Food on the Edge: the power of conversations to create change

November 22, 2018 by Clare Yazbeck in Connect, Explore

When I think of some of the best conversations I’ve had, they are defined more by the questions they have raised than any neat solutions they’ve offered. Finding the space to come together to ask searching questions, to listen, to be challenged, to make connections and build relationships, sometimes in the unlikeliest of places, seems to be more important than ever these days.

In October, people from around the world gathered to create just this kind of space at the Food on the Edge symposium in Galway, on the west coast of Ireland. The symposium aims to challenge our perspectives on food and our connection to it, and features TED-style talks by speakers chosen for their innovation, passion and influence on contemporary food culture. This year focused on the power of conversations to transform the way we relate to food and each other. The conversation continued afterwards as the speakers spent two days visiting local Irish producers and attractions.

Often our first experience of other cultures is through food. Instinctively, we know that the relationship that people have with food tells us a lot about who they are and how they live. And yet, if we had to explain our own food culture to someone, would we know how? Could we trace how our relationship with food is shaped by our culture?

These are some of the questions that Adrian Klonowski and Matylda Grzelak posed as they shared their story of closing their successful fine dining restaurant in Poland to start again from scratch. Despite trying to promote Poland and its produce, Klonowski and Grzelak realised they had adopted popular Nordic and fine dining trends that did not ring true. They explained that in Poland, dining is more informal and centred in the kitchen where people cook, talk and eat together. They remembered that it was these authentic experiences they sought out when they travelled, and felt that people who dined with them were missing.

Unexpectedly, it was working at a restaurant on an island in Estonia that helped Klonowski and Grzelak find a way back to their Polish food culture. Faced with the challenge of creating a menu with limited ingredients and understanding of the Nordic islands, they constantly asked questions. Very quickly, stories emerged that revealed to them that customs convey the food identity of a place or culture. For example, they encountered the mealtime greeting jätku leiba, which means “may your bread last”. As they asked more about it, they learned about the custom of guests bringing bread as a gift, especially when visiting from the mainland. The limited ingredients on the island meant bread was important and needed to last when other food was scarce. It is with this philosophy that Klonowski and Grzelak will open their new restaurant in Poland to promote and keep Polish customs alive.

This was echoed by Russian chef Vladimir Mukhin, who spoke about how an import embargo forced him to source produce solely within Russia and ended up making him an advocate for Russian food culture. At first, he was seeking local produce that would meet his high standards but as he formed relationships with farmers and met Russian elders, he deepened his understanding and appreciation of Russian food traditions. Mukhin became inspired to share this with others more broadly by celebrating and saving Russian food traditions, creating new trends for modern times, and promoting Russian cuisine at home and abroad through festivals and open kitchens.z

In contrast to the Polish and Russian speakers, who spoke of rediscovering what they have, a Japanese chef, Takashi Miyazaki described his experience of cultural exchange here in Ireland. By applying Japanese techniques to Irish ingredients, Miyazaki has found a way to embrace both his Japanese heritage and his new home.

When he arrived in Ireland in 2008, Miyazaki was surprised by the lack of local appreciation for seafood and seaweed compared to Japan, given Ireland is also an island nation. Yet he also saw opportunities to work with the abundance of excellent seafood and types of seaweed not encountered in Japan.

Miyazaki has found a receptive local audience and industry recognition by showing the potential of seafood that had been undervalued in Ireland. While Food on the Edge director JP McMahon and other Irish chefs are also championing Irish produce, McMahon reflected that “sometimes it takes people from outside to teach us what we have”.

The desire to not only find and share one’s food culture, but also shape it, was another theme of the symposium. Some of the most compelling conversations were inspired by speakers who showed the potential to transform the way we live by changing our relationship with food. They saw beyond individual cultural heritage to advocate for a shared inheritance of our environment and dignity as fellow humans.

Karissa Becerra’s non-profit organisation, La Revolución asks why a country with a strong food culture like Peru can have both increasing child malnutrition and adult obesity. Becerra and her team are building early intervention programs to create lasting social change by empowering children to become responsible consumers who choose good quality, healthy and delicious food while also being conscious of their environmental impact and cultural heritage.

For example, in recognising that the palate is the best weapon to guard against poor food choices, La Revolución has examined how to avoid dependency on refined sugar from early childhood. Its ChocoRevolución program teaches children the process of making chocolate and the health and taste benefits of good quality dark chocolate, and the difference they can make by supporting Peruvian biodiversity and farmers of native cocoa beans. Becerra is enthusiastic about how children understand these concepts and change their habits immediately, while also becoming advocates in their families and communities.

