Why I love food stories
The Flavour Narratives was born out of my love for food stories. Trying to understand why they are important will be a lifetime’s project, but these are the first chapters.
Red lentil dhal - a recipe I first learnt from a friend’s mum and still cook today
It is well known in our family that I don’t remember “that time we went to that place” or “saw that thing” or “had a great time with” unless they remind me what we ate that day.
Then it all comes back to me – sitting around slightly damp picnic benches eating hard National Trust scones. Stoically bent double in sinking camping chairs protecting thickly spread Nutella on wonkily cut white bread. My first crème brûlée, it’s golden crust like amber, custard heady with vanilla in its shallow terracotta dish.
And Mum’s summer trends – peppered mackerel, pea soup, ratatouille. Not to mention the day she tricked us into eating homemade tomato ice lollies having claimed they were strawberry. We’re still scarred.
My brother and me, the summer of the fateful tomato ice lollies
I was lucky enough to study Social Anthropology at uni. In the pages of books, journals, and recipe books academics worked hard to give shape and meaning to the experience of growing, eating, and sharing food.
Janet Carsten helps me to understand how shared food can create kinship ties. David Sutton makes me feel better about choosing places to do research led by my gastronomic preferences. Their writing encapsulated what I struggle to. For Counihan and Van Esterick food “touches everything” and for Marcel Mauss is a “total social fact”
Holtzman takes us beyond these pithy one-liners finding “lines of causality and meaning in ways that are deeply symbolic, sensuous, psychological, and social”. He shows how everyday processes like cooking and eating are deeply connected to culture, politics, and economics.
Food stories allow us to lift these wonderful academics off of the page, and into sensory realm of our kitchens. You will come to know these characters well. They are the bedrock of my understanding.
Grating cabbage for dinner at a friend’s house in Kosovo, 2012
Slowly, I began to spend more time in areas of conflict and post-conflict - Sri Lanka, Kosovo, the West Bank. In places so different to my south of England upbringing, the rhythm of meals, coveting of culinary knowledge, and routine of shopping felt so familiar. A shared humanity.
Everyone has their story. And in every story there is food. Each bite is seasoned with the bitter reality of politics, climate change, recession, but also zesty with celebrations of birthdays, weddings, graduations, and tender with the reminders of tables eaten at, journeys taken and moments shared.
The Flavour Narratives is a chance for us to all sit at the same table, and, I hope, remember what holds us together.