The world chops and the world chops well, well this Black History Month.
The science of food production, agriculture and animal husbandry now expressed through molecular biology and gene science means that the prospect for our global food production is exiting at its most optimistic extreme and depressing when regarded outside of the rose tinted spectacles we are marketed by big-agriculture. Through out human evolution, there are various ways that human beings have adapted to their surroundings and with that comes the various ways of eating. Not just the simple act of directing nutrition actively to the sights of mastication and absorption, the chew and swallow of food, but the complexities around sourcing and preparation and the amount of agency we have lost as we have moved as a society from a ‘precarious’ subsistence based existence to a ‘secure’ industrial reality.
We are what we eat and what we call culture is understood far more immediately in the relationship between mouth and belly than that between the ears/eyes and the mouth. Yet increasingly as global cultures standardise the diversity of the food we eat is more than ever becoming limited. We favour the ecological deserts of mono-culture to the fecund edge spaces present in Permaculture. Whether the world eats well, is an increasingly difficult question to answer, in a world of famine, pollution, urban nutritional poverty pockets and climate change, it is becoming more and more difficult to eat well. Our ancestors the hunter gathers in their mixed diet of foraging and killing small and large game, moved around and went to their food, while we sit back and relax into the convince of our food being delivered to us.
Fast food has replaced the technicalities of slow cooking and more and more of us are losing the ability to have agency with regards to what we eat. Yet movements like the vegan movement have begun to call to question the received truths with as they prop-up our cultural relationships with big industry when it comes to food. In the UK allotments are popping up not at the same rate as food banks but they are being established in the most unlikely of places. Corporate structures now boost of apiaries and speak of changing the face of cites as ecological deserts for creatures like bees that still forage as once our ancestors did.
Global Munch is Numbi’s continuing conversations with artists and story tellers where we invite human beings and offer the provocation of sharing a personal narrative, a recipe, a fragment, full of potential and meaning with the hope that we can trigger a dialogue concerning the politics and culture of food around the globe. Our approach is traditional, aboriginal and artist led and our invitation is open to all those who share joys and concerns in the business of the belly.
Ours is a joys endeavour that attempts to offer contexts to the frequently decentred the sites, the magic of small kitchens, the calming whispers of grandparents, the scents and tastes that we recreate as vehicles, edible mounts that lead us back to parts of ourselves we had forgotten or would like to reacquainted ourselves with.
Global Munch is a space where we chop food and chop ideas too, each alternating as either an accompanying condiment or the main-dish but always on the same plate.
Elmi Ali – Resident Artist || Greg Goodale – Photographer (BREATHE! – a project by Numbi Arts and Virtual Migrants)
ARAWELO BITES RECIPE
Whole Wheat Garlic Caanjelo with Cashew Butter Goats Cheese, Smoked Salmon and a Citrus Dressing.
Ingredients
- Self Raising Whole Wheat Flour
- Milk (dairy, goats, coconut, almond, oats)
- Organic Garlic
- Organic Sesame Seed Oil
- Bicarbonate Soda
- Baking Soda
- Pink Salt
- Toppings
- Cashew Butter
- Mild Spreadable Goats Cheese
- Fresh Mint
- Fresh Parsley
- Smoked Salmon or Avocado
- Chillies
- Organic Cherry Tomatoes
- Dressing
- Lemon
- Sweet Clementine
- Honey
- Cayenne Pepper
- Pink Salt
Directions
Measure three quarter cups of milk for every cup of flour in a bowl. Add half a teaspoon of baking powder, half a teaspoon of bicarbonate soda and a pinch of salt. Add three cloves of finely chopped/ or crushed garlic to the bowl. Whisk until the consistency is similar to that of a light oat meal porridge.
Pour a few spoonfuls of sesame seed oil onto a small bowl with a tea spoon. Heat a flat skillet on medium heat, drizzle a spoonful of sesame seed oil on the skillet and wipe away the oil with a paper napkin spreading the oil across the skillet.
Stir the mix with a tablespoon and begin to spoon the batter onto the skillet one spoon for small pancakes and two spoons for a medium sized pancake. Spread the batter with the spoon in a circular motion from the centre moving out to arrive at a neat-ish circle. Drizzle the pancakes with a teaspoon of sesame seed oil and flip the pancakes when they begin to dimple to cook the other side. Cook the other side for about fifteen seconds and flip them onto a plate. Make as many as you like.
Toppings
Chop a sprig of mint and a sprig parsley and mix it in with the goat cheese in a bowl.
For the dressing squeeze about a spoonful of honey in a small bowl, squeeze half a lemon and half a clementine into the bowl add a pinch of salt and sprinkle with cayenne pepper to taste. Mix well.
Plating
Spoon some cashew butter onto the pancake and spread all over the pancake. Spoon some goat cheese, mint and parsley mix onto the pancakes and spread around three quartets of the circumference of the pancake. Add strips of the smoked salmon to the centre of the pancake. Garnish with chopped chillies, slice cherry tomatoes, a sprig of parsley, a sprig of mint and dress with spoonfuls of the citrus and honey mix to serve.
Enjoy.