Farmers and geneticists, chefs and city planners, restaurateurs, entrepreneurs and anthropologists will examine how we eat, what we eat and, most importantly, why we eat as we do at a UC Davis conference on March 17-19, sponsored by the Pacific Regional Humanities Center.

"Beyond Consuming: Food, Wine and Culture of the Pacific" features Deborah Madison, founding chef of the Greens Restaurant and an influential cookbook writer; writer David Karp, known for his esoteric knowledge of fruit as the "Fruit Detective"; humorist Doug Fine, author of "Not Really an Alaskan Mountain Man"; and Central Valley farmer and essayist David Mas Masumoto, whose works include the award-winning "Epitaph for a Peach."

The public is invited to the free event that looks at the culture of food in the Pacific through panel discussions, keynote talks and tours of UC Davis food laboratories and the Davis Farmers Market. Topics will range from gastronomic heritages to biotechnology and the challenges of cooking with local produce.

"The foods we eat mark an intersection of social practice and cultural style," said Georges Van den Abbeele, director of the Pacific Regional Humanities Center. "Yet in the Pacific, style includes fishing rights, biodiversity genomics, and wine economics; and practice can apply to fast-food 'drive-throughs,' food journalism, and the politics of artisan-made cheeses."

Highlights of the conference include:

• A panel discussion Thursday evening about the challenges and rewards of creating a local cuisine with Madison; Sinclair Philip, owner of Sooke Harbour House of Sooke, Victoria Island, British Columbia; and Ron Paul, a civic entrepreneur, chef and the driving force behind the Portland Public Market;
• A presentation by Fine, who hails from Haines, Alaska, about the economic and cultural role of the Pacific salmon;
• A UC Davis panel discussion on the future of food moderated by Clare Hasler, executive director of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, and featuring plant pathologist Pam Ronald; enologist Andrew Waterhouse; Jerry Gillespie, director of the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security; and Kent Bradford, director of the Seed Biotechnology Center;
• A series of regional food histories by Victor Valle of CSU Los Angeles, author of "Recipe of Memory: Five Generations of Mexican Cuisine"; Yong Chen of UC Irvine, author of "Chinese San Francisco"; and Ira Jacknis from the UC Berkeley Hearst Museum, editor of "Food in California Indian Culture."

The conference is co-sponsored by the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, which will have its official ground-breaking ceremony June 23 for state-of-the-art research and teaching facilities to house the departments of viticulture and enology as well as food science and technology.

Hasler, the Robert Mondavi Institute executive director, said the conference celebrating the legacy of food, wine and culture in the Pacific Region "is a natural fit with the vision of our institute -- 'Enhancing the quality of life through wine and food sciences.'"

Other co-sponsors include the UC Humanities Research Institute and the Davis Humanities Institute.

No registration or fees are required for this conference. Interested persons are invited to arrive at the conference, which begins with a food and film seminar at 3 p.m. Thursday, March 17, in MU II at the Memorial Union on campus. The official opening is scheduled for 5 p.m., with a welcome from UC Davis Provost Virginia Hinshaw. For more information and the schedule, go to the Pacific Regional Humanities Center http://prhc.ucdavis.edu/initiatives/BCsched.htm.