It’s been a truly encompassing publishing schedule, we covered a number of ingredients and ideas from durian to beer.
FYI - this is not a good pairing. The durian ferments in your belly and the beer feels like it curdles with it. But also, at the moment, in the heat with some good durian, it is a very tempting thing to combine.
Editorial Round-up
Our Soil season went out with a flurry of pieces, in case you missed it here are some highlights:
In ‘Reclaiming Musang King, Malaysia’s Durian Royalty’ writer Ashley Tan looks at durian farming.
Also focusing on Malaysia, artist Max Loh shares how the country’s reliance on rice imports affects local farmers his comic ‘Disputed Grains’.
Writer Yasmin Gulece explores how our specific geographies define culinary expression through an exploration on Turkish cuisine in ‘Rethinking a Turkish Identity’
In a two-part series on land rights in the United States, writer Adrienne Katz Kennedy examines the country’s history of forced displacement and speaks with activists about the importance of reclamation through food practice and sovereignty in ‘Through food: learning the importance of preserving land.’ (Part 2 can be found here)
To close out our audio interviews for the season, Chloe spoke with journalist Clarissa Wei about how her coverage of food and farming has impacted her own farming project outside of Taipei. And Anna spoke with malster and barley farmer Seth Klann about his practices at Mecca Grade Estate in Oregon, and the terroir of grain.
We have also published the first piece of water season where drinks writer Hollie Stephens explores the importance and impact of local water on beer brewing in ‘Something in the Water’.
2.2 - Water
Our Water season focuses in on two major questions about water and its role in our culinary systems:
As an ingredient, how does water affect the things we eat, drink and crave?
How does overseas migration impact culinary expression and tastes?
Here is our outline for the Water season! Including a reading list we will update throughout the season.
A thought from Anna
A few [paid] newsletters ago I wrote about sugar and how it features in our cultural sphere. For it I spoke with Georgine Leung, a nutritionist and food anthropologist based in Hong Kong, about how to approach sugar in food and what that narrative of sugar when cooking could be, beyond clean eating. My essay went on a different road than I intended so I didn't use her quote, but I have been thinking about it recently; a) because it has been Easter and all I wanted to eat was chocolate b) it shows how the identity of ingredients can change when space and location changes.
“My initial reactions to sugar and particularly refined sugar are definitely not negative. I have grown up within a culture and a family where sugar (in particular Chinese Brown Sugar & Rock Sugar) is a pantry essential in the kitchen. These types of sugars are often used to offset the saltiness within a dish, or perhaps I have even been advised by my mother and grandmother to add a sprinkle of salt to my green veg when pan frying. So as to maintain the verdant colour and enhance the natural sweetness of vegetables.
I feel the negativity towards sugar within the food industry has perhaps been brought on by a very westernised health culture leaning towards eliminating 'processed' foods from our diet, which although ultimately a good moral to live by, it has also somewhat tainted the public of what sugar can do within cooking. Educating yourself on sugar alternatives, and limiting your intake on processed sugars should be the way forward rather than eliminating it from your diet entirely.“