W London Story No 4
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| empty hands |
And West london Story Number 4 is about the pleasure of rule breaking in childhood with a complicit Mum!
This story reller told me of how strict her father was, in particular in relationship to school attendance, but how sometimes without his knowing her mother would indulge her...
My story is about a childhood memory which is about when we were let off from school which was not a lot, um, my Mum would go to the....my Mum would go to the local butchers and buy some pies, like um Cornish pasties, particular pies, we'd have these for lunch.
Yeah, Cornish Paties (laughing) yeah. I loved the way they looked, you know the way they were glazed with the egg, yeah
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| Cornish pasty straight from the bag, oil sketch |
This story was told to me at Austin Forum, the teller asked me to reword it, I have kept as close to the original that I can.
The hands are empty as I had no fish at the table
He told me the story of hiding from his father in his bedroom. He told me of the fear he felt when he heard the bee come into the flat attracted by the fish his father was frying, unexpected as there were insect nets at the windows, and as a small boy how scared he was of insects. That he kept himself tucked away, but could hear the buzzing from the next room.
He told me how his fear gradually changed as he heard his father trying to kill the bee and protect the fish from the cat that had been lurking all morning ready to pounce. How his urge to laugh got stronger as the bangs and crashes from the kitchen and his father's sweary shouts got louder. And how with his door closed his fear did turn to laughter as he imagined what was happening in the room next door.
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| finding it funny |
She had chatted to me about the bacchanalia of seasonal strawberry markets in Poland when she was a child, where in her family the kitchen table would be pilled high with a mountain of strawberries, which would be simultaneously on the table, on every surface and cooking in pans on the stove. This created an overwhelming sensory overload of gorgeousness and added to this was the joy of a small child allowed to eat however much she wanted. Talking about the comparison between North End Road Market and the markets she grew up with in Poland she said:
" I just do compare them because I am missing the lack, the total lack of inhibition of food markets, of Polish fruit markets, big piles, big heaps of fruit in season and here what I found were these little small boxes, which were so restraining, and so sort of mean, yeah, packaging all that wealth and vivacity, that life energy into little plastic boxes, yeah...but still there the fruit and veg is seasonal ...and I do shop [here at North End Road] I do go round and I do enjoy the colour and shape and try to find what I fancy that day, so more a spontaneous shopper and I do appreciate that they sell (indistinct word) these days, everywhere [prompted to talk about the excess she continued] Maybe its the memory of a child...well I wasn't really a child the last time I was regularly shopping there, so yeah, because you've got just, just the piles and heaps of stuff and it was like you could actually imagine yourself actually rolling in that in a helpless way, and the smell obviously, the beautiful smell, and the stall after stall after stall where you have the indoor market....just something to watch and marvel, and then when you regain conscience...buy, go home and eat, eat, eat until you cannot eat any more. So there was this abundance, bacchanal, that feeling that it can go on for ever, no restriction, no end. [You also talked about seasonality] Yeah, which changed now, we joined the rest of the world, we import from all over the place, but I love to eat, er seasonal fruit.
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| Strawberry Bachanal
North London Stories
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The collection of stories in North finchley was at 11 am on the 19th June at 10 Grand Arcade North Finchley. Stories, photographs and drawn images are published here.
Picking up a tomatoe and smelling it she said "Most tomatoes today don't smell as strong as they used to. I chose, yes, one of my earliest memories is my Dad growing tomatoes at the bottom of the garden and my sister and I used to call them Daddy's 'mototoes' . And I can remember them sometimes being picked before they were ripe, and Mum putting them in the draw under the kitchen table to ripen. And that was then. You know he grew tomatoes and beans and a few other things I can't remember. I can't think if he grew radishes, I notice them over there."
Oh yeah, so its got, you know, lots of surprises within this root, which I really really like and um you can eat the leaves, if you make a green smoothie. And I also started buying beetroots on the market when I made a concious choice in Germany that I didn't want to buy my fruit and vegetables in the shops anymore, so I go to the local market every saturday and whenever the season is right, um, I bring home beetroot every time, every single time because um, my partner and I really love this vegetable so er,it's travelled all the way from Britain to Germany, and, er, its been with me ever since this experience with the grated beetroot salad.
