Just Culinary Infrastructure

What does equitable, culturally grounded food infrastructure look like?

As defined by historian and Cluster faculty member Jeffrey Pilcher, Culinary Infrastructure refers to the "basic facilities and technologies used to convey food, and knowledge about food, not only from the proverbial field to the fork, but also across continents and cultures." It is the "system" of the food system, which has had far reaching if unintended impacts on the rise of contemporary industrialized diets across the world (Pilcher, 2016). 

Research in the Just Culinary Infrastructure module seeks to know what kinds of infrastructure currently make alternative food systems possible – small markets, import and wholesale networks, food-based remittances that express food sovereignty –  and whether researchers or government have a role in strengthening these.