I am what I eat: Borough Market Blog

In September I started a project for Borough Market, interviewing traders from different backgrounds about the foods that are important to them, the foods that make them feel nostalgic, that remind them of home. It has been a wonderful experience. I have met some really interesting people from diverse cultural backgrounds. They all had different stories to tell, but one thing that unites them is their passion for food and their joy in sharing it with others. 

As the series is coming to a close, I thought I would share the posts here too. In my first post I aimed to give a little context to the series by looking briefly at the concept of national cuisine and identity and then considering what that might mean to the individual. 

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A sad day for the UK

I don’t often post anything political on my blog, at least not about my personal views, but today’s news that we are to be subjected to another 5 years of Tory government has made me feel angry, upset and disillusioned.   

This morning I posted the following status update on Facebook:

To which one of my friends – one of the few Tories I do associate with – replied:

I know she said this in jest and that much of the rant that follows does not reflect her views, but nonetheless I feel compelled to respond.

I am not a communist; there is not one historical example of it working in reality and contemporary examples are hardly textbook. However, I do believe that people less fortunate than me should be given a chance to succeed and that means affordable education and a welfare system. I know there are some people who take advantage of this, but what about people who are disabled or from an impoverished background who haven’t had the chances I was given in terms of education and a loving and nurturing family environment?

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Constructing Cuisine

Sorry I have been so quiet on this page. On the food front, I have only been thinking about one thing recently: my dissertation. I wrote a short article recently outlining my study, which I share here. Forget picnics, beaches and BBQs, this is what I'll be doing this summer...

The aim of my study is to investigate the context(s) in which having a national cuisine becomes significant. I will be looking at when, why and for whom it becomes important to talk about a national cuisine in Britain and Australia.

Like most aspects of culture that are the focus of anthropological studies, cuisines are never static, but constantly being made and remade. Nevertheless, it seems that at a particular moment, or moments, having a national cuisine becomes an important part of the ‘cultural capital’ of a nation. My research so far suggests that in Australia and Britain this becomes especially important in the 1980s and gains momentum in the 1990s. This is not to suggest that either country is lacking a rich culinary history, but rather that “the globally held view that every nation must have its own cuisine” (Cusack, 2000: 208) is actually quite a recent phenomenon.

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Interview with Anna Colquhoun: Food and Class

Photo courtesy of Anna Colquhoun

Meet Anna Colquhoun, chef, cooking teacher, food writer, and consultant on BBC Radio 4's, The Kitchen Cabinet. Anna is also studying the MA Anthropology of Food at the School of Oriental and African Studies. How she finds time to do all these things is wonder to me.

In this podcast I talk to Anna about her research interests: food and social media, seasonal and local food, and food, class and space in London. Here is a short video introducing Anna and some of the themes touched on in the interview:

In looking at food and social media, I ask Anna whether she thinks the rise of food in social media - for example, people tweeting their dinners - reflects an increased interest in food in the UK more generally or whether it might be distancing us from the food issues today. I am particularly interested in whether, like me, she has noticed a paradox between the rise of celebrity chefs, cooking programmes and food in social media in contrast with a general decline in cooking skills, as people buy more pre-prepared food and eat out more.

I'm also interested in finding out where Anna stands on debates around seasonal and local food, particularly with how this ties in with debates around ethical consumption.  

Food, class and space in London is a new topic for me and I ask Anna to elaborate on how these issues intersect.

I have called this interview 'Food and Class' because, although we talk about her three different research interests, class is a running theme throughout. I hope you enjoy the podcast.

If you are interested in finding out more about Anna, or attending one of her classes or supperclubs, you can find all the information you need and more on her website: http://www.culinaryanthropologist.org/

Food and identity: other factors

When I first started reading about food and identity I used to gloss over the parts which highlighted the role played by factors such as globalisation and commercialisation. I wasn’t interested in this. I liked reading about the sentimental stuff. But the more I have read, the harder it has been to ignore and now that I am going to be writing my dissertation on the subject I can’t afford to overlook it.

Funnily enough, when I was writing about my own food memories in my last post I started writing about my childhood obsession with English junk food and realised that, subconsciously, I had been influenced by these other factors. I loved stocking up on English junk food on childhood visits to the UK from Australia. I was keen on the ‘Olde' English hard-boiled sweets that you couldn’t get in Oz, but I was also interested in the different brands and flavours of crisps and sweets available. I thought it novel that the colours of crisp packets indicated different flavours in the UK. When I was back in Australia last Christmas, I found some old journals from my trips to England. I had actually stuck the empty crisp and chocolate wrappers in them, along with ticket stubs, postcards and other ‘memories’.

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