Another chef and activist, Joshna Maharaj inspired many at the conference with her conviction to transform the way food is produced and served in public institutions in Canada. Maharaj lamented the deterioration of institutional food to become an industrial process left to the lowest bidder, rather than being valued for its role in nurturing health and wellbeing. Through the Take Back the Tray campaign, she is championing a philosophy that good food can be healthy, delicious and pleasurable; and for a return to the principles of hospitality and human dignity for people in our care.

Maharaj has faced considerable resistance from asking hospitals and universities to return to making food from scratch. While common in the restaurant world, it was controversial for Maharaj to call for sourcing produce from local farmers and small businesses, offering seasonal and culturally appropriate food for diverse populations, upskilling catering staff to cook again after years of de-skilling from using pre-prepared food, and taking staff on field trips to local farms. Like Becerra however, she has found that staff become engaged advocates when they realise the opportunity to take pride in their work and support their community, with one staff member saying, “I would be so proud to serve these greens to our patients”.

Charlie Byrne’s pop-up bookshop, Food on the Edge symposium

Artisan Village, Food on the Edge symposium

Irish Raw Milk Cheese Presidium, Food on the Edge symposium

Another compelling conversation centred on transforming our relationship to food by eliminating waste. Several chefs and producers showed how they are leading the way by asking themselves how they can reduce their own ecological footprint and also use their creativity to shift public perception about what is possible. Some speakers were provocative in declaring that waste is a lack of imagination, but many have also begun by making small changes where they are, just like we can at home.

Two pioneers are Doug McMaster and Dan Gibeon of Silo Brighton, the UK’s first zero-waste restaurant. At Silo, they eliminate waste production at every level of their restaurant by trading directly with small suppliers, recycling and reusing containers for food and furniture at the restaurant, processing food as much as possible on-site, composting their organic waste on-site and sending it back to farmers to close the loop.

While beyond the means of the vast majority of restaurants and homes, McMaster and Gibeon are showing how creative we can be to eliminate waste. They led an inspired masterclass on the Alexander plant to demonstrate how they use different parts of this wild plant across the seasons to make everything from oils to ice cream, cocktails and pickles. They even shared canapés they had made using the Alexander plant and crackers using excess sourdough starter culture.

Doug McMaster and Dan Gibeon, Silo Brighton

Alexander Plant canapés by Doug McMaster and Dan Gibeon

Spanish chef, Albert Adrià is also harnessing creativity to address rapid decline of fish stocks and species. He spoke about seeking alternatives to using seafood that is endangered or out of season by inventively using elements that would otherwise be discarded (such as octopus and monkfish heads), and learning from other cultures that do use those parts in their cuisines. Adrià is promoting these methods in his own restaurants to demonstrate ways to make the most of seafood trimmings that would normally be discarded, and to give them what he described as more dignified treatment.

At the other end of the process, Irish Seed Savers and Brown Envelope Seeds are working to educate people about the value of seeds to avoid the loss of Ireland’s native fruit and vegetable varieties. They are conducting seed trials to compare different varieties and identify what grows, stores and tastes best across the seasons. Their aim is to open up a conversation with chefs to share these varieties and understand what chefs want to cook with so that those seeds can be produced and promoted, and so consumers will recognise the taste and value of that produce and want to protect it too.

These stories from Food on the Edge show how coming together to share our diverse perspectives can build relationships, make connections and create change. Some found great inspiration in rediscovering and celebrating their food heritage and sharing it, while others looked to a collective inheritance that transcends borders via the themes of health and wellbeing, human dignity and sustainability. They all showed that we have the power to influence the way we live through our choices and questions. In this light, we can see that culture works both ways – it is an inheritance that we all receive and also an obligation we have to participate in and shape. We don’t need all the answers, we only need to join the conversation.

Adventures in preserving: jam

June 26, 2016 by Clare Yazbeck in Feast

This year, I’ve been taken by preserving in a way I hadn’t expected. I don’t grow my own food, so I wasn’t prompted to preserve out of necessity (no heaving fruit trees on my apartment balcony!). But I do eat seasonally and locally so I want to make the most of what’s around me. Plus the preserving process is rather mysterious and magical, who wouldn’t be curious?

Of all the forms of preserving, I had no idea jam making would instantly take hold like it has. Not in some quaint grandmotherly way, but boldly, effervescently, deliciously. It has taken me on some exuberant adventures and rekindled the quiet joy of making and giving. Really.

