A Moveable Feast

Mixing business with pleasure, food writer Samantha Lim attends the third Food & Society Conference in Paris organised by the Asia Pacific Food Studies Network

- Samantha Lim

Typically a minefield for explosive debates and disputes, the concept of ‘indigeneity’ (the quality of being indigenous or native to one place) was tackled with grace and wisdom during the third Food & Society Conference—the first to be held outside Kuala Lumpur, and in Paris no less, the gatekeeper of Western gastronomy.

“It took some time, but we finally worked up the courage to organise something like this,” commented Professor Datuk Shamsul Amri Baharuddin, founding director of the Institute of Ethnic Studies headquartered at the National University of Malaysia. “This is the first time the conference has been held abroad for one simple reason: human resources. But that’s the importance of having friends such as Eric Olmedo.”