Category Archives: Food

We need to talk about hunger

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If you look through the door of my pantry you will see a window into my world.  My pantry expresses my likes and dislikes and my cultural background by the presence and absence of certain goods. You will also see that in my house, we are not hungry.  I have been hungry in the past.  I plan against this by stocking up for the possibility that there might come a day when I might not have money.  It isn’t an entirely rational approach to domestic food provisioning as it is a practice that produces waste.  But, I always know where my next meal is coming from.  And I also know I am lucky to be able to be so potentially wasteful. My household budget is shaped by my past experience of hunger.  I am sure I am not alone, but for some reason hunger is not a fashionable term these days.  What is that all about?

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Paris, Eating, Books and Promise

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IMG_1956I took my son to paris this week. It was a reward for more than surviving what was a difficult few months.  Eurostar was having a sale; I felt we deserved a treat.  In anticipation of this journey, I did what I usually do.  I looked for guidebooks.  I found a couple of good ones, and one in particular, The little Black Book of Paris (2014, Peter Pauper Press), proved particularly useful.  I have also begun to buy a novel about the places I am visiting before going and this time I purchased a book called Lunch in Paris by Elizabeth Bard.  I was going to Paris, I planned to eat lunch, it seemed a good choice.   Continue reading →

When life gives you half price figs, make jam (and a tart)

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FigsFigs were half price at our local Waitrose this autumn.  I bought enough to make a batch of Marmellata di Fichi (Fig Jam).  This is made pretty much like any other jam thought the ratio of sugar to fig is a bit less (I used 1.5 Kg of figs and 600g of caster sugar).  I also added the zest of one lemon, the juice of half of the lemon and about 3 teaspoons of Chinese 5 spice (I know not the traditional Italian recipe).  I think Chinese 5 spice should be used more widely.  The mix I have consists of ginger, star anise, fennel, cinnamon, and cloves.  It is wonderful in most things where you want a bit of Christmas-y/ Autumn-y hint.

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Finding the beginning or where does our food come from?

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03 19 08 Bradford wholesale market 012

I once conducted a research project that examined the consumption practices of middle-class households in the UK.  I was interested in the knowledges they had about what foods to buy and how their own understandings of local fit into this.  As part of that project I went to visit the wholesale market in Bradford, which is where most of the fruit and vegetables one finds in the various corner shops within the region are sourced.  It was both an interesting and illuminating trip at the time, and has informed my reflections on where our food begins its life as food any number of times since then.  What, in particular, it has caused me to consider is not only the socio-cultural relations that inform the origins of our food, but also the contexual usefulness (or uselessness) of the idea of local when we think about whether or not our food is local.  Continue reading →