Last week I organised what I hope will be the first of a series of conversations about food called Chewing the Fat. The idea was to bring together people with experiences of different parts of the food world (whatever that is) and enable fruitful discussions between traditional disciplinary boundaries (whatever they may be). I feel as if there are so many interesting ideas and initiatives taking place across food production, policy, preparation and writing, and yet they do not always get the opportunity to feed into one another as much as they could.
I spent weeks in a state of anxiety building up to the event, but in the end it was a gorgeous evening with an interested, engaged audience that reminded me why I wanted to do it in the first place. We managed to touch on so many issues relating to the theme of Food in a crisis, thanks to insights from the evening’s speakers, Eddy Wax from Politco EU, and Yannick Schandene from Fermenthings in Laeken. What follows is in part inspired by the discussions that night, and in particular how different concepts of time can feed into (excuse the pun) our understanding of food in times of crisis.
If you ask my mum what my favourite kind of thing to cook is (besides baking), she will tell you it’s anything I can simmer for hours in a casserole at a low heat. A bolognese, or any other kind of slow-braised ragu, a stew. I love the alchemy of a little prep work being transformed into something richer and fuller, more than the sum of its parts.
Similarly, my favourite kind of bread to make is a no-knead loaf. The principle behind this kind of baking is that you use much less yeast than a regular bread recipe requries, give your ingredients a quick mix, then leave the dough for anywhere between 12 and 24 hours (or more if you put it in the fridge). Rather than developing gluten (necessary to give bread its structure and chewiness) by kneading it, you let it develop slowly: you replace physical manipulation with time.
This power of time to work magic in the kitchen frequently returned in our discussions last Friday. Yannick described how his experimental fermentation lab in Laeken uses the process of fermentation to reduce waste, energy use, food miles, and ultimately find different ways of doing things, based on a multitude of ancient techniques.
He spoke about miso as a case of fermentation disrupting our usual sense of time: it takes years to develop into the umami-rich paste we know and love. For the average home cook, that can seem like a shocking amount of time to dedicate to producing one ingredient, he noted.
Shocking it may be, but when looked at through the perspective of food in a crisis, it offers a helpful metaphor for the kind of response we need to develop to the energy crisis, global warming, and biodiversity loss (all issues that featured heavily in our conversations). As Eddy pointed out, a lot of the responses on the policy level to the war in Ukraine and the resultant energy crisis has been a shift to immediacy and short-termism. As we shift from one crisis to another, an ‘act now, think later’ approach risks becoming the norm.
We thus arrive at impasse: on the one hand, the multiple crises we are facing won’t be solved with instantaneous knee-jerk responses. It is vital not to let a sense of urgency put us off more long-term solutions. On the other, the response of European nations and the EU to climate breakdown has been the opposite of this: seemingly endless talk and not enough immediate action. How can we develop responses to crises that respect their urgency without slipping into rushed logic?
A helpful perspective comes from Timothy Morton’s ideas in All Art is Ecological, where we encounter the idea that ‘ecological awareness means thinking and acting ethically and politically on a lot of scales, not just one’. He underlines a qualitative leap when thinking about different timescales: each requires a fundamentally different perspective to be grasped by us. Taking the time the time to reflect rather than submitting to the demands of the present is not a luxury, for him, but a necessity.
And I think this is an important aspect where food and ecology overlap, because thinking meaningfully about also food requires this ability to move between timescales, too. Anyone familiar with the hanger induced by a growling stomach will understand how food and eating tie us to the present moment like nothing else, but then again, if you think a 2-year long miso ferment is a long time, wait until you hear how long it takes to start harvesting apples you have grown from seed.
When exploring how to feed a growing global population as we straddle states of crisis, we cannot ignore growling stomachs any more than we can neglect to cultivate the land that will feed us in the less immediate future.
Maybe food, that source of some of our most immediate, physical pleasures, can teach us different ways of doing things, of living in a less immediate future.
Thank you again to everyone who joined last Friday, I hope more such events will follow - the best place to keep updated is here and via my instagram :)
I hope you enjoyed this edition of Lizzie Wrote This. There is a lot more to come. I hope you’ll share it with someone you love.
Baker’s dozen
13 good things from the last month
Listening to the Salt and Spine podcast has been great for getting me out of the saturation point I had reached with my usual podcasts.
Speaking of saturation, I got really sick of cooking and had a few days off, then found my way back with some amatriciana.
Made my first ever fully vegan cake order, including vegan caramel.
After over a decade, I am now once again the proud owner of a dressing gown. It is fluffy and burgundy and makes me feel like royalty. Perfect for an energy crisis.
Have started making porridge again for breakfast. It makes me feel a little bit more in control of life.
A new bakery has opened in my neighbourhood! It is called Mains and I would highly recommend. I will have to update my walking tour soon.
Made Alicia Kennedy’s marbled chocolate and tahini cookies. They were incredibly good, and I will be making them again soon.
Ate oysters and got drunk with Elena.
I bought new twisty candles from Dille and Kamille.
My former housemate and dear friend Kim, who I haven’t seen for years, got unexpectedly stranded in Brussels overnight on her way back to Germany. Cologne’s loss was my gain and we took advantage of it to have coffee at one of my favourite spots and have a wander in the rain.
Ate a very tasty caramelised onion and poppyseed flatbread from Khobz.
Made a rose and pistachio cake for Belgium’s finest Lebanese export.
Rewatched Fleabag.