Recipe: Allegra’s Orange Blossom, cashew and semolina cake

THE Oxford Food Symposium is a weekend conference that brings together over 200 international scholars, journalists, chefs, scientists, sociologists, anthropologists and enthusiastic amateurs for serious discussions on food, its culture and its history. 

This year the theme was Food and Markets. Papers presented were asked to examine “the historical, sociological and practical aspects of the economic exchange between producer and consumer through which food arrives on our tables. Not forgetting the pleasure of marketing: the excitement of discovering new ingredients, watching the skill of a market cook preparing a dish to order; the sheer enjoyment to be found in the peace, charm and sunshine of wandering around an open air market in an unfamiliar (or familiar) part of the world and learning how people live”.

The first Oxford Symposium was held in 1981, the brainchild of Alan Davidson and Theodore Zeldin, chaired by food writer and journalist Paul Levy and Claudia Roden.