Mariana Kavroulaki, founder and main organizer.
Having a background in Archaeology and Sociology and passion for experimental archaeology and historical foodways, Mariana Kavroulaki specializes in the Greek food history and sensory food- archaeology. She also has a keen interest in the imagined narratives because they have the power to provide us with alternative ways to rethink the past.
She is the founder and soul of Greek Culinary History and Cooking Adventures , where she explores the evolution of Greek cuisine throughout the centuries and the relationship between food and art as participatory performance with socio-historical focus. Her projects not only encourage people to rethink historical dining through period cookery lessons, food walking tours, multi-sensory dinners and interactive lectures but also use food as symbol, metaphor and allegory creating moments of wonder and deep emotions.
Mariana Kavroulaki is the author of many articles and two books: the “Language of Taste” – a dictionary of Greek Gastronomy (Gourmand award 2012)- and the “Adventure of food in Greece” (under publ. Hestia). She is currently at work on “Fear cuisine: The impact of financial crisis on the cooking in Greece”. Mariana blogs at History of Greek Food .
Historical, Folklore and Archaeological Society of Crete, co-organizer (2013, 2017).
Active since 1968, HFAS is a scholarly and research society founded by prominent Chaniotes and headquartered in Chania.
The aims of the Society are set out in its Rules as follows:
- The study and promotion of Cretan history.
- The discovery, collection, maintenance, preservation, restoration, repair and scientific research of Cretan antiquities, including Christian, Byzantine, Venetian and other monuments.
- The study of ancient Cretan everyday life and the exploration of various questions related to Byzantine and Medieval History, Archaeology and Art.
- The promotion of interest in Cretan history, archaeology, folklore and art.
2011 Co-organizer
Organization for the Development of Western Crete
Symposia of Greek Gastronomy 
Dear Ms Kavroulaki,
I read this information with interest. I am currently finishing my PhD on Bread in Malta [1740-1798].
I have also published some works on food, culture and identity in relation to Malta. I am a visiting lecturer at the University of Malta in a Higher Diploma course in Gastronomy. My interests are History and Anthropology of Food.
Kindly allow me to suggest whether you will consider possibilities of joining forces in a project which I have just started to work on related to Mediterranean Food – Memory, Culture And Identity. The Director of my institute suggested that concentrating more on the Islands might make this study more enticing.
Any thoughts, reactions?
Dear Ms Kavroulaki,
I am writing you from ıstanbul. I am a lecturer at Istanbul Bilgi University at the department of Communications.http://www.bilgi.edu.tr/en/ I teach strategic marketing and marketing research. My family has roots in Creta, (they are refugues) and this year at spring semester hopefully I will be giving a course on Cretan food and cullinary culture at the gastronomy faculty of our university. I would like to contact you and if possible get the papers /books of these two very valuable seminars you created. All the best