Food Heroes

Those whom I've never met and those who are in my life right now

Alice Waters is my hero. The above photo was taken by me when I heard her speak at the 2018 Terra Madre meeting of Slow Food in Turin. She did not disappoint. She started the Field to Fork Movement in California and she has inspired me to be who I am.

She opened Chez Panisse in 1971. After travelling to France and discovering a new way of eating and relating to food. She has dedicated her life towards campaigning for the right of the individual to have access to good quality organic food.

Fierce critics made a mockery of her, challenging her principles indicating that they were middle class and only for the people who could afford her expensive restaurant. (See Chefs Table on Netflix). She refuted those claims and said they were wrong. She felt access to good clean fair food was a human right. That is also my belief. She is a pioneer of the field to fork movement, the founder of the Edible Schoolyard, an activist and Chef. She believes in and lives through her principles. That is in itself inspirational.

If we live in a world where we see mediocre food as the norm, then we are accepting a way of life that is less than that we could have. We need to roll back the years that we have become accustomed to the convenience that ultra processed foods (UPF’s) and fast food give. We need see the value in food and what lies within its life giving properties but also in the joy and human connection breaking bread gives us. That is the ethos of the Slow Food movement for whom I am an advocate and how I try and live my life.

We have become disconnected from seasonality and the joy connecting with the producer can give us. I like Alice Waters feel this is a fundamental right not a privilege. The sheer joy of connecting to the person who grew your beans, potatoes, chicken and knowing the time and energy they put into that makes us value the food we place on the table and inside of our bodies. It makes us understand the connection to place and why a chicken that travels a few miles down the road to you or a pear eaten in season grown from this land is the one of biggest joys you can have.

Taking time to eat together should not be a chore it should be a joy. We have lost this in some parts. Most people don’t sit around the table to eat, that in itself is such a loss. The time together allows you to discuss the matters of the moment what happened within that day what you need to get off your chest. It allows your children to see you eating together and trying new things becomes part of the norm.

I began growing veg when my son was little. We had a little patch outside in our city home. I was a novice and wanted to learn. My journey to understanding seasonality in real time had begun. It was also the time I set up my local Slow Food Group in Liverpool or Convivium as it was then know. A time when I began to connect with the people in my environment who were making the effort to cook and source really beautiful local, regional, seasonal produce.

It suddenly mattered that I knew where my chicken came from that it wasn’t produced in an intensive way, that my eggs where not from a battery farm, that my veg wasn’t imported from miles away overseas and airfreighted in underripe and without taste. I hadn’t understood that when I was growing up in a large city. I was not connected to the seasons. Now I wanted to know. My journey had begun, little did I know that it would change my life.

It was something that didn’t happen overnight as it had to be learned. The seasonal element was something I was disconnected from. With abundant produce available in the supermarket all year round we can eat what we like when we like. But it doesn’t mean we should. Strawberries picked from the plant on a warm summers day are one of life’s treasures that we need to preserve.

I was discussing this recently with a wonderful local woman, Elizabeth Smart. I am interviewing her as part of an aural history project that will hopefully form a podcast element to this Substack soon. She is a formidable character. Born in 1933, of a time that lived through war and shortages in a way we will, hopefully, never know. We discussed the concept of seasonality and what it meant to her. She said growing up it wasn’t optional you had what you had because it was seasonal as that was all there was in the shops. This provided you with a compass to the seasons which is something I didn’t know growing up and something I have taught myself over the years tending my plot and cooking for friends and family.

Friends have played a key role in that journey too. People who have inhabited my life and who have taught me about cooking, seasonality and what it means to be around the table with people you love. This week with a very dear friend, a talented and generous cook unwell, I have been reminded of the many meals we have shared. Our children growing up together, basking in the sun on holidays. Where we have gone to a local market and I have gotten so overexcited I have come home with far more of one ingredient or another. But never to a sullen face, only to delight in the moment of what we can make from the bounties that lay within the basket. True friendship, true moments of realisation of how important people are to you. All suffused with the memory of the meals we have shared. May there be many more to come.

The 28th would have been the birthday of my vivacious and inspiring art teacher. Who was the first once outside my home who allowed me to taste a different way in the kitchen. She taught me how to write lists, how to live more creatively and how to make mushroom risotto and the best french dressing one could ever wish for. I miss her greatly for the red wine and the long discussions into the night. She was a bohemian of the first degree and without whom the world is less. But the memories of the meals and the good times live on.

So today I am thankful for those who inspire us and those who influence our path. Whether they be people who we don’t know or people who have passed or people who are in our lives right now. Let us break bread and chew the fat. Time is of the essence.