by looking at key aspects of our food system – where we buy our food from and how nourished we are from the food we eat – as well as how we can better partner to govern our food system, and how the medium of food itself can bring us insight, connection and joy.

“We want to give both voice and honour to our complex food system and society while amplifying unheard and diverse voices,” explains organiser Kurt Ackermann. “The array of events reflects that desire and we want to reach as broad and wide a range of participants as possible; essentially, we want any and all to connect through this city-wide dialogue and through shared experiences with food.”

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Food Dialogues features a series of deep-dive talks from experts, such as a mini-conference on Food Shopping Futures, which explores alternatives to mainstream food retail; and Feeding our Future, which aims to share both challenges and potential solutions for nourishing today’s South African children through their first 1,000 days of life.

Here is what else to expect

Dialogues through Food will run from 24, 26 and 31 July with a focus on food that speaks to us, cultural celebration and an exploration of food customs and flavours. Children five-10 years and their parents can also go on a flavour adventure on 30 July, introducing kids to flavour profiles, origins of ingredients and how we get them working together.

Curated tours of Cape Town’s food systems will also be available. Curated by historian and CEO of the Western Cape Economic Development Partnership, Andrew Boraine, the walking tours will reveal intricate connections and overlays of Cape Town’s ecological systems, history and food lineages.

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Also on offer is a series of Food System Walking Tours of Philippi Village, which will take place in the heart of Phillipi. This two-hour experience, which includes a shuttle to and from the V&A Waterfront, includes the viewing of exhibitions of new graffiti works created for Food Dialogues and photographs of meals and recipes representing the community.

Food Dialogues will take place from 18 July - 1 August. Some events are free to attend while others are paid but all participants must register here.