A guest blog post by Emma Quilligan.
Exploring Food, Connecting Communities, held at the British Museum as part of the ESRCs Festival of Social Science, promised an insight into social science research and how it can shape our lives.
As always with British Museum events, there was plenty to entice people along. A whole folder full of leaflets, programmes and copies of the Ecologist and Society Today was thrust into my hands upon registration, and with an early start, I was only too keen to take advantage of all the fair-trade, organic tea, juice and chocolate on offer.
The event itself aimed to raise awareness of local food projects within the UK and abroad, mostly through talks by writers, university lecturers and representatives from organizations such as the Soil Association. Carolyn Steel began by combining art and science to discuss how food shapes cities. Paintings by Constable and Howard took centre stage as she described the problems associated with producing food in the countryside and transporting it into the cities, where the majority of consumption takes place. With thirty million meals needed to sustain the people of London for just one day, it is clear how this can be a deciding factor in how cities grow.
However, the following speakers aimed to showcase the alternative approach being taken in some cities. Along with community farming projects and local shopping initiatives, Dr. Ursula Hudson described how, in Brighton, projects such as ‘Seedy Sunday’ are even being used to help improve biodiversity in the UK. There was also the suggestion that ‘gastronomes’ such as Jamie Oliver could be more effectively used to influence the political agenda on food. Later on in the morning, Joanna Lewis also highlighted the importance of these ‘celebrity’ figures in the ‘Food for Life’ Partnership, which is working to encourage schools to use organic, locally-produced food in their dinners.
At the Q & A session just before lunch, some tricky questions were proposed to the panel, but unfortunately it seemed more of an opportunity for wannabe speakers to have their say. With little emphasis on what had already been discussed, people seemed keen to talk about their own projects and websites, although moderator Professor Jeremy McClancy did an admirable job of trying to mold these into questions for the panel.
Eager to find out more about some of the organizations, I then popped into the lobby where a bevy of stallholders were waiting to tell me about their work. With information on everything food related, from Guerilla Gardening to Nutritional Anthropology and Edible Greens, I was thoroughly spoilt. I tasted lambs lettuce and sea beet, learned about the history of trading in chocolate and discussed just how slowly one should cook slow food.
It seems that it really is easy to eat delicious, locally-produced organic food, and for the environment’s sake, it’s something we should all be doing more of. In fact, I think with the help of my new-found friends, I may start a vegetable patch all of my own.