1Dish4TheRoad
"1 Dish 4 The Road".. Fusing food writing with whatever else I find on the road – fiction, history, poetry, humour, diversity, family stories & London.

‘Food Podcasts: A Tethering to Sound, Food and the World’ – A Guest Post by Adrienne Katz Kennedy

A montage of logos from different food podcasts

food podcasts

– Foreword –

I initially researched and wrote this piece two years ago, during a challenging period. Sadly, it never made it to publication, an inevitable reality of the freelance writing world that never really seems to get easier. Two years on, and suddenly Aaron offered this opportunity to guest post on his blogsite. To have it revived in this way (and by someone who takes such care with his words) seemed genuinely impossible: it felt like cheating, or playing with a hand of cards that weren’t mine. Besides, would it even be relevant now?

Yet, as we mark the third anniversary of the first Covid 19 pandemic lockdown in the UK, I find myself reflecting on the past. If I were to pick a soundtrack to accompany my life at that time, it would be the voices of those I’ve listed below. Voices and stories that carried me up and away, tethering me to other places as a reassurance that they still existed. The reliable, weekly or monthly appearance of a new podcast episode or comforting reassurance of older ones I had yet to hear helped to push me through the drudgery, even if only as a dangling carrot, coaxing me back out on a walk through the same streets with new sounds and stories and familiar voices as my reward.

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Goats, Stews and Stories; Ayamase at Chishuru

Nigerian goats ayamase stew at Brixton restaurant Chishuru

Goats have a habit of finding themselves in stews and stories. It’s their fate, their destiny, and it’s been like that for over ten thousand years…

 

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According to a Nigerian folk tale, there was once a rich man, who went by the name of Abdullahi. He owned a considerable number of cattle, sheep and, most of all, goats. However, he was a lonely man, with no family or friends for company.

One day, he met the judge of the town, who advised that when he died, all his cattle, sheep and goats would pass to the chief.

‘I don’t want the chief getting all these things,’ replied Abdullahi disgruntledly. ‘I’d rather sell them and enjoy life while I still can.’

Now words have the habit of catching on the wind, and little did Abdullahi know that he’d been overheard by the town rascal, who was already hatching mischief with his gang.

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“Picnic As…”

Even now I’m in two minds: is “picnic” really the right word here? Do I really wish to conjure up bucolic images of gallivanting about the countryside, all wicker baskets and gingham blankets, pink-stained fingers pinching the wet tops of strawberries, a knocked-over glass of bubbly fizzing over a clump of summer daisies?

The traditional British picnic has its roots in French pre-Revolution aristocracy. But when the posh pique-nique-ers feared for their heads, rather than lose a requisite piece of anatomy for a spot of outdoor munching, off they sailed for Blighty instead. And before you could say ‘rillettes de lapin à l’ancienne’, the craze was sweeping Georgian high society.

Picnics were then social affairs, events to see and be seen in. Their settings of countryside meadow or urban pleasure garden immersed the wealthy and privileged in a rural idyll, an escape from the bustle and grime of the city, bestowing them with an air of salubrity and restoration.

Nowadays, picnics are more democratic, but the word itself – if not the act of taking food outdoors – still seems entrenched in a genteel world of supermarket dips, served with a dash of whimsy and a sprinkling of kitsch.

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A Brief History of Food & Drink in Five Objects

Five ancient artefacts from The British Museum, London, related to food and drink.

The world’s greatest repository of antiquities? Or a vainglorious testament to the arrogance and narcissism of empire? Either way, the British Museum has long engendered discussion and debate.

But as a child, all this flew largely over my head. As far as I was concerned, the British Museum was always just a bit.. well, dull.

Egyptian mummy? So what! Roman statue? Meh! The sheer scale of time and place just washed over my youthful mind without tingling any neurones of appreciation.

And so years passed, and it was not until my 30’s that I ventured back. This time, I felt a palpable thrill as I gazed round the entrance hall – all the more gripping for its unexpectedness.

Stepping tentatively into the cavernous glass-domed Great Court was like venturing into an oversized snowglobe. But rather than chintzy little reindeers or rickety Brighton piers, there were actual sphinxes and sarcophagi – millennia-old relics staring back at me, like they were alive and breathing.

Over time, it struck me just how many objects related to food and drink: not only cutlery, crockery, and utensils, but also in the glorified representations of feasts or hunting.

I had such a sense that, regardless of time and place, food has always been a central pillar of civilisation. It is more than a sustainer of life: it’s a gatherer of people, a connector of communities, and a shaper of identity.

Over time, I’ve been steadily making note of display items that have piqued my gastronomic interest, and I’m picking out five of them here – each originating from a different era and region, each with a culinary theme and a story to tell about the society of the time.

One of these stories is about the museum itself, and how the shadow of colonialism has shaped its collection… but more on that later. For now it’s time to buckle up – you’re about to go 5000 years back into the past…

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Food Music – Nasi Lemak at MEI MEI

Nasi lemak at Mei Mei London - a Singaporean dish of fried chicken, fried egg, rice, cucumber, peanuts and anchovy.

How do we know things?

I don’t mean knowledge or facts. I’m not talking about words, labels or content.

I’m talking about perception. How do we perceive the world, at a level that’s most basic and raw? Without the steady stream of thought that continually tries to make sense of our perceptions. Or even ourselves.

I’m talking about the canvas, before we slather it with words and thoughts and worries and musings. A canvas that is ever changing, moment to moment, steeped in the restless world we find ourselves in.

Take this very moment. You’re reading words on a screen. Your brain is effortlessly crunching all those nouns, verbs, and conjunctions: framing them against your accumulated bank of knowledge, experience and attitudes.

But on another level, writing is just sticks and swirls.

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