Symposium tastes language of food

On a recent cool English weekend, once again I joined scholars, chefs and other food writers who converged on an Oxford college to cogitate on our favorite subject.

The annual Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery, which draws enthusiasts from throughout Europe and the United States, is a forum for learned papers and serious discussions on a chosen theme -- this year's was Food & Language.

The panel discussions range from the obscure: Neanderthal Pictographs as Universal Language of Cooking, to the timely: Blogs about Food on the Internet. We learned that in 2009 so far, there already have been more than 338,000 food posts on the Internet.

But it was not all dry academia. Eating, drinking and networking always are stirred into the symposium pot. Most everyone agreed that this year's meals were the best in the forum's 30-year history.

The elegant Saturday night dinner was orchestrated by Raymond Blanc of Michelin-starred Le Manoir au Quat'Saisons, near Oxford. Friday's was by Fergus Henderson, the chef/owner of London's St. John restaurant, who based his menu on the 17th-century Diary of Samuel Pepys. As a pioneer in the revival of nose-to-tail cook- ing (using all parts of the animal), Henderson's feast included ox tongue, venison and pig's trotter pie, mutton with caper sauce and massive beef shins. All but vegetarians, who were given a stuffed root vegetable, were delighted. As a typically rather wacky sidelight, a huge gelatin mold of St. Paul's Cathedral was set aflame after dinner, symbolic of the Great Fire of London in Pepys' day.

Simon Schama, the well-known British TV historian, amused us with his keynote address: "Mouthing Off: Reflections on Eating and Uttering." Taking off on Henderson's dinner, he said that people can accept consuming slices of an outsized ox tongue but that a lamb's tongue is too close in size to their own. He also complained about verbose restaurant menus, saying he never orders a dish with two verbs in its description, and ended with quotes from American food writer M.F.K. Fisher, who used recipes as a way of talking through memories.

St. Catherine's College, where the symposium meets, is one of the University of Oxford's 41 independent colleges and halls. But in contrast to Christ Church and the other famous and splendid-looking 13th-century colleges, St. Catz, as it's called, is in the severe 1960s architectural style. Meals were in the dining hall with its massive cement columns and long refectory tables dotted with lamps.

The dorm I was in overlooked the tiny Cherwell River, where students punt in narrow boats. Lucky me, I thought, until a faulty fire alarm kept going off during our first, jet-lagged night. It was infuriating yet, in retrospect, amusing to see such stars of gastronomy as Paul Levy, journalist and symposium co-chair; Madhur Jaffrey, Indian TV cook-author; Middle East culinary expert Claudia Roden; and a couple of legendary cookbook editors from New York, all huddled in their robes around the exit at 3 a.m.

In one of the panel discussions the next day, an Irish scholar-chef named Mairtin Mac Con Iomaire discussed oral history as a tool for food historians. His doctoral dissertation had been about 20th-century Dublin restaurateurs, but he said all oral historians are haunted by the obituary page. "Every death represents the loss of a potential narrator and diminishes society's collective memory."

We symposiasts will long remember Blanc's banquet, titled "The Language of French Gastronomy, From the Raw to the Cooked." The raw was a tomato essence served in a tea cup with a peeled cherry tomato coated in smoky black salt flakes, followed by confit of salmon with ribbons of Japanese radish and cucumber. Then came succulent braised ox cheeks served family-style with wild mushrooms, mash and autumn vegetables, and a cheese course. Finally, there was a delectable apple and cider mousse with Granny Smith sorbet.

Some old-timers grumble that the symposium is not the same insiders' get-together it was until recently. My first one fell on the week after 9/11 when, as a London resident, I was one of the few Americans who could make it to Oxford. It had an amateurish charm in those days with eclectic potluck meals. Ironically, the luncheon that year featured an Afghan menu.

In 1979, when Alan Davidson, the late diplomat and author of "The Oxford Companion to Food," co-founded it with another Oxford don, there were just 18 food-loving scholars, anthropologists and scientists conversing around a conference table. This year, there were 215 attendees, and it is a registered educational charity with the goal of encouraging the study of food history as a serious topic of research.

Anne Semmes is a freelance food and travel writer who moved to Charleston from London. Before going to England, she was for 15 years restaurant reviewer for The New York Times New Jersey section, with a weekly column. She has been covering the dining, hotel and shopping scene in Britain since 1996. Her articles have appeared in Attache, Food Arts, Food & Wine, Saveur and Victoria. Semmes was U.K. content editor of Menus.com, an online restaurant directory, and is a regular correspondent for Passport Newsletter, the veteran travel publication.