Filed under: 5/5, Art, Bread, Design, Food, Foraging, Helsinki, Network, Recipes, Recycling | Tags: activism, bread, city, community, consumption, event, experimental, food, forgotten, knödel, overproduction, participatory, salvage, waste
Our kitchen this morning
The last and final event of the project ‘5 The dish’ took place last night at my home on Iso Roba. Starting at 5 pm, last guests left around 1:30 am – that would be 8,5 hrs of Knödel party! This morning, I woke up with a hangover of sorts (which was not caused by too much glögi) – was this really the last event? I feel sad, but also relieved; now, the writing can start, and tomorrow, I will take off to Austria and Germany afterwards for holidays (if the snow storm doesn’t wreck my travel plans).
‘Waste’ bread from the supermarket
Preparations started with a supermarket tour on Thursday morning, when I picked up a bag full of the bread that would have officially expired the next day (supermarkets usually sort out products one day before expiration date), and which would have gone to the bin. I felt a bit like Santa Clause with that huge heavy black plastic bag full of goodies on my back, tramping back home through the snow. I unpacked the bread to prevent it from becoming mouldy – my flat smelled like some sort of bakery for three days.
The plan was to make so-called ‘Knödel’ from the waste bread, a typical German dish that recycles stale bread. I am sure none of my guests would have expected those hot steaming round bread balls to be as tasty as they were – not even me! I have to admit, the first Knödel in my mouth just truly made my night – so hearty, warming, and comforting! (talking about food arousing memories) The kitchen was packed with people, and nevertheless we managed to cook together. People just started chopping up bread and following the recipe that hung next to the stove. I didn’t even count how many different doughs were made last night, but there were quite a few, ranging from rye-beetroot- over normal white-bread-parsley-onion- to mixed-bread-with-carrots-Knödels.
All photos but first two by Marina Ekroos
The night went on with our ‘analogue Facebook’ wall – visualizing the social network of people at the party and those who had participated in former events and workshops of this project. It only stopped when we ran out of stickers! When people left, ‘Knödel doggy bags’ with the recipe printed on them were handed out to be filled with leftover bread from the table. Long live the Knödel!
Check out more pictures taken by Marina of the night on Facebook or/and Picasa! Thanks to her again for the great support. :)
Filed under: 4/5, Art, Bread, Design, Food, Pictures, Uncategorized, Workshop | Tags: bread, city, consumption, event, experimental, food, manual, näkkileipä, participatory
All photos by Marina Ekroos
This time, the event was documented by photographer Marina Ekroos, who also participated as a guest in the happening. Find more of her work from her website! Thanks to her for the beautiful pictures which can be now checked out on Picasa! Enjoy…
Filed under: 5/5, Art, Bread, Design, Food, Good to know, Helsinki, Network, Recipes, Recycling | Tags: activism, bread, city, community, consumption, event, food, knödel, overproduction, participatory, salvage, waste
The art and food event series ‘5 – The dish’ comes to an end with this big final event: an open invitation to the artist’s house! Welcome to bring as many friends as you want. The only thing I ask from everybody is to bring old bread – either from your own kitchen, salvaged from the supermarket waste bin, hunted for in a bakery, or from elsewhere – be creative! We will pile up the ‘waste bread’ and turn them into delicious ‘Knödels’.
This event is a chance to meet new and known faces, build up new networks, think of new projects, and reflect upon past, present, and things to come…
Date: December 5th 2010 (this week’s Sunday)
Location: at my home, on Big Mama’s 5th floor (where I share a flat with two girls). Iso Roobertinkatu 26 A 14, 00120 Helsinki
Time: starting from 5 pm onwards. Open end.
Looking forward to seeing you!
Filed under: 4/5, Art, Bread, Design, Food, Workshop | Tags: bread, city, consumption, event, experimental, food, näkkileipä, participatory, season, sourdough
Yesterday night at Ravintola Kuurna in Kruununhaka: a bread making and root cutlery workshop, three plus five chefs of sorts, bottle candle lights, three experimental dishes, a shopping receipt tablecloth, melting beer glasses, and ten strangers. The ingredients that composed the fourth event of the food series ‘5- The dish’. Sounds chaotic? Maybe it was, but a beautiful chaos, with an open-minded atmosphere, delicious plates, and a nice crowd.
The evening started at 5 pm with the first half of our guests coming to join forces to create the first dish of the evening – a plate made from Ravintola Kuurna’s specialty, the home made sourdough crisp bread, topped with any vegetable creation people wanted to think of, to be eaten with cutlery made from local root vegetables as material. There were carrots, radish, parsnip, celery, different kinds of turnips and cabbages, cucumbers, leek, and spring onions ready to be cut up and composed into colourful dishes. The guests were asked to make one set for themselves and one for their avec which would join us two hours later, at 7 pm, for dinner.
When the second half of the guests arrived, preparations were still underway, but soon we could sit down for the starter creations. Antto offered a special brew of a Finnish beer brand (won’t do any advertisement here!;)), which we served in glasses made from ice (that’s how you make people drink fast!). In the meanwhile, the main course and the dessert were being completed in the kitchen – a barley-beetroot bowl with melted goat cheese and honey, and a strawberry sorbet container with lingonberries and chocolate sauce on top of a cookie plate. Yummy! The basic idea of the dinner event was to make a wholesome ephemeral experience with all objects slowly melting away, being eaten, or salvaging and repurposing trash.
Time to give props to all those people involved: first of all, thanks to all the guests for your interest and participation! Thanks to Marina for documenting the event. A very special thank you to Salla for the big support, help, and creativity with the dishes and preparations, and of course, last but not least, to Antto for the support in the kitchen, the generous sponsoring of all the food and drinks, and the provision of the kitchen and the atmospheric location! More photos are coming soon (as soon as I get hands on Marina’s material)! :)
Stay tuned for the 5th and last event coming up this week’s Sunday, 5th of December, more information can be found online soon!
Filed under: Bread, Food, Good to know, Theories | Tags: bread, food, identity
Cover image of the book ‘CrEATe – Eating, Design and Future Food’
You are what you eat – how true is this saying? From my experience of working at the cashier of a supermarket, I have to admit that I cannot withstand making up profiles of the customers, imagining their different ways of living while scanning their groceries. Like all products we buy, consume, and wear, food especially is an expression of how we live and who we are. Of all products, food is the one that gets closest to your body. By eating food, it actually becomes part of our system. It affects our health, our well-being, and the way we look and act. It affects emotions and can arouse memories. In her book ