I Am What I Eat: Anne

I have now finished my first series for Borough Market and started a new one, Box Clever. It feels like the right time to share the rest of the I Am What I Eat series. For my second post, I interviewed Anne Gumuschian, trader at La Marche du Quartier. Anne grew up in France, the daughter of a French-Italian mother and Armenian father. I talked to her about the foods that she grew up with, identity and migration. This is how the post began...

“I was always very curious with migration… and how food becomes extremely instrumental in the way that people recreate their home abroad.”

Anne Gumuschian, trader at Le Marche Du Quartier, grew up in Grenoble in the South-East of France. She is a warm and vibrant woman with an inquisitive nature, eyes that sparkle with interest in all they take in around her and a deep and hearty laugh that puts me instantly at ease. When I ask her where she calls home she tells me that “home is definitely London now, because I’ve been here quite a few years” but as we continue to talk it becomes clear that her identity is still very much shaped by her cultural heritage.

Anne has a background in anthropology, including a Masters in Migration and Diaspora Studies. This gives her a unique insight into the question of food and identity and the significance that people from different backgrounds attach to the foods that they associate with home.

For Anne, identity is something fluid and contextual. She has a very open-minded approach to her own identity, which she sees as something to be played with. Her father is the son of Armenian migrants who settled in France having fled their homeland to escape the genocide in 1915 and her mother has both French and Italian roots.

You can read the rest of the post on the Borough Market blog.