Christmas dinner is always a bit of a challenge in our house. In the period before we moved to Hong Kong I would always cook a whole salmon. The first year we lived in Hong Kong, I ventured to the wet market to purchase a fish. Salmon are not widely available in Hong Kong, certainly not in the markets, so I got some other fish. I’ve still no idea what it was, but I do know we all got really ill. For the next two years I ordered the whole meal from a restaurant in Sai Kung, which arrived hot and tasted lovely, but was mostly turkey imported from the US. This year I am cooking venison purchased locally. What strikes me about this tale of food feasts is what we understand about what comprises fresh food and how that is so linked up with cultural differences.
Category Archives: Other
Habit, morals, food and social media
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Every year, for the past several I’ve gone to Brussels to review grants for the European Commission. It is not a habitual exercise, however as I must be invited, and this is not a certainty. I love going and look forward nervously for the invitation every spring. I gain a huge amount of satisfaction and validation from the effort. For the past several times, when I’ve gone, I meet a group of friends at a Moroccan restaurant near the Bourse. On the recent visit, at this restaurant, I learned about what is known as the Paleo diet. Roughly, on this diet you avoid pulses, grains, dairy, and sugar. It is meant to help you feel better. It does, but you have to break a few habits first. Continue reading
Driers of fish and hewers of place
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While the word hue refers to colour, to be a hewer is to be someone who carves out. When I was in graduate school, one of the more influential papers I read was written by geographer Kathy Gibson. The paper, titled “Hewers of cake and drawers of tea”, was an analysis of class struggle and gender in the face of miners strikes in Queensland, Australia. The point of the paper was to illustrate the importance of domestic activity and women’s work in the reproduction of conditions under which strike action is made possible. Indeed, strike times, as well as times of employment and plenty, are sustained by the graft of women and the community in which and through which they forge their domestic craft. It is often through ordinary activities, such as cooking, from which social life is hewn. Continue reading
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