NEWS at food in the arts

The British Library has recently launched a new interactive resource entitled Food Stories, a website that examines the revolutionary changes that have taken place in the production and consumption of food in the UK over the last century. The website can be found at:

Using recordings from the British Library Sound Archive, the animated resource covers a range of subjects: from tradition and ritual, cultural identity and migration to farming, technology, food miles and Fairtrade.
Detailed transcripts and background contextual information are provided for each recording. Teachers' Notes and Student Activities also accompany the website.

The recordings featured on the website were selected from the British Library Sound Archive life story collections focused on food. This collection, titled 'Food: from source to sales point' holds over 300 life story recordings of people who work in all different aspects of food production in the UK – chefs, manufacturers, farmers, food activists etc. The recordings cover the period of time from the late 1880s to the present day and range from 4 hours to 30 hours in duration. The recordings have been archived at the British Library and are available, subject to copyright, to British Library users.

There is enough food in the world to more than sustain the hungry while not disenfranchising the mobility and alertness of the rich and the aspiring rich, enough food to feed the world. Enough food to reach the hungry.

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Call For Artists Who Cook

Artists have a unique touch in the kitchen due to their eye for form and color, or their sensitivity to the smells and memories associated with food.

Author and Former Editor of ArtNews, Donald Goddard, wrote:

"Some artists hardly go into their kitchens... except for a glass of water or to scramble some eggs. Others go into their kitchens quite a bit. They make things they think are good for themselves and other people. They have fun, they really get into it.

Sometimes it's really good what they do, I mean extraordinary and good to look at. It means something. It has meaning. It's simple. It tastes like nothing you have ever had before, like some great quintessence of food, especially with a glass of wine. "

Artists and Designers Who Cook

John Cage

Alexander Conner

Salvador Dali

Josh Dmarkis

Richard Dubrow

Paul Jenkins

M.F.K. Fisher

Rachel Kangas

Alex Katz

Kevin Kelly

Willem de Kooning

Elaine de Kooning

Wilfredo Lam

F.T. Marinetti

Lauren Matsumoto

Henry Moore

Marisol

Brad Melamed

Lori Montana

Georgia O'keefe

Gustavo Ojeda

Francis Picabia

Larry Rivers

Lawrence Weiner

If you are a working artist (including all creative disciplines from filmmakers to dancers to architects) who loves to cook, please join our list of recipes by creative people. To join the list, visit the following page on the 'Art and Hunger website,' and follow the instructions :

1. One original recipe (please do not send a recipe you borrowed from others)

2. A short Bio paragraph about yourself or your artistic interest

3. One image of your artwork or the dish itself

4. One headshot

5. A link to your website or blog

Budding chefs and food lovers are being urged to put their money where their mouths are and hold a dinner party – while raising cash for people living in poverty overseas. Brand new initiative Food for Good is being spearheaded by Practical Action, a charity which runs food projects with some of the poorest communities across the world.

Whether a formal dinner party, an informal coffee morning or a barbeque, guests are asked to make a donation so the charity can continue its vital work. Or why not follow the ‘Come Dine With Me’ route and get together with friends to do a week of dinner parties and score each other?

Practical Action works in 13 countries across the world; and many of its projects focus on helping people grow and sell food. From working with Bangladeshi communities to grow pumpkins on barren land, helping farmers to grow and sell crops, to introducing fuel efficient stoves, the charity has a number of exciting and innovative projects which improve people’s access to food across the world.

To host your own Food for Good event please contract Practical Action on 01926 634400.

“Fat is a class issue. Healthier diets cost more, so policies that tackle obesity must also address economic inequality.” That is the opinion of Professor Adam Drewnowski, a leading US academic working on food poverty. Along with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, best-selling writer Raj Patel and many others, he has given evidence to a major independent inquiry into food and fairness run by the Food Ethics Council. The inquiry committee brings together leading figures from across the food sector including Fairtrade Foundation CEO Harriet Lamb, Andrew Opie from the British Retail Consortium, Paul Whitehouse, chair of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, and Jeanette Longfield who runs the campaign group Sustain.

The committee has launched an online public debate at the Food Ethics Council website to gather as many views as possible about what’s working and what isn’t in our food system. The committee will talk about those views at their meetings in the autumn. Please let the committee know your opinions and own experience – what issues should be on the Inquiry’s radar? Can you recommend evidence they should look at? You can comment as briefly or as fully as you like!

In addition to the online forum, the committee is accepting formal and informal submissions of evidence by directly email or post. Contact researcher Santi Ripoll at Santiago.Ripoll@foodethicscouncil.org, to submit evidence on how fair the global food system is, who the winners and losers are, and who should take responsibility for making it fair.

P.S: Did you know that the Food Ethics Council offer a range of services as part of their work to provide independent advice for a fairer food system?

Mediation – they help find a way through controversial issues through stakeholder dialogue.

Decision-making – their ethical tools are designed to help you make value-based decisions clearly, fairly and effectively.

Analysis – they are practiced at identifying the critical issues and opportunities for action within complex problems.

The Co-operative, Sustain, WWF, the Institute for Public Policy Research and the Rural Economic and Land Use Programme are among those who have commissioned work from the Food Ethics Council. Please contact Tom MacMillan (tom@foodethicscouncil.org) if would like to explore working with them. Collaborative partnerships are at the discretion of their board, who operate a policy designed to protect our independence.

A growing number of consultants provide related services, such as research on sustainability, fair trade, community and animal welfare aspects of food and farming. Because the magazine of the Food Ethics Council, Food Ethics, reaches the people in government, business and NGOs faced with decisions on such issues, they are launching a new food ethics research directory, starting in the Winter edition. They expect this to be the definitive list of people who provide work across this field.

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Calling Young Cooks

Call For Artists Who Cook