TRACES OF THE PAST, STORIES OF THE PRESENT: MEMORIES, TRAUMAS AND SHADOWS IN THESSALONIKI

Vasiliki (Valia) Kravva, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, School of Classical Studies and Humanities, Department of History & Ethnology, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece
 
Tuesday October 24, 4:00 pm virtually
Zoom: https://iu.zoom.us/j/83345138600?pwd=ME9HNndQejlZUDBRZ05weEJMV1g5UT09
 
The social value of food consists in its ability to attach to taste emotions and recollections while its transferable quality often resists socio-historical changes. Thessaloniki, or Salonica in Northern Greece, witnessed the majority of Thessalonican Jews (almost 60.000) being deported and killed in labour and death camps during WWII. Nowadays the city’s Jewish Community counts no more than 1.000 souls and the city seemed -at least until very recently- to suffer from collective amnesia and to be unwilling to recall its Jewish past.  The lecture attempts to problematize silences, absences and traumas and the ways food and eating are treated as comfort mechanisms, as repositories of continuity and certainty, as sources of security and comfort. Through the narration of Mrs. Evgenia Abravanel belonging is never given but is materialized and managed through the medium of food. The issue of “comfort food” reminds that cooking and eating can be treated as mechanisms for providing security and stability during personal crises and transitional phases in our lives.
 
The lecture is part of the Geography of Food – Greek Cuisine (GEOG-G 379) class, Department of Geography, Indiana University