Jane Grigson

Cookery writing is “almost a form of autobiography,” Jane Grigson remarked on a BBC radio programme in 1987. “It’s been my way of finding out why I’m on this earth, and adding something to the sum of human happiness.” However, when Jane left university in 1949, her food writing career lay almost twenty years ahead of her. She first worked in art galleries and publishers’ offices. In 1953 she joined George Rainbird as a picture researcher and met the author and poet Geoffrey Grigson. A decade working as a translator led to the award of the John Florio Prize with Father Kenelm Foster for the translation of Beccaria’s Of Crimes and Punishment. Jane’s interest in food developed when she and Geoffrey with their daughter, Sophie, began to divide their time between a farmhouse in Broad Town in Wiltshire and a cave house in Trôo in the Loir-et-Cher region of France. Here, in the early sixties, Jane began to research a book on French charcuterie for an English friend, Adey Horton, who later suggested that she also take over the writing. By trawling through French textbooks on the subject in a scholarly exploration of the field and also compiling a comprehensive collection of recipes, Jane demonstrated her skill for research and her talent as a food writer. Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery was published in 1967, to wide- spread acclaim. The book is a well organised survey of a specialised field: highly informative yet with accessible recipes, an educational volume which retains its distinction more than four decades later, and described by Elizabeth David as a kitchen classic.

Truffles and Radishes, Food and Wine at the Opera

“It’s raining truffles, radishes and fennels,” says Sir John Falstaff, the richly humane and deeply funny title character of Giuseppe Verdi’s final masterpiece. While there are many ways that food, wine and other libations have been used in opera, somehow this line best captures both the grandeur and common touch that opera and gastronomy possess. For every rare and fragrant truffle, there are plenty of common but no less essential radishes and fennels, all of which have their metaphorical place in opera and real place in cookery. Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) was probably the most important Italian creative artist since the Renaissance. Not only was he the foremost composer of Italian opera and, for many, the greatest opera composer of all, but he was a knowledgeable gastronome and farmer as well. His most famous operas include tragedies and dramas such as Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata, Aïda and Otello, but it was in his last work, the human comedy Falstaff, that he achieved his fullest expression of a philosophy that believes ‘All the world is a joke and man is born a clown.’

Embedding Food and Drink Cultures, The case of Burgundy

Certain countries and regions are known to have strong and embedded food and drink cultures. Such cultures shape reputation, stimulate pride, define collective identity and drive local and national economies. They can also generate tourism, drawing large numbers of visitors to sample renowned produce. Historical analysis reveals the emergence of Burgundy as a world-renowned centre of wine production and gastronomy, based not only on the quality of its produce, but also on instrumental business tactics employed by key individuals. The analysis starts with the rising interest in food and wine in the late 18th century. An exploration of the automobile industry and the wine roads, and also of events such as la foire gastronomique de Dijon, will reveal the development of gastronomic tradition, as well as contemporary trends. Burgundians are proud of their region. They like to praise the beauty of the landscape that they have contributed to shaping: vine stocks which are impeccably aligned along straight rows, stone walls separating the plots and stone huts at the edge of the plots.

Food Ethics

Food is often described as one of life’s simple pleasures. But scratch the surface and it becomes clear that food is far from simple and that the production, preparation, processing and service of food is far from pleasurable for many thousands of people globally. It is because of the intrinsic relationship between people and food that consideration of food ethics is so critical. Ethical dilemmas are evident in almost every aspect of the food production and processing cycle. The food industry is characterised by its scale. According to Euromonitor, it is the world’s largest industry (although figures on the economic contribution of the industry vary according to what is included within the classification of ‘food’), (Euromonitor, 2013). It established the first globally integrated markets, it permeates every civilisation and it makes a sizeable contribution towards emissions of carbon dioxide (the key gas implicated in climate change) (FCRN, 2010). Some food brands are universally recognised. Few, in even the most remote societies, will be unfamiliar with the bright red logo of the Coca Cola company or the yellow and red banner of the McDonalds hamburger chain. Others are defined by their localism and use their local credentials as a badge of pride and distinctiveness.

Selling culture, The Growth of Wine Tourism

We’ve learned that tourists look for a short-term change in their lives; a sense of excitement in the unfamiliar, and to live life of ‘the other’ albeit briefly (Ooi & Laing, 2010; Smith et al., 2010; Getz & Cheyne, 1997). Tourists actively search for experiences that enrich their lives. ‘Tourists bring money and jobs to [a] local economy’ (Xie, 2011, p. 162); but this new-found commercial appeal, while it might deliver economic development, is a two-edged sword. As any local economy grows, the spending power of tourists inflates prices, affecting the capacity of local communities to maintain their lives in their traditional manner. The charm of an authentic experience of life in another culture quickly begins to wane once tourist services overtake local culture. In essence, the commodification of culture can damage the lived experience of indigenous people.