He said" I will explain, the reason, yeah hold on a second, I just want to find the[brings out a notebook] Ok I was going through Waterlow Park early last weekend, um, up in Highgate, and they've got this herb garden there which I'd never come across until a couple of months ago and inside the herb garden as you walk around, there are all sorts of things. Only the week before I had walked along and I had seen this extraordinary flower. Its a poppy, and the person that was with me said"draw that poppy" so I just sat there, I did, I stood there and I drew it (Showing his drawing). Only a week later, which is just last week I go yet again to this incredible incredible secret garden and there is this massive bush and exactly here was a plant with these on it and I said what on earth is that? It was only somone who was passing who said it was an artichoke plant, and I said I never knew. There is something about the absolute wonder every time I see beautiful flowers I either touch them, smell them or basically I draw them. This is one I haven't drawn yet. It is like it's calling out to me to be drawn, and I 've eaten them. Its a great thing to eat: Well its because you're constantly opening up a new experience[pause] and then you dip it in cheese and all the rest of it. But when I draw something I always make an angel out of it, but I don't even know what the angel of artichokes will be yet. You are creating your artichoke picture maybe I will create my artichoke picture as well, my angel of artichoke. So I feel that the angel of artichokes has brought us together.
He said"I've just been photographed with a parsnip.I'm not quite sure what that signifies but I have always thought that parsnips were delicious, um, and it was quite a surprise, um a few years ago when I was with some American friends. They seemed never to have heard of them at all, and so I introduced them to this most delicious of vegetables, and now they like it too.
Yes the parsnip and the turnip! My late father was a great gourmet but didn't know anything about shopping, cooking, preparing food. And one day my Mum had run out of parsnips, um, I think I was just probably about eight or nine at the time, and so she sent Dad out to buy a couple of pounds of parsnips and he came back with a couple of pounds of turnips."
She said"I am going to tell you about Sunday afternoons when I was a little girl. On Sundays at about 5 o'clock a van would draw up outside my family home and then the fishmonger who was carrying his stock would open the back of his van and I would look in and choose my tea for that day. Which would it be? Maybe cockles or winkles, shrimps and he would dispense these in a metal cup according to the quantity one was ordering. I loved it when we had winkles because I was always provided with a pin to pick off the little hard top and then put my pin in to extract the winkle, but it had to be whole to be successful and tasty. Sometimes they broke as you pulled them out which wasn't successful. The only thing I didn't like on that stall was the whelks which were rather tough and required alot of chewing. But we used to take them into the house. I would would be given a plate and then the vinegar would be added and I would have them with brown bread and butter. And I remember that vividly and I can still smell some of the things and particuarly the sea air brought holidays by the sea back to me and I just loved Sunday afternoons because of that.
She said"lovely memories about food, all different, richly multicultural, very very multicultural, things from Madeira in the food, echoes of Madiera in the food and the way the Church feasts of the church of course which also brought food into the picture you know. And um also enjoying every other group, Chinese food, food from North and South India, food from Africa, you know. I only think about it because you asked me, because its such a mixture you know. And then of course this is in the tropics so you got alot of coconut because[pause]So for coconut milk you grate the coconut with water and you squeeze it out, its called coconut milk I don't know if you can get it here, if you do it here? Alot of coconut, coconut sweets, eaten at home. In my generation, a lot at home, preparation for all the goodness. And then there was the feasts for the different religions. We had neighbours who were from India, North or South, we had our own food to celebrate with which was Portuguese from Madeira, the Island of Madeira. So we had a really mulitcultural multi everything really. And of course, the tropics, with all the tropical availability you know. But the tropical availability is quite heavy. It's things like eddoes, I don't know if you've ever heard of them, very starchy, very heavy and tanyas and sweet potatoes, not English potatoes. We had that, we had English potatoes because it was imported, so we used it but that was our native sort of potato.
