Grandma’s Meatballs and Syrian Sweets: Food is Home

Food plays a strong part in the formation and maintenance of our identity, and is intimately linked with memory and a sense of home. Meals are an important site of socialisation and the tastes and smells of our childhood often recall the nurture and affirmation of identity received at that time. Individual foodways are anchored in the family, which in turn is embedded in regional foodways and cuisine. These change over time, through trade, migration and conquest - sometimes rapidly as in the case of the Columbian Exchange. A conversation with Syrian refugees in Berlin in 2016 explored the questions of home and identity as expressed through their foodways and added a contemporary focus to an age-old question. Keywords: food studies, foodways, cooking, identity, Columbian Exchange, migration See publication Grandma’s Meatballs and Syrian Sweets: Food is Home