Joy in simple things
This issue of the paid newsletter has Chloe meditating on the rot and resurrection of knowledge shared between generations. Anna shares a recipe harnessing the simple pleasures of good summer fruit
Hello! And thank you for being here! Summer has been slightly slow - trips home and enormous deadlines have taken over, and we are also editing a bunch of great pieces for Rot Season - so standby! Because of this, we’ve decided to open our paid newsletter (this one) to all. Just a reminder that our paid subscriptions pay for all our commissioned work, so thank you, thank you for your support!
A few bits of business before we get to our monthly essay and recipe:
Notice for all who want to write about drinks!
The British Guild of Beer Writers has launched a new Diversity in British Beer Writing Grant in partnership with Good Beer Hunting, which will highlight stories that celebrate diversity and inclusion within beer, pubs, and the wider hospitality industry.
The grant is open to both current and aspiring writers and journalists, and those who are not always well-represented within the broader beer landscape, including women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ people, and disabled people, are especially encouraged to apply. Application closes on Monday 1 August - so get in quick!
(self)Preservation
Chloe-Rose Crabtree
I was on a call with my grandma (Nana) to ask about her enchilada recipe as I prepared to make them for a weekend menu. We mostly talk about food, what we ate recently, what we want to eat, recipes that we’ve read, her take on the new LA Times food section (it’s good, but we all miss Jonathan Gold). As I explained how I was going to make my enchilada sauce she mentioned that she never made her own sauce but that her grandmother did, and as an aside: “I wish she were still around so I could call to ask her about it.”
I knew my grandmother’s mother, but her grandmother still exists as a collection of fables, repeated until I can almost see her roasting chilies and slowly filling the house with capsaicin-laced smoke until she has to run from the kitchen, apron pressed to her eyes to soothe the tears she has inflicted on herself. When I do the same, I am always reminded of this even though the memory is only mine by proxy.
Food memories have a unique ability to transcend generations this way. Food marketing is very good at playing on this nostalgia, oftentimes invoking a literal grandmother to draw in consumers. The fear of post-industrial decay often invokes grandmothers to beg us to change our eating habits:
“Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.”
Michael Pollan
I like to think my grandmother’s grandmother would have used a canned salsa, citric acid and all, relieved to avoid 3 days of prep work and the risk of pepper-spraying herself.
Food products and movements that invoke the nostalgia of heritage often ignore the labour behind ‘tradition’. Nana had 4 children before she turned 30 and not enough hours in the day to make her own salsa. Canned salsa made it possible for her to pass on her grandmother’s memory through trays of enchiladas. She could definitely learn to make one but now the family craves the taste of ready-made so why change it up?
In my London kitchen, ready-made salsa is harder to come by. Salsa-making has become a chance to feel a little closer to cooking with Nana and resurrect the memories of her grandmother’s kitchen. I think about how there is a 2-generation gap of Spanish speakers in my family as I google “receta salsa roja’ to ensure Spanish-language results. I consider how I have the internet at my fingers while the printed recipes my grandmother could rely on were translated traditions shared via an English woman who moved abroad. When I put my feet up after hours of deseeding, charring, chopping, boiling and blending, I wonder what my great-great grandmother would think about me having romantic notions of her kitchen, one that didn’t include the convenience of a food processor, maybe not even gas or running water.
Ahead of serving my enchiladas at the cafe I pushed away thoughts of self doubt while remembering the second half of the story about my great-great grandmother’s salsa. No matter how many chilies she put in, it was a weekly tradition for her sons to wipe sweat from their brows while addressing her by her nickname, “Sorry Shorty, not spicy enough.”
Each batch becomes a matter of reflection on the decay inflicted by assimilation and how culture, tradition and identity can be cherished and embedded in the food we share. My grandmother’s use of canned salsa is as ‘authentic’ as my desire to make one from scratch, united as acts of preservation.
Strawberries & Pepper
By Anna Sulan Masing (well, not really, by Emma)
My friend, novelist and food writer Emma Hughes, often reminds me of the simple things. The pleasure in the mundane (we send each other daily voice notes of mundane aspects of each other’s lives, and thoroughly enjoy the exchange), the joy of animals (many animal photos are exchanged across the week of the ones in our lives), and of course start sign chat - weekly horoscope discussions are a must!
The other week, on the hottest day of the year (on record?) in London I had organised an event where people brought dishes that had strong nostalgic meaning to them, and that had pepper. Emma brought the perfect summer dish - strawberries with black pepper. This dish is a reminder that simple things have many layers of flavour, and offer deep and meaningful stories, and it includes a light ‘rot’, a maceration, a soft breakdown…
(More on that pepper dinner on 22 August!).
Here is Emma’s recipe:
• Slice strawberries
• Drizzle over a little balsamic vinegar
• Freshly grind the best black pepper you have over them
• Leave to macerate for a few hours, then add finely chopped or torn basil just before serving
We then had it with a scoop of ice cream!
Also, do check out Emma’s debut novel No Such Thing As Perfect.
Reading List
The New Silk Road: The Present and Future of the World by Peter Frankopan
I [Anna] have been thinking a lot about how our political systems are rotten. They don’t support the needs of our world on a micro or macro scale. This is also because I have been doing a lot of research into historic food systems and how they are still replicated today. But this makes me think of systems in a wider context - health systems, the overturning of Roe Vs Wade, the Tory leadership debates… It all feels so rotten! Anyway, this geopolitical look at the regions across the Silk Road is one of the books that I’ve been reading, which as given good insight into networks of power.
Interview: Kimberlie Le on Sourced
Chloe-Rose interviewed the incredible Kimberlie about her company Prime Roots, which has koji at it’s heart. It’s an inspirational business that delves into deliciousness - with Kim’s mum, a chef, being a key taste tester! And of course, discuss fake meats…
A Land of Rice and History — The Role of Tuak, the Traditional Fermented Rice Drink, in Sarawak, Malaysia by Anna Sulan Masing on Good Beer Hunting
As the headline of this article says - Anna Sulan writes about the boozy drink from her Iban heritage! It includes whatsap recipe exchange from her aunt, interviews with young tuak producers and dives into old research.