Adventures in Food, with Catherine Edsell
Catherine Edsell has spent her adult life exploring the globe, meeting and immersing herself in new cultures. The theme of her talk at TEDx London was how, as situation in life had changed (particularly when starting a family), she had felt less able to go out and go on expeditions. It was this that inspired her to set up The Matriarch Adventure — expeditions designed to empower women and to help them step out of their comfort zones. Throughout her journey, she’s seen the power of food to bridge language barriers, maintain the heart of communities, and to help different cultures come together.
At Co-Created, we’re firm believers in the power of food to bring people together. What role has food played in your life?
As one of five children, family mealtimes were always a raucous event, a time to talk about the day, and plan for tomorrow, (and fight over that last sausage!). I tend to eat very fast, and I think that stems back to the need to secure some second helpings — in our house, the expression ‘you snooze you lose’, was most obvious around the dinner table! Now as a Mum myself and chief cook and bottle washer, I try to follow my own Mum’s design of having a handful of family favourites that I can just pull out of the bag! It always makes for a harmonious mealtime when everyone actually likes what you’ve served up!
Your work has taken you all over the world, and must have brought you into contact with an incredible range of cultures. What role has food played in forming bonds with other cultures?
What I tend to find is that mealtimes are a real communal activity, in Egypt, for example, I was invited to dinner in someone’s house and as the food was brought out to the centre of the room (there was no table), it was as though people just came out of the woodwork — men from the ‘gardens’, children from the street, women from the kitchen and bowl after bowl of rice, vegetables, meat, sweetmeats would be passed round — no one had a plate it was very much a ‘sharing’. I have had similar experiences in India, Nepal, Laos, Indonesia and countless other places, and it is this communal involvement in an everyday act that makes you realise how we lack this here in the UK. There, you walk down the street, and people don’t ask “How are you”, they ask ‘Have you eaten?” and if you say “no”, or “not yet”, then they will immediately offer you food and bring you into the heart of the home — the kitchen.
You combine your passion for adventure with collaboration. Why does collaboration matter to you?
Well we can’t all be good at everything! I love the fact that when I collaborate I get to see my imagination being realised, whether that’s in the arts, or sciences, or even in the kitchen. I love the passion other people have for their particular subject, herpetologists extolling the beauty of pit vipers and reticulated pythons , ornithologists explaining the behaviour of scarlet macaws, and even my brothers comparing the best recipe for roast potatoes — when people are passionate about what they do, and take pride in their work and their accomplishments, it rubs off on you, and then you also produce your best work.
Your expeditions are designed to help women step out of their comfort zone and rediscover themselves. How much of a role does food have to play in this?
There’s nothing better than cooking over an open fire — the heat, the time it takes, the unpredictability, and the taste always seems so much better when food is cooked and eaten in the outdoors, especially in the cool evening after a day of exertion in the heat. Any fire has a mesmerising effect, and on expedition it gives a focal point for recounting the experiences of the day, whilst waiting for the stew to cook. The fire is also a symbol of safety and is kept burning throughout the night to ward of unwanted visitors — all this is inextricably linked — warmth, sustenance, safety, and companionship.
And lastly, what’s your favourite home cooked meal and why?
It has to be a Sunday roast with all the trimmings! I am actually a vegetarian, but there’s something about a roasted chicken, and of course the vegetarian cashew and goats cheese wellington (my favourite), and the roast potatoes and parsnips, with braised red cabbage, leeks in cheese sauce, broccoli, spring greens, peas, carrots, gravy — I did say ALL the trimmings! I like it served at around 2.30pm, so you actually don’t need to cook again for the rest of the day, but everyone is given permission to relax and chat and nibble on the left-overs through the evening. I was brought up with this tradition — Sunday was a day of rest, a day for the family, and that is still the case. Once a month we, as an extended family (my family, and those of my four brothers and our Mum and Dad,) always have an open house at one of our houses for a Sunday Roast, a chance to chew the fat and catch up on all of our incredibly busy lives, with a bountiful supply of food and banter!
