MORE-THAN-HUMAN FOOD FUTURES COOKBOOK

🥕 Available in an online version, as a printable pdf, and as a printed zine. The book was published in the Responsible Research and Innovation Tools collection and in the Aalto University publication series 🥕

The Cookbook is founded on a 2-day workshop—Experimental Food Design for Sustainable Futures—held online as part of the Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) conference in July 2020. It includes 11 recipes proposing diverse imaginative approaches to nurture transitions towards more inclusive and just more-than-human food futures.

The recipes don’t provide exact ingredient lists or precise measures; they’re not step-by-step guides for cooking up better futures. Rather, they reflect on existing food issues and present proposals for alternative approaches that embrace values of inclusivity, multi-species pluralism and eco-social restoration. By voicing these intentions, they serve as a provocation to rethink human-centric hierarchies in food systems. 

The workshop experimented with food as an accessible starting point from
which to explore and articulate values, concerns, desires, and imaginaries
associated with food-tech futures and climate resilience. Each workshop day focused on a distinct theme: on day 1—Fantastic(e)ating Food Futures: Reimagining Human Food Interactions—we examined interdependencies between food, eating, and social practices, critically engaging with future flourishing through food-tech innovation. On day 2—Designing with More-than-Human Food Practices for Climate Resilience—we focused specifically on more-than-human food practices and how they could be incorporated into food systems.

The Cookbook was supported by the CreaTures research project and showcased at the CreaTures Festival in Seville (SP) and at the Helsinki Design Week 2022 – Cooler Planet exhibition (FI). A short 5-minute video presentation from the Seville event can be watched & endured here.

The book received a Special Award of the Jury at the Gourmand Awards section of the Umeå Food Symposium 2022.

We would like to thank all workshop participants for bringing their energy, ideas and imaginations to the table. This cookbook is just a small sampling of our combined efforts, we hope it feeds your imagination and nourishes you during these challenging times.