Season 5.2: Celebration

To celebrate Anna's 40th, Chloe organised a shrimp boil in her garden.

Welcome to our mini season on Celebration! As we enter a time of year that Chloe and I see as celebratory (and, the autumn season of harvest brings many celebrations (and gourds)!), as do many others, we thought it would be fun to dive into this idea.

At Sourced we look at systems - investigating our global food and drink systems. But what anchors this research and lens is that we believe that food and drink are cultural and biological rights.

It is easy to understand the biological side of this: we have a right to foods and drinks that are healthy, that are good for us, that physically nourish us. But where culture comes in can be more complicated to articulate, and this is where this season comes in. Celebrations are times to experience joy in our traditions and celebrations, like birthdays or weddings, bring together friends and family and build new homes or strength connections with the place we are in.

When thinking about food within a cultural context, our cultures, our traditions, our rituals - ancient and brand new - are a part of what nourishes us in different ways. Our heritage, the pasts we carry with us, are important to acknowledge and the foods that make up those traditions offer comfort, a sense of identity, create belonging and anchor us. It isn't enough to eat foods that are culturally or religiously sensitive - for example, absent of meat - but rather we at Sourced believe we all have a right to foods that are within and from our culture.

Within diaspora this can be difficult, sourcing across miles, means time and money, and often ingredients past their prime. But, as we know, diaspora cooking can be some of the most creative as these challenges are met with innovative responses, without taking away the cultural aspect of a dish or drink. In diaspora, we are also aware of the importance of institutions and their need to think more deeply about the foods they have on offer - from hospitals to places of learning. Or corporate entities, or even the high street chain store and how they're drive to offer a range of goods is driven by trend of a 'seasonal' sandwich, instead of looking at it from the needs of the eater; this approach is where cultural appropriation lies.

When thinking about cultural rights to foods and drinks it is about having the access to these foods, drinks and flavours. It is about finding ways to access ingredients that are vital to a way of life. This means access to indigenous and/or heritage ingredients, support for traditional farming and foraging methods, and spaces to prepare foods in.

Here are Sourced we do see biological and cultural connections with food as one and the same. The foods that nourish us culturally, nourish us physically. You'll find examples in our work, such as Adrienne Katz Kennedy's piece on 'Diné and the importance of preserving land'. In Dan Saladino's book Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them he writes about almost-lost ingredients and farming or foraging methods, through each ingredient we see a culture, heritage and community. And, we see the nutritious benefit of these plants. In the chapter on murnong, in South Australia, Saladino writes about a project where urban based Aboriginal people were re-introduced to traditional foodways - both sourcing and foods. The result was a much healthier group of people, the connection between culturally relevant food and health is strong. Throughout the book foods are linked culturally and historically to place and people.

With this season we are exploring the link between culture and ingredient, the idea of celebration allows us to look at how food and drinks play a part in culture. Celebrations often feature specific things to eat or drink, they feature ritual, they look at joy and the complications of family, heritage and belonging. When we googled 'celebration book' to see what might appear for a reading list, a book on champagne came up and Fatti Kattan's Bethlehem: A Celebration of Palestinian Food we celebrate with food and drink, and food and drink are to be celebrated!

Therefore, we posed a question to all our contributors: what does celebration, as an ingredient, mean to you?

Our Celebration book reading list is here.

Articles, podcasts, tv, and anything else is below -

Wordloaf newsletter, "Halloween is just around the corner, which means that Dio de los Muertos is just around the next corner, making it pan de muerto season again. So Today’s basket is an ofrenda of pan de muerto recipes to consider for your upcoming bakes."