By the time the last of the guests left the loft—Kit, our friend Judith, Pamela carrying the leftover pavlova—it was already 11:30. I almost had to push them out the door, smiling and waving, but mostly wishing they would just hurry up and leave. My Dissertation Dinner was over and done with. I had performed my research-creation-reporting dissertation component. I had made mushroom pâté and chicken galantines and eggs with polenta and gazpacho waters and crème caramel and seventy-two vials of obliquely labeled liquid seasonings. I had bought three dozen cloth napkins and twenty-seven wine glasses and ten ramekins and a case of Luxembourgeois brut fizz, half pink, half white. Jean had ironed the napkins, hired a dish washer, and done a zillion other things for me. People had played and questioned, traded dishes and stories, and ingested many things. The smoke detector had gone off and the coffee maker exploded. At 11:45 pm Jean asked me if I was relieved, elated, satisfied? No, I said. Was it all that I had wanted? Yes, but it already had been, long before the invitees arrived. Was it the non-textual representation of gastronomy that I intended? multiply real? invitational and performative? a complex milieu? Whatever. I was tired and wanted to go to bed. I’d look at the video later. Maybe I’d find something to write about.

Le 26 octobre 2014 une performance sur la performance de la gastronomie s'est déroulé dans un loft dans le Vieux Montréal. Le Souper de thèse a mélangé ensemble la nourriture, des êtres humains, de l'espace, la temporalité, plusieurs mots et de l'interaction. Le produit : des effets sensoriels, corporels, émotionnels et cognitifs. Le Souper est nait d'un processus de design conceptuel de duration de plusieurs mois suit d'une série d'efforts concentrés pendant deux semaines, le tout culminant dans un « reportage collectif » qui avait eu lieu pendant cinq heures. Sa signification est variable : un évènement gastronomique, une casse-tête logistique, un projet de recherche doctoral, une soirée entre ami/es. Toutes et tous ce qui étaient présent/es sont devenu/es des sites d'inscription de connaissance sur la gastronomie. Mais ce qui était écrit n'était pas indélébile : c'était plutôt impressionniste, de la transformation fugace. Quoique nous ayons été changé par des actes gastronomiques, nous avons changé certains aspects de la gastronomie.