China, a personal perspective

While I genuinely welcome the public’s apparently insatiable appetite for food-related television shows, I am not sure that the continuous diet of light entertainment and culinary competitions does much to extend our collective knowledge. I’ve had a long-standing ambition to write and present a series that achieves something different – that reveals the complex cultures of China through the universal language of food. With Exploring China: a Culinary Adventure, broadcast by the BBC in 2012, I hope that’s what Ching He-Huang and I managed to achieve. Having not been on a substantial trip to China since 1989, this was the perfect time to return. The real China still exists, thank goodness, even although westernisation and relentless progress are nibbling away at traditional ways of life – of cooking food, of eating together, of family life and community ties. We travelled from the wild frontiers of the north to the industrial megacities of the south, and saw the inevitable conflicts between tradition and modernity, between communism and capitalism. We also talked to ‘real’ people from many different regions, and their evident cultural pride gave me hope for the survival of the ‘real’ China.

Taking a Light Glass in Soho

I am taking a light glass in Soho! Standing outside the Coach and Horses (one of my regular haunts), with my newly acquired drinking companion, who is reminiscing about how things have changed. She misses her days with Soho luminaries, not least ‘No Knickers Joyce’. She drains the glass of wine that I bought her and goes back inside. She will never speak to me again. Such is the character of Soho – sustained by drink and legends. Today it’s a cosmopolitan quarter of restaurants, pubs, bars, coffee shops and clubs, interspersed with traders, hairdressers, porn shops and media houses. It’s here that London’s gay ‘village’ affably co-exists with tourists, hedonists, media- types and epicures. Soho is comprised of about 130 acres of central London. Oxford Street, Regent Street, Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road mark its physical boundaries, and provide a framework for its powerful and enduring symbolic culture. Soho was extolled by a foreign diplomat at the beginning of the 20 th Century as a home of artists, dancers and musicians and a sanctuary for foreign refugees. Fifty years later it was condemned by the Daily Mail as a neighbourhood, ‘Solely for stinking men, prostitutes, perverts and pimps.’ Whatever its perceived failings, its rich diversity placed it at the vanguard of new tastes – particularly in food and fashion. It has remained a case study in cross-cultural acceptance, as well as a theatre of over-indulgence and unruly living.

Food of the Scattered People

From time immemorial, the world’s peoples have been in movement. Groups have been scattered, resulting in communities in regions and parts of the world with which they have no historic connection. In the 21st century, with more access to travel and the relaxing of immigration laws, the movement continues. Increasingly, those leaving their traditional homelands for other destinations are said to be in diaspora. This is the reason that tikka masala is now considered the national dish of the United Kingdom; that chop suey is found throughout the United States, but not in the same style as in China; and that variants of West African fritters are found throughout the New World. While the word ‘diaspora’ is now ubiquitous, and is used in relation to the patterns of movement of almost any people on an enforced or voluntary basis, its origins are more focused. It is derived from the Greek dia, meaning ‘across’, and speirein, meaning ‘scattered’. As noted by Kenny (2013), its earliest use is commonly held to be in relation to the migration of Jews, as referred to in the books of Genesis and Exodus from the Hebrew Bible. The Jewish people were led ‘...from Babylonia (in present-day Iraq) to Canaan, which they named Eretz Israel. Famine soon drove Abraham’s descendents out of Canaan to Eqypt...’ (p. 3). Applied to ancient Jewish history, the term has come to mean imposed exile and suffering, and subsequent efforts to return.

Food, Drink and Identity

Identity refers to who we think (or feel) we are, but also to who others think we are. Identities are closely tied to our values, attitudes, beliefs, preferences, behaviours and personality characteristics that distinguish us from others around us. However, none of us are unique in our values, beliefs or our characteristics, and our identities often reflect those of others. Our identities are inevitably shaped by the people we interact with, the environments in which we live, and the cultures that we encounter. Therefore, to best understand how identities emerge, it is important to consider the social and cultural contexts in which people live. Eating and drinking are universal to all cultures; but, the beliefs and practices surrounding food and drink reflect the particular characteristics of cultures alongside the identities of the people who are part of those cultures. Food, drink and identity interact in multiple ways. This chapter considers these interactions in commercial hospitality and social settings. It examines the relationship between food, drink and identity from the consumption perspective, i.e. how foods and drinks influence and communicate identities in social and domestic settings; and how identities and the desire to articulate our sense of selves shape when, how and what foods and drinks we consume. The chapter also incorporates the production point of view, particularly within commercial contexts. It discusses how notions of identities are exploited through marketing and in the creation of commercial hospitality experiences. It also considers the ways staff’s identities are involved in creating food and drink related experiences.

Food and Drink, The declining importance of cultural context

When we pop open a can of Coca Cola or reach into a bag of potato chips, we are most-likely consuming a product available to consumers in many locations across the globe and made of ingredients produced in multiple countries. While food and drink remain an integral part of cultural practices and identities today, very few of the products we purchase at the supermarket or in chain restaurants are actually local. What processes have contributed to the seemingly limitless availability of out-of-season produce, the global spread of name-brand food and drink, and the prominence of low cost ‘convenience’ foods and fast food restaurants in cities across the globe? There is no question that national and ‘local’ social structures and cultures continue to be important throughout the world. Similarly, today’s global citizens continue to have agency through which they make an array of choices and, more importantly, construct their social and cultural worlds. In other words, the dialectics between culture and agency (Archer, 1988), and structure and agency (Giddens, 1984) continue to be of great importance. This is true globally, as well as nationally and locally.