ABSTRACT
What is the role of nostalgia, memory and the political role of the senses as a foundation of cuisine at times of social change? Focusing on the anthropology of the senses, this chapter explores how the past is evoked in contemporary Athens, bringing to surface memories of hardships past, intertwined with nostalgia for tastes past. It reveals how the senses connect the reinvented rural foods and dishes to different temporalities and bring together rural and urban spaces in individual and collective realms. To this end, it argues for the role of the senses and memory as an underlying foundation in the creation of cuisine. This interconnection between cuisine and memory is also situated in the context of the crisis, revealing the political role of the senses, in offering a remedy for the hardships of the present as sensorial experiences constitute feelings of belonging.