I wasn’t introduced or exposed to preserving in the traditional way, where it is passed down the generations as a vital skill to preserve surplus produce from going to waste, to provide food through the winter and a varied diet throughout the year. I didn’t grow up seeing my mum make preserves other than the year she ran the jam and pickles stall at my primary school fete. These days, I’m not alone in this experience. For most people, preserving is something their grandmother used to do.

Yet even without much of a personal connection to it, my curiosity drew me in, and I have my mother to thank for cultivating that. She instilled in me an openness to be inspired by what is around me and the confidence to try new things and find my own way.

As I was becoming interested in preserving, it was this spirit of curiosity and adventure that I recognised in the story of the Cornersmith café and picklery. Cornersmith has taken a home cook’s foray into preserving (when Alex Elliott-Howery was at home with her small children in Sydney and seeing fruit literally falling off the trees in her neighbourhood and carpeting the ground), to opening a café incorporating their preserves and a local community produce trading system, and then establishing a picklery to expand production and to teach and inspire others.

The cookbook ties it all together and encourages others to make their own way into preserving too. Structured in chapters based on the seasons (my favourite kind of cookbook), it offers an understanding of how to preserve with the seasons and incorporate what you’ve made into meals throughout the year. In this way, it deftly integrates the tradition of preserving into modern life.

Refreshingly relaxed in its approach, the book makes accessible what could be intimidating: sterilising jars, fermenting and the mysterious setting point of jam. I love its sense of humour about the sometimes wild ride of preserving, including offering full permission to have a gin and lie down when it all goes wrong!

Knowing that it was possible to have a go at preserving without any experience or special equipment, to try and not really have a clue if it was going to work out, made starting out easier because I didn’t expect perfection the first time or every time.

It let me go with the wildly unrealistic notion of making my first ever batch of jam on a Monday morning before work (because I’d been side tracked on Sunday night and it was now or never with the macerated blackberries!) and having to run out the door, unsure if the jam had set and leaving my kitchen splattered with sticky purple spots and smears. When I came home, I popped open a jar and discovered to my great delight that the jam had indeed set and was heavenly – gloriously glossy, with the zing of lemon zest and juice to cut through the sweetness.

I was amazed that I could make something this good first-go. I was hooked. As much as I enjoy pickling and I'm wide-eyed about exploring fermentation, somehow jam making became my first love. In a few short months, I’ve made two batches of blackberry jam, two of strawberry, rhubarb and rosewater jam and one of lime and ginger marmalade.

Mostly, the chaos continues. It feels like my jam making has a life of its own and I’m feeling my way through with some guidelines from the cookbook but mostly trusting my instincts. And yes, I still rather optimistically decide to make jam when I don’t really have the time. Like when I attempted to make it while also slow roasting brisket – rather distracting, don’t try it! Or when I was up until midnight making marmalade because it took forever to thinly slice a kilogram of limes with a blunt knife and I somehow missed the detail in the recipe which said they would need to simmer for an hour and a half before beginning the setting process, and at that point there was no turning back!

Of course, I’ve had some failures. Two attempts at quince and apple jam did not work out. After spending hours peeling, chopping and softening the fruit and then setting the jam late into the night, I really did feel like taking Alex’s suggestion of having a gin and a lie down! It hasn’t put me off though and I’ve found ways to salvage my imperfect jam.

Looking back on the delight I’ve taken in the magical, addictive process, I can see jam making goes beyond being a purely practical way to preserve surplus food, or to have something nice to eat.

Even though we don’t need to eat seasonally or preserve food if we don’t want to these days, and many of us have let go of the practice in favour of time and convenience, a growing number of us do want to. I believe we preserve not because we’ll necessarily be at good at it, or because we have time to kill (as I can attest!). Rather, we want to find the time to make something from scratch because we are curious and because we know the rewards are worth the effort. When we start making, our appreciation grows by understanding what goes into crafting something so personal so proficiently. We can also be confident of what ingredients and care have gone into making it.

Jam won’t cure our ills (or slim our waistlines) but I believe it nourishes us in ways that are just as vital and therapeutic. Rather than the norm they used to be, homemade preserves are a rare treat these days. That’s why I enjoy giving so much of what I’ve made away - to my family, to a friend going through a tough time, in a birthday cake to share with colleagues, or to thank a generous dinner party host.

