Call to the public for the future exhibition "Disgust and colors"

The Alimentarium in Vevey in Switzerland, a museum that is interested in food in all its forms, is getting into the age of strange food and is calling on the public to contribute to its next exhibition in spring 2020 .

"I will never eat snails" or "I hate Brussels sprouts": we have all heard these kinds of phrases during a conversation with family or friends. The foods we delight in wouldn't have the same flavor if those that traumatized us weren't lurking in the shadows of the cupboards of our memories. To this end, the Alimentarium de Vevey is appealing to the public to help them prepare for their next exhibition. The food we love to hate, whose opening is scheduled for April 2020.

What if, for the benefit of climatic reasons, we were forced to get rid of our favorite dishes in order to adopt new ways of eating, new recipes based on ingredients that we dislike? How would we do? Would we be willing to eat bugs for breakfast instead of our favorite cereal? What will be our reaction when, invited to a friend's house, they serve us a steak tartare of laboratory meat accompanied by a glass of recycled wastewater? The emotion of disgust therefore poses the collective question:

How far would we be willing to go to change our habits into more sustainable food choices, for the well-being of our environment?

Why participate?

As we mentioned above, certain foods divide the world in two, such as cilantro: some adore it while others abhor it. If, as Jacques Dutronc sang, “all tastes are in nature”, taste is above all a personal story, which is built on a multitude of criteria often dating back to childhood and geographic origins. We gladly evoke our “Madeleines de Proust”, as much as we are in search of “comfort food” and exotic flavors. What about products that repel us? By studying what we do not like and the reactions it provokes in us, the Alimentarium intends to map foods in order of disgust and thus analyze their cultural, social, historical and scientific dimension. Moreover, this classification will make it possible to put these reactions in perspective with the current ecological problems.

How to participate?

All, aged 13 and over, are invited to submit a story combining a medium (image, video, sound) and a text (in the form of questions / answers) on the dedicated website. All contributions are welcome, as long as the content is downloadable. Make your games, your food or your worst nightmare recipe!

1. Read carefully the terms and conditions participation.
2. Follow this link to submit your content: http://thefoodwelovetohate.org
3. Submissions are open from December 2019 to June 2020.
4. The opening of the exhibition The food we love to hate will take place on April 2, 2020.

The contributions will be staged in the form of an exhibition. The objective is to dissect the functioning of disgust in connection with food rejection and its motivations, whether physiological, ethical, religious, aesthetic, ecological, etc. As a participant, you join this research community. Subscribe to the newsletter of the Museum to find out how your content will be used.

About the Alimentarium

Since opening in 1985, the world's first food museum has explored the ways of what we eat and uses its skills to serve a knowledge-hungry audience. The Alimentarium is part of a multidisciplinary approach by addressing cultural, historical and scientific aspects. Over time, the Museum has established itself as a food benchmark thanks to its daring and offbeat programming and responds in every way to the true contemporary obsession with food, having acquired the status of a social phenomenon for many years. years.