Digging up ideas?

De Foodarcheoloog: “Where does our food future really come from?”

How can forgotten ingredients, lost landscapes, and centuries-old food practices still inspire us today?

As De Foodarcheoloog, Jeroen Van Vaerenbergh works at the intersection of archaeology, food, and imagination. Drawing on archaeological discoveries and encounters with makers, he explores how knowledge, flavours, and ideas travel across time.

His practice brings together chefs, craftspeople, artists, and scientists in dialogue. Not out of nostalgia, but from the conviction that the past can serve as a source of inspiration for a liveable and resilient future.

In this lecture, he takes audiences behind the scenes of his work and shares how unexpected connections between people, discipline and periods in time can spark new insights, stories, and creative possibilities.

Fresh from the cesspits of history...

Jeroen Van Vaerenbergh, known as De Foodarcheoloog, digs not only into the ground but also into ideas. Using food as a universal language, he connects archaeology with art, craftsmanship, landscape, science, and imagination.

His work brings people from different eras and disciplines together around a single question: what knowledge from the past can help us look differently at the future?

Through storytelling, research, and collaborative encounters, he builds bridges between makers, thinkers, and doers, revealing how the past can inspire innovation, connection, and new ways of imagining the world ahead.