I like to think of the people I care about having a moment of pleasure over tea and toast in the morning, with scones for afternoon tea, or eating it straight out of the jar with a spoon, as one friend likes to do! That they go out of their way to let me how much they’ve enjoyed my jam and marmalade, and have felt compelled to share it with others, tells me we’re all craving this nourishment, care and connection, even if we didn’t realise it. Don’t you think?

Kangaroo Island: everything is waiting for you

April 13, 2016 by Clare Yazbeck in Explore

A recent trip to South Australia offered the opportunity to visit Kangaroo Island. It takes effort to get there, and some expense. It is not easy to get around: the island is larger than one might expect and there are only a couple of sealed roads, a few populated areas and amenities. The island demands a willingness from the modern traveller to remember and respect the reality of that remoteness – we can’t access its beauty, stillness and wilderness without also accepting the removal from the accustomed convenience and pace of urban life. We are called to let go of our race of doing, and ease into being. Sometimes, as I found, that’s not so easy to do.

The arrival on the ferry at Penneshaw on the island’s east coast is gentle with its shimmering bays and quiet fishing village holiday atmosphere. Travelling inland and to the north coast maintains this tranquillity of coastal and farming life. Though there is more happening than might appear in these protected pockets – from the making of the island’s famous Ligurian honey to sheep's milk cheese, gin and vodka, abundant seafood, wine, and long lunches underneath an enormous fig tree.

To the south and west, the wilderness quickly opens up. A stop at Pennington Bay elicits the first gasp at finding the wild beauty the journey had promised. The azure blues and greens of the water startle in their contrast to the white foam of the breaking waves streaking across it, and the sandy creams and greens of the windswept scrub on the dunes and headlands that encircle the bay. The place feels both vast as the waves and wind buffet the shore, yet so quiet and intimate in its seclusion.

Here, the constructs of what we know as civilisation fall away and nature rises up to claim the space. In this space, nature can be at peace to follow its ancient rhythms and, it seems, is happy enough to invite us in as witnesses.

A particularly special invitation was to join the sea lions down on the beach at Seal Bay. These creatures were content to allow us to observe them go about their flow of feeding, resting and playing, as they have done in this same spot for generations. It felt like a privileged glimpse into a rare world, which it is.

Strangely, the awe I felt also brought up conflict in me.

I wanted so much to run headlong into the magic of this place, to soak up everything it had to offer, to know it all, that I reverted at times to feeling the pressure I encounter in city life to do and see too much. I felt the scarcity of the time I had there clash against the vastness I wanted to experience. I got out of sync with the rhythm of the island and tried to take in as much as I could, as if I could stockpile it to draw on when I went back to my normal life, and in fear that this might be my only chance. It bothered me that I couldn’t seem to accept the time that I did have, to trust that the island could give me an experience that transcended my limitations. I have gladly surrendered to the slow rhythm of nature before, so why not now?

I reflected on this inner tussle as I stood on the cliffs of the west coast at Cape du Couedic and looked out over the Southern Ocean. I could see that the waves colliding with the coastline were like my own internal battle, and that somewhere there was refuge like the rock pools where the fur seals played below.

Look closely and you'll see the fur seals on the rocks

Up at the Remarkable Rocks, whose jagged granite faces have been shaped by the wind and the ocean, I resolved to return in the morning to spend sunrise there in solitude and see what I might discover. I resolved to be gently open and curious; to stop looking outside myself and on the surface of the island, and turn within. And from within, to see and to feel what the island had to offer.

The Remarkable Rocks Kangaroo Island slow diaries

It was a slow journey up there the next morning as wallabies, native ducks and other animals dotted the way on their morning feed. Otherwise, I was entirely alone. As I sat overlooking the ocean in the gentleness of dawn, the birds warbled their awakening and I felt embraced by a timeless moment in nature.

The rain rolled in quite quickly so I wasn't there long. But I didn’t need to be, it was enough. The island had found its way into me at last.

The morning’s rain seeped me deeper into this surrender. The weather forced us to let go of any adventurous plans and instead drive up to Antechamber Bay on the east coast to a farm that was to be our home for the night. As the rain cleared, we walked along the property's private coastline and through the paddocks, and looked out at water whose blues merged into the dense grey clouds sitting just above them. We didn't need to go anywhere else. It was enough to just be there and immerse ourselves in the peace of the place.

Kangaroo Island had worked its magic by teaching me that the transcendence it offered was not to be found in racing about to visit all its beautiful corners. It was to be revealed in the stillness of being there. When I let go and tuned into that, when I listened, the island reminded me, as David Whyte does, that everything is waiting for me.