Double Lecture & Afternoon Tea | Food and Ceramics: Alchemy of Fire with Distinguished Professor Peter McNeil

‘Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are'. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste (1825)

Ceramics and food create magic – both food and ceramics come about by a type of alchemy every time a pot or a dinner is created with the application of concentrated heat. The origins of cooking and ceramics both preceded writing, and no anthropologist is certain when and where they originated. The controlled management of fire – which requires collective memory and group-level co-operation – came about between four hundred and eight hundred thousand years ago, becoming common after two hundred thousand years before our time. Cooking provided part of the motivation or ‘net- energy return’ for the effort needed to keep fire going, which also extended the day and made sociability, tool making, adhesive glues and other human activities possible.

This wide-ranging lecture explores the connection between food preparation and ceramics over time. From Ancient Mesopotamian, Chinese, Greek and Roman food storage and cooking techniques, through to the glories of eighteenth-century French Enlightenment cuisine, with its embrace of provincial cuisine, new plating on porcelain dinner services, and theories of the gastronomic arts.

Distinguished Professor Peter McNeil FAHA is an award-winning design historian. He spent time collaborating with one of Australia’s master potters, Lino Alvarez, and partner Kim Deacon, at their idyllic property La Paloma Pottery in remote Hill End, NSW, leading to the publication of cookery book The Hill Table: Food, Fire and Art  (2017).

Your ticket includes two lectures by special guest Distinguished Professor Peter McNeil, and an afternoon tea of petit fours and tea or Market Lane coffee, served on our Wedgwood fine bone china, and time to browse our exclusive range of books, gifts, and homewares at TJC Emporium.

This event is presented on-site at The Johnston Collection. Please see your ticket for details. NOTE: Tickets for this event do not include access to our house museum, Fairhall. Guided tours of the current exhibition can be booked separately.

This event is supported by The Colin Holden Charitable Trust.

Image: Pieter Claesz, Tabletop Still Life with Mince Pie and Basket of Grapes, 1625. Private Collection.