Special Issue "Plant Food-Medicines: Perceptions, Traditional Uses and Health Benefits of Food Botanicals, Mushrooms, and Herbal Teas"

A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Foods".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 August 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Renata Sõukand
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Via Torino 155, Mestre, 30172 Venice, Italy
Interests: ethnobotany; environmental humanities; ecosemiotics; diasporas; Eastern Europe; Greater Middle East
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

The fields at the interface between food and medicine have received increasing attention in recent decades, both in historical and anthropological terms (food cultural heritage, Traditional Medicine) and also in bioscientific terms (nutraceutical, phytopharmacological, and ethnopharmacological sciences).

Better understanding the potential of plant ingredients and preparations of traditional foodways around the world, which are still partially based on local and neglected species and their complex culinary transformations, represents a crucial step for providing new insights into the field of healthy foods and "food–medicines".

We welcome explorations at the edge between the food and medical domains, such as research on health perceptions, uses, and potential benefits of neglected and underutilized species (NUS), local landraces, wild food plants (WFP), aromatic and seasoning botanicals, spices, mushrooms, plant snacks, fermented plant foods, and recreational herbal teas. A further important research domain is represented by "folk nutraceuticals", i.e., plants that have been traditionally consumed in order to improve general health or to prevent diseases, as well as plants for which food and medicinal uses co-exist, yet the used parts or methods of the preparation or consumption/administration do not overlap.    

In the past few years, local medicinal foods and herbs in different areas of the globe have been rediscovered, sometimes revitalized, and have provided and are providing important inspirations for promoting, designing, or even re-inventing healthy food products and gastronomies. Original research on traditional uses of these species and preparations, and on their impact in shaping holistic community wellbeing, germane public health/nutrition policies, and promoting sustainable food systems is particularly welcome.

Prof. Dr. Andrea Pieroni
Prof. Dr. Renata Sõukand
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • medicinal foods
  • gastronomy
  • traditional knowledge
  • ethnobotany
  • ethnopharmacology

Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission, see below for planned papers.

Planned Papers

The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.

Title: Granny cures at the stove: A review of traditional medicinal foods in Europe
Authors: Pieroni A; Soukand R
Affiliation: University of Gastronomic Sciences, Piazza Vittorio Emanuele 9, I-12060, Pollenzo, Italy

Title: From indigenous communities to the fine-dining sector: neglected and underutilized healthy plant species used in the avant-garde restaurants of Latin America.
Authors: Zocchi D
Affiliation: University of University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenzo, Italy

Title: Healthy drink with wild plants: Nalewka in Polish/Belorus/Lithuanian borderland
Authors: Prakofjewa J
Affiliation: Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy

Title: Healthy food or healing with food: change of the concept during one's lifetime in the Baltics
Authors: Kalle R
Affiliation: University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenzo, Italy

Title: Drink it up! Healthy drinks among Hutsuls and Romanians living in the Carpathian Mountains
Authors: Mattalia G
Affiliation: Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy

Title: Medicines in the kitchen: Gendered ethnobotanical knowledge in Marrakshi households
Authors: Irene Teixidor-Toneu; Sara Elgadi; Hamza Zine; Ugo D’Ambrosio
Affiliation: Natural History Museum; University of Oslo; P.O. Box 1172 Blindern; 0318 Oslo; Norway
Abstract: Differences in knowledge about plants across genders are contingent to specific cultural domains, yet the boundaries between food and medicine are blurred and it is unclear if and how gender plays a role in creating such continuum. Here, we present an in-depth evaluation of the links between gender, medicinal plant knowledge, and culinary culture in Marrakech, Morocco. We interviewed 30 women and 27 men with different socio-demographic characteristics and evaluated how gender and cooking frequency shape food and medicinal plant knowledge. We documented about 200 ethno-taxa used in Marrakshi households as food, medicine or both, corresponding to approximately 170 botanical taxa. While no clear differences appear in food plant knowledge by gender, women have a three-fold greater knowledge of medicinal plants, as well as plants with both medicinal and food uses. Women’s medicinal and food plant knowledge increases with their reported frequency of cooking, whereas the opposite trend is observed among men. This study highlights that the profound relations between the culinary and health domains are mediated through gender.

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