Conversation Dinner, Oxford

Tuesday 19th October

After my five hour trek around South London, site hunting, skipped onto a bus to Oxford to take part in Conversational Dinners.  The brainchild of Theodore Zeldin and run by Oxford Muse, the dinners are intended to bring together complete strangers to talk, share knowledge and learn from one another.  Everyone gathers, is paired with someone they have never met before, and sits at a table for two. Everyone is allocated a menu of conversation and during the course of the dinner you ask one another questions from the menu.

Talking, Eating, Sharing. All key to my project, but my frustaion was the pairing element.  I found experience isolated in the way that you only spoke intenesly to just one perosn – I desperately wanted to turn to someone at another table and say “Hey, this is an interesting comment here – what do you think?”.  Without that communal group discussion I found the exeperience strikingly singular in that it was just the one person. I wanted a table full of strangers to talk to.

North Lambeth – Site searching

Tuesday 19th October

The map I have drawn, shown below, sets out the locations of weekly farmers markets held in London. There is a clear correlation between their location and the affluence of an area with markets appearing in areas such as Marylebone, Islington, Pimlico, Richmond.

That is not to say these are the only food markets in London – far from it. But these are the ones that describe themselves as selling “fresh local produce to Londoners … where you can meet the farmers, fisherman, growers and bakers who all share a passion for home grown products”

Wanting to contrast the places where you can buy local food with the places where you can go to eat I referred to Eat London, a guide of good places to eat in London written by the Terrence Conran – he of the Conran design and restaurant empire, and cohort Peter Prescott.

If you were to believe their map, draw a triangle with Waterloo at the top, go East to Vauxhall, run a line through Clapham, Stockwell, out to Camberwell and far out to New Cross and beyond and from there back up to Elephant and Castle and Southern Southwark  and, according to Conran’s map, nowhere in that part of the city is there anywhere worth eating.

It would be something of an understatement to say that I beg to differ.

Peter and I had discussed looking at redundant spaces which which benefit from some re-appropriation using food as the method. So off I went on a 5 hour trundle around South London, from Peckham to the river – looking at redundant or under-used sites.

A Visual History of Cookery

Monday 18th October

My new book – bought at Artwords Bookshop on Broadway Market.  A Visual History of Cookery published by Black Dog Publishing.

Tutorial 3

Monday 18^th October

Tutorial with Peter Karl.  Presented to him my brief analysis of the way in which artists have depicted feasts – the pieces ranging from the An Elegant Party, painted in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), a 15th Century depiction of King Solomon, Peasant Wedding by Bruegel and finishing up this chronological ramble through the history of feasts at the present day village fete or harvest supper.

There were some consistent themes that arose repeatedly in the paintings – most notably how in all of them there was always a reference to the outdoors – be it a wiggly Medieval street or sweeping estates, in every picture there is always an indication of the land.

Secondly in every picture pre 18^th C. there is a distinction between people serving and being served.  After that, in all the images I found, there is no service and instead everyone is joining in helping themselves.

Food is always being served in large communal dishes placed on the table for everybody to dig into. Feasting, it appears, is not about dainty individual plates but rather collective eating that is reflected in communal benches, big platter and shared jugs of wine that are passed around.

Peter talked of Mrs. Beeton, a chart of seasonally available ingredients, what is the most exotic food we can grow in the UK – can we grow a pineapple? Energy audit of what it takes to make a meal, description of the banquet of The Medici Wedding of 1589 and Renaissance theatricality of eating.

Market Brunch

17th October – Sunday morning at Broadway

My first visit to Broadway Market. I came because one of the especially warm and enthusiastic producers who I had spoken to at Borough raved about it.  My expectations were surprised.  Having been told “it’s a real market.  Full of people bartering, music, kids sitting on the pavement” I had expected quite a gritty, live market placed with a local neighborhood feel.

What I found was the East-London’ites in full swing.  The place was awash with the square-black-glasses design crowd, Pixie Geldof, trendy design’esque yummy mummies all topped off with lots of pugs and poodles.  Which goes to show what ‘local neighborhood’ in East London has become these days.

Not quite my idea of a real market with real people.  Not how I personally envisage it anyway.  Whilst the fresh produce – the free range meats and veges – were scrumptious, it felt painfully cliquey.  Anyone truly local to the East End stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the absolute wash of Barbours and brogues.  Which in turn made the place strangely inaccessible and socially niche.

If nothing else, helped to remind me what I’m not doing – I’m not in this project to design a space for prettified cupcakes.

Conversational Dinner

In bed and in my pyjamas, I book a ticket for a Conversational Dinner being held in Oxford on the 19th October. The Muse organises Conversation Meals at which you are seated in pairs with someone you have never met.  You are each given a Menu of Conversation that looks like a restaurant menu, but instead of descriptions of food dishes, each heading contains topics to talk about, 25 in all.

Slightly nervous – we English aren’t the best at striking up conversations with strangers at the best of times, but eager to document this event and experience some communal eating, where food will act as the background for a collective dinner.

Urban Farming in Cuba

Woke this morning to an email from architect Sarah Wigglesworth recommending I get hold of a copy of the film The Power of Community – How Cuba survived peak oil.  A breakfast hour rummage around online to buy a copy, and pondering the possibility of hosting a wee film showing. Perhaps.

Tutorial 1

Thursday 14^th Oct: Tutorials

We were asked to each make a 10 minute presentation, showing a piece of finite and specific research into our project. We were also asked to bring an example of a contract that would act as a catalyst for the style and structure of The Contract which we are to sign in two weeks.

I presented the two mapping exercises I’ve carried out as I seek to explore the question of “How much can we feed ourselves form UK produce? What is possible?”.  My two maps show the routes of food coming into the city, setting out paths of provenance. The maps show market versus supermarket.  Also presented my informal interviews with producers and chefs.  Was asked to consider the bias of those I’ve been talking to, and perhaps I need to talk to someone who is coming at The Food Problem from a less sympathetic angle, as all the people I have spoke to are ‘on side’.

Hmmm.  Agree – I have people ‘on side’, but who/ how do I find the off-side angle?

How Possible?

Wednesday 13th October

Almost every aspect of today’s industrial farming involves the use of oil in some way, through the use of machinery, making of fertilizers, processing packaging and transport. Around four barrels of oil go in to feeding each of us in Britain once a year, and about twice that number in America. We’re effectively eating oil.

So how possible is it to do it differently? What if we do eat small and local, what do we get?  Below, a plate of Street Kitchen food marking up the provenance of ingredients.

Street Kitchen

Saturday 9th October

London Restaurant festival is rolling along.  Some glitzy names in the world of modern gastronomy have signed up; Jason Atherton ran a pop-up around Oxford Street, Richard Corrigan, Georgio Locatelli, Mark Hix, Angela Hartnett and others each served up dinner in one of the London Eye’s pods – described as an “ultimate, exclusive dining experience”. The event sought to advance the profile of London Restaurants, but it was the slightly left-field events that interested me – those that didn’t cost £1,000 per head.

I was particularly drawn to Street Kitchen run by Jun Tanaka, executive chef at Pearl Restaurant, and Mark Jankel, chef and founder of The Food Initiative.  The mobile kitchen is running out of a vintage airstream caravan, serving simple bistro-style food using ingredients sourced from sustainable and organic farms.

Off I went to Covent Garden and found Mark serving food to a mixture of those in-the-know who had come specially and as well as curious passers-by and tourists.  We chatted sourcing, salad roofs and he told me about his forthcoming restaurant which will run from a warehouse in Battersea and sets out to celebrate UK produce.