Local spice merchant to present online at The Oxford

The Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery is an annual event held in the UK to celebrate, explore and share food research by scholars, enthusiastic amateurs, writers and chefs from around the world. For almost 40 years the Symposium has been a weekend conference on Food and Cookery, held annually in Oxford, most recently at St. Catherine's College.

This year proposals were requested to present a paper on the cultural and culinary impact of Herbs and Spices in the context of food and cookery.

Ian Hemphill, Australian based author of several books on herbs and spices, and owner with wife Liz of Herbie's Spices at Charmhaven submitted a proposal titled The Perils of Popularity that has been accepted by the editor.

Mr Hemphill looks at answering what are the risks of losing quality, authenticity and accuracy of information? Is a herb, spice or spice blend, based on cultural traditions evolved over thousands of years, in danger of losing its identity?

Although Ian and Liz Hemphill are disappointed to be missing the opportunity to personally attend at St. Catz, Oxford's only Modernist College, they are looking forward to participating in the first-ever online virtual symposium.

His paper, on the perils of popularity covers herbs and spices have been a part of human history for thousands of years, and now in the 21st century, herbs, spices and spice blends have achieved unprecedented popularity, with the widest distribution and availability in history.