We are bodies of water.

We are the culinary (blue) environmental humanities.

One cannot talk about the climate crisis without considering not only food production but also its consumption, which is to say culinary cultures. It is for this reason that the “Off the Menu: Appetites, Culture, and Environment” Junior Research Group at the University of Augsburg breaks new ground by merging food studies and the environmental humanities to highlight cuisines—examples of culturally-based eating practices—as key sites of environmental transformation.

“Off the Menu” asks: What does it mean to rethink environments—especially watery ones—through a culinary lens? How do appetites shape and reshape the world? And what comes first: the food or the appetite?

Based in the Department of Global Environmental History and the Environmental Humanities and in partnership with the “Um(Welt)Denken: Rethinking Environment” International Doctoral Program, “Off the Menu” runs from 2023 to 2029 and is generously funded by the Elite Network of Bavaria.