Length: 2 mins It’s perhaps a lazy cliché to start this piece on Brixton and surrounds to launch straight into talking about the ‘riots’, the fighting, the pain and anger that this part of London has seen over the years. And yet it… Read More »How you gonna come, eh Brixton? Eating The Victoria Line, 1 of 16
Length: 2 mins This pig farmer is “thekenyanpigfarmer” also known as Flavian Obiero, who came from Kenya, via Wingham (just outside Canterbury), to wind up running his own small council-owned tenant farm in Hampshire. Having moved to the UK — aged 15 —… Read More »Kenyan via Kent
Length: 5 mins Young girl Yesterday evening, her Apple News app had, in that frankly scary, “I know you better than you know yourself” way that algorithms have, scrolled up a report of a new gallery — stocked with artist names she knew… Read More »A return to where?
Length: < 1 min Mett? In the old Saxon language — from which the word derives — it simply means “food”. And of course, it is. I was reminded of this one by Gay who — despite her German connections — still apparently shudders… Read More »Mettbrötchen
Length: < 1 min “A bad day to perform rituals?” I think not. It’s International Workers’ Day today, after all. Celebrate the gains made; plan to ensure everything for everyone in the future. Here’s to us all, raise a glass to the comrades, past,… Read More »Mayday, Mayday, Mayday
Length: < 1 min Rather apposite, it reminds me of my piece on the cross-Channel ferries china debris… In the 1990s, when I travelled around Hunan by train, there were vendors at rail-way stations with trolleys full of steamers stacked with food: for a… Read More »A trackside trail of bowls…
Length: 2 mins I’m a union member, of the Wobblies; the Industrial Workers of the World. I’ve been a member of other unions and a rep. in some of them, in past existences, but this subscription is the only one I maintain. This… Read More »Steady boys, steady, no wobbling now…
Length: 2 mins Food and place. Food. And. Place. What was the most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten? What made it memorable? Ingredients? The cooking chops on display? Stunning visuals, amazing smells? In my case it is often far less the actual food… Read More »Potatoes, onions & Mum’s pies
Length: < 1 min So, it seems they’re built almost specifically for me? The word means a “snack” but more often in the sense of a snack-bar. Street food. Little or no table space, just a van or a window. As a native Berliner… Read More »Do not miss the imbiss, Chris.
Length: 3 mins Not all of ’em did of course; although a rough rule of thumb was “the posher, the lesser”. But as a perpetually hungry person, these mothers who did choose to feed me were on the side of the angels (at… Read More »That friend’s Mum; the one who always made you food
Length: 2 mins From the 1950’s on, here in England (and elsewhere in Europe and the US), we moved away from multiple breeds, bred on traditional, small farms and small-holdings, offering insurance against common diseases — and interest to our diet — towards… Read More »China; making the same mistakes as the West?
Length: < 1 min I should probably put this quote as the disclaimer for pretty much all my posts as well… “This is a memoir. It’s how I remember and believe things happened. Sometimes, I changed names and descriptions. Other times, I reordered or… Read More »Memory and memories
Length: 3 mins This was apparently how one of the publishers described this book. Picking up on the Ipcress File buzz of course. I have copies of two of Len Deighton’s cookbooks: a US, 1977 edition of “Ou Est Le Garlic” and the… Read More »The secret weapon in the kitchen?
Length: 2 mins The first, a restaurant in Soho… …and a Marx film (the brothers, not the German philosopher) …whilst — continuing the vaguely political theme — we have here, a döner shop called The Communist, run by Turkish man Yasar Armagan Ipek,… Read More »DuckSoup? Goat’s Head soup?
Length: 6 mins An excerpt from “Xi’an Famous Foods: The Cuisine of Western China, from New York’s Favorite Noodle Shop” by Jason Wang reminds me of Angela Hui in “Takeaway”. They grew up more than 3,000 miles apart. The latter from Beddau (which… Read More »What’s the takeaway from this one?
Length: 4 mins Maybe a slight hint of that one in there, you think? The actual translation on this one. is “when the dining hall is well-run, the production spirit will increase~”… I’m working on a long “piece” not sure of the format… Read More »On canteens. Or “the beatings will continue until morale improves” 食堂办得好生产劲头高
Length: < 1 min This one comes via Marina O’Loughlin — according to the ‘photo name — although I can’t recall exactly where I plucked it from (probably Twitter though), sorry. And despite what she says, surely someone in the UK is making these… Read More »Cucciddatu, is it true?
Length: 6 mins Apropos of nothing here (although I did recently do a piece or two about congee here and here), I see that Lisa Lim of the South China Morning Post writes that the Western name, “congee,” is actually borrowed from “Tamil kanji (also the… Read More »Pig skin and Century eggs
Length: < 1 min It is my belief that prices on the menu should include everything associated with both making and serving someone’s food. Anything else is externalised wage-theft. Get rid of tipping. Pay the person a living wage. Remember kids:
Length: < 1 min What a great idea; saves most of the hassles involved in digging out (& the cleaning afterwards)
