So many online opportunities in October! This month I'm highlighting 2 British organizations that do a superb job of creating meaningful online events. I was so grateful for all of the online events during the Covid years, and while I am so happy to be out and about at all the wonderful live events, sometimes its nice to stay at home with a cup of tea and learn on my couch! I want to give a tremendous THANK YOU! to Patricia Bixler Reber who writes the Researching Food History Blog for here extensive listings of both live and recorded online talks. You can see her current list HERE.
See you online!
Tuesday, October 22, 2024. 17:00 BST
We need to talk about : Gleaning in the 21st century: old traditions and new solutions for our waste-conscious world. Oxford Food Symposium Kitchen table discussion group. FREE, advanced registration required.
"...there was a time when your fathers, your husbands and your brothers were so often awakened by the call of the gleaner’s drum..."" — Critic, Léon Daléas
The 19th century social and class critique levied by Millet’s painting of women scavenging harvest leavings as gleaners contrasted by the harvest’s wealth in the background still resonates globally today. His painting inspired French New Wave filmmaker, Agnès Varda’s (2000) documentary, “The Gleaners and I.” Following collage artist Louis Pons’ admonition, “junk is a cluster of possibilities” forcing us all to not fritter away our resources.
Anyone outside of the economic elite out of necessity or for ethical reasons is tethered to obtaining adequate food, contending with waste, recycling, upcycling and repurposing of ingredients, prepared dishes, containers.
Our October Kitchen Table Conversation will include Eleanor Barnett, author of “Leftovers: A History of Food Waste and Preservation,” where she explores the ingenious ways our ancestors have extended the life of the foods they ate through preservation and recycling of food scraps; and Usha Thakrar, Executive Director of Boston Area Gleaners, (BAG). Her organization is committed to improving access to affordable, healthy food for our communities, and supporting equitable, just, and sustainable local food systems while supporting growers and reducing food waste. They rethink the local supply chain between regional family farms and consumers ensuring that fresh, healthy, affordable food is available to everyone."
Tuesday, October 24, 2024, 2:00PM - 3:00PM London Time
"Carla Baker: Where did northern Tasmanian apples go? (lightning talk)
Chihyin Hsiao: Changes for Soup: Charitable Food and the Plight of Manchester's Paupers during the Early Victorian Era" The Institute of Historical Research. FREE - Requires advanced registration
Apples played a central role in the ecological colonization of lutruwita, Tasmania, also known as the ‘Apple Isle’. By the early twentieth century, much of Tasmania was covered in apple orchards, reaching 3 million commercial trees by 1950. An icon of British domesticity, the apple’s swift acclimatization was perceived to be legitimization of British settlement and used to justify the theft of Indigenous land. Land grants were offered to those who would farm the land ‘productively’. In the West Tamar region in northern Tasmania, ‘Anglo-Indian’ soldiers purchased orchards which were promoted as an investment or retirement opportunity. At the core of Tasmanian apple advertising was the imagined location of the ‘Apple Isle’, an idyllic, pure, English farming utopia. Apple crate branding and multi-faceted advertising campaigns were employed to support this distortion of Tasmania’s geographical and cultural remoteness.
The soup kitchen was a common form of poor relief in early Victorian England. Previous scholarship has indicated that hunger was a familiar experience for industrial laborers due to the rising cost of food and the growing population in urban areas. Building upon this, this research investigates the social aspects of soup kitchens, which have been marginally discussed and yet to be explored with public records. Here, the primary focus is on issues such as how local soup kitchens were set up, how these establishments were financed, what was considered nutritious for paupers, and the seasonality of such ingredients. Through an examination of cookery books, public announcements, advertisements, and readers' comments in provincial newspapers during the Hungry Forties, this research attempts to evaluate the accessibility of charitable soup kitchens in the Greater Manchester area, where industrial laborers were densely populated, and pauperism was on the rise. It begins by examining the fluctuating prices of staple food items such as corn, bacon, onions, carrots, etc., then delves into the setup of soup kitchens, grounded in the commonly accepted political ideology of 'self-help.' Finally, it explores the ticket system of soup kitchens, which ultimately provided paupers with the opportunity to access readily-prepared hot food. Through the exploration of archival materials mentioned above, it is hoped that more textual examples can be included in broader studies of Victorian philanthropy and working-class diets.
Tuesday, October 29, 2024 from 17:00 - 19:00 London time
Kitchen Lab - From Polish roots to New York icon- The evolution and craft of the classic bagel. Oxford Food Symposium. Birgitte Kampmann and Simi Rezai-Ghassemi. FREE - requiring registration
"I asked how Cathy likes her bagel and this is her reply: “My standard order (because one always goes out to a local deli for bagels) is for a ’toasted everything with veg cream cheese,” a wonderful panoply of salty, crunchy, hot-cold sensations. More flavorful than the unadorned bagels of my New Jersey childhood, I’m a partisan, firmly believing that New York City bagels are the best in the world.”
Cathy Kaufman has lived in New York City for more than 40 years and teaches in the Food Studies department at The New School, including a course on the foodways of New York City.
As always, recipes will be sent to all who sign up, so you can bake along with me in real-time.
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