[Asked about how she found the food situation when she came from Guyana]
Well I found it quite easy because our own tradition was so multicultural from curries to Chinese and the food from the West Indies. You know because we're part of the West Indies, although we're on the Mainland of South America, which I have to say to lots of people. Lots of people don't seem to realise that. and um a lot of the food is tropical food, it is food that is made with grated coconuts with water and squeezing it and chucking the coconut away. But really very very broad because of education. Alot of education came from English teachers so we did all the English food as well. So I think it was multi, there was no difficulty in having variety and we all enjoyed food at feasts you know, parties..they have food...it was such a nice thing to share.[Gyana/London]
She said" We had mango trees in the garden. When they were ripe we'd pick the mango. There were monkeys, they would not pick them themselves they were lazy, they would wait. They climbed through the gap just under the roof of the house and took them from the kitchen, it was more convenient for them, taking it and running out to eat it in the tree. I didn't mind, I liked it." (Sri Lanka 1930s)
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| She Said" My association with figs would be a London thing. I think of figs and the sort of Greek Cypriot community, and I love figs, I think they are really tasty. But I would say that that would be something that can be grown here, also my mother in law grows some really nice figs...um...can be used for some Jewish festivals: Roshashanah, people use figs but its more of a Sephardi, Arabic, Spanish background, but traditionally (sic for me) it's not figs. That's my story." |
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| He said " So why am I attracted to that ginger, ..um because it is um it's a cross between superman and a gorilla, um and its got, um an enormous penis and it doesn't just taste like ginger (laughing)" Asked if he had any memories of ginger" Um good question, um, not the pieces of ginger because I didn't know it looked like this when I first tasted it, ginger was a flavour, ginger's, I used to have ginger marmalade and stuff like that, so it was, and so, and so I have always appreciated the flavour long before I saw anything as beautiful as this. Um yes I think, well there you go, I prefer ginger marmalade to orange marmalade though I like them both." |
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| Before we recorded she talked about having to move around alot as a child because of her father's job, and how her father would create a garden wherever he went, taking even the most unpromissing piece of land and fertilising it with the help of a visit to the local chicken farmer to collect dung, and that he treasured the papaya trees.. Then she said"Every time I see tropical fruit it reminds me of my father, he passed away when I was eighteen, but he was a really wonderful gardener. We moved around a lot, my family, and where ever there was a garden he would transform it into er you know full of flowers and vegetables, you know he just loved gardening, he was actually an academic by training but when he came back from work, he would not come to the house he'd go straight to the garden. Um papayas in particular because in our house in Jakarta we had a beautiful garden with papaya trees in it and my father would really dote on them and when a particular papaya was ripening he would sort of like go up to it and feel it every day and see when was the right time to pick it, and when he did get it ripe we would have it for breakfast. It was just wonderful, there is nothing like having produce from the garden. And there were different varieties of papaya in our garden, so I remember this one particuarly , this long shape, I think we had a tree of this particular type of papaya... so it just makes me happy, tropical fruit, it has a pang in my heart,... but its so readily available here in London now, but it really does remind me of my childhood. I enjoy just throwing seeds in the garden and see what survives I am a bit more haphazard than him. No chicken shit, not in a communal garden, not even secretly!" To find out what happened to their dog and the garden please click on this link to her song all about ithttps://soundcloud.com/ |
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| She said "My earliest memory pomegranates is when I was only a few years old, and I used to spend a lot of time in my aunt's house, and she had two daughters, ten and thirteen years older than me, and they taught me how to peel a pomegranate and how to seperate it into segments without cutting through the juicy pips of it. I've never forgotten that, and I have found in this country no one knows how to peel a pomegranate and seperate it so they don't cut through it. I like the taste of the pomegranate, and it is used alot for offerings for Greek services in the Greek Church: So when, as a child, I used to go to church, if there was a memorial service for people, um, and people used to bring pomegranate seeds in trays with sesame seeds and boiled wheat, and it was a beautiful combination to eat. It had a lovely lovely taste and all the children with their hankies used to wait for the priest to come out and distribute that to all the children, so that's a very nice memory." |
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His Mum said "His relationship with food is very good, his father's a chef so we make it a point to give him lots of different tastes, um, ever since, um we weaned him at six months. A lot of people want to wean their babies sooner, they are in a rush to get their babies onto food when really their digestive systems and their stomaches aren't ready for it, so we waited for six months, and he loves it, he loves all food. (He is biting at the passion fuit) Um he likes, likes passion fruit (she laughs), what can I say he loves all food he's eating well. He's having trouble, they wean babies onto food, they put out this Ella's kitchen, any baby food, they make it very sweet, because that is the first taste babies like, so we try and introduce flavours that aren't so sweet, anything, I say he doesn't eat fruit but if someone else gives it to him he'll try."
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| She said"Mangoes were something we didn't have in New Zealand but when I came to London , I was about 19, they were everywhere and I love them, but strawberries would have to be my favourite fruit, when I was in my 20s all I had was chocolate and strawberries in my fridge, it's what I lived on chocolate and strawberries! We used to go strawberry picking in New Zealand, there was one in the mouth and two in the bucket, one in the mouth two in the bucket. Mum used to take us up to buy the punnet of strawberries and we'd just have strawberry juice all down our chins and all down our fronts(laughing), and Mum would just have to sort of pay a bit more. But there were loads of , you know pick your own strawberry farms in New Zealand, and other fruits too. You know when I was pregnant I had a craving for a fruit you can't get in this country its called feijoa, I don't know if you've heard of them, they are small, they are a tree fruit, they look a bit like avocadoes but they are pulpy. I had a craving for them, so my husband called all his fruit suppliers, and you know, and two months later we found these feijoas, but they were £5 each! Well, I had three and that was my lot! I kind of got over that craving quite quickly, but that was quite funny. That is my feijoa story." |
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