Sobremesa: Vagaries of Palette

ongoing

Sobremesa: Vagaries of the Palette is a small-scale transnational cultural cooperation project exploring intersections between food cultures, identity, and migration within and through Europe. Anchored in the interpretation of sobremesa—the time spent lingering at the table after a meal—the project reimagines this space as a site of negotiation, memory, dissent, and encounter, rather than mere satisfaction or harmony. Sobremesa uses food and eating practices to interrogate dominant narratives of national identity, integration, consumption, and belonging—at the table and in Europe. As a pilot project aligned with Objective 1 of the Creative Europe Programme (Transnational Creation and Circulation), it proposes an R&D hybrid creative and pedagogical model to be documented as a white paper and curatorial framework for future expansion. Central to Sobremesa is the study of migratory and diasporic food practices—rooted in colonialism, displacement, and resistance—not as fixed “national cuisines” but as carriers of memory, labour, and power. It addresses gastronationalism in European contexts: Dutch integration politics, French terroir, Italian food patriotism, Mediterranean contestations in Greece and Spain, and Portuguese lusotropicalism. The project critiques how migrant food practices are often invited in public while domesticated or erased elsewhere. A consortium of partners from Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, with third-party support from Malta, USA, Poland, India, France, and the Netherlands, co-develop the project across three phases: A co-curatorial research process in four countries. A mobility structure enabling the movement of artists, makers, and researchers; Foregrounding food as a sociopolitical and aesthetic lens, the project critiques the “Bourdain-fication” of culinary storytelling and emphasizes sustainability through documentation, translation, and new partnerships —redefining how we imagine borders, belonging, and citizenship.