being attached to my computer in this dungeon by a wire and small speakers in a cruel twist of economic fate (mortgage) was actually quite ok this morning because Radio National's Book Show featured a couple of recordings of Claudia Roden talking about her newest book. she talks about her passion for collecting and recording recipes and the things people do and say in their kitchens. hers is a particularly beautiful kind of anthopology, which is what makes her such an engaging writer. Roden's subjects, participants or informers are not estranged from her as with some anthropologists, they are people who have shared something with her, and while she regards documentation as an important outcome it's as much about the process of meeting, understanding and giving something to people along the way.
I find particularly interesting Roden's discussion of innovation versus tradition in cooking. she sees innovation and fusion as a specific kind of cultural change, but instead of being caused by the mixing and merging of ideas which influences characteristics and behaviours in other cultural fulcrums, food cultures are to some extent directed by publishers and the perceived reader demand for newness. this is all fine but as Roden points out, it's a fast track to losing origins and meanings. i find it comforting that there is this kind of discussion about recording and acknowledging tradition, because I sometimes feel that my pedantic documentation of original source material, secondary references and changes made to recipes is somewhere between mildly didactic and tragically boring for people who ask for recipes.
the BBC have published some recipes from Arabesque here.
