SAVE THE DATE | November 6-8, 2024

Borders, Migration, & The Evolution of Culinary Tradition

How people shape cuisine and cuisine shapes people

As migration patterns form and re-form around the globe, and people bring their traditions, cultures, and cuisines with them wherever they go, food traditions – both their own and those of their new homes – are reshaped accordingly. Over time, these migrations have given life to entire cuisines and new ways of seeing authenticity – both macro- and micro-, as large as Tex-Mex and as small as Korean-Uzbek. From tacos Arabes to boba horchata, and from the döner kebab to the California burrito, world cuisine continues to evolve, building and shaping new traditions and new cultures as people move, grow, and migrate.

But borders aren't just about physical places. Borders are also about how we define dishes, and cuisines, and rules – and as physical borders begin to reshape themselves around demographics, what happens to the imaginary borders in our minds? How did the Italian-American shrimp parmesan come to exist in a "no cheese with fish" world, and if that rule can be bent, what other rules can be? And as the media world begins to shine a brighter light on the sort of recipe traditions that have historically only been passed along orally – Yewande Komolafe's work for the New York Times being a leading example – and give those traditions a place in the sun, we've also seen the concurrent rise of restaurant groups like Unapologetic Foods, who take those never-codified regional recipes and turn them into phenomena.

Generation Z – and generation Alpha after it – is composed of a higher percentage of people with at least one immigrant parent than any generation before, and the numbers keep rising. Even outside their generation, the increased flow of migration in response to both political unrest and climate change is also having a marked impact on culture, cuisine, and supply chain as well. As demographics shift and evolve, and a new generation's expectations begin to dominate the market, how do restaurant operators prepare for the changing world? This year, we'll dive deep into how changing migration patterns and understandings of tradition are shifting the landscape of what diners expect, and the delicious new world that awaits us.

The Culinary Institute of America’s Worlds of Flavor® International Conference & Festival is widely acknowledged as our country’s most influential professional forum on world cuisines, food cultures, and flavor trends.

Each year, the Worlds of Flavor conference welcomes a distinguished group of presenting chefs and other experts from around the world and across the United States to the college’s downtown Napa Valley campus to explore the best of world cuisines that are reshaping American palates and our industry. Now in its 26th edition, this annual gathering of professionals is the “must attend” annual conference for leading chefs, corporate menu decision-makers, foodservice management executives, suppliers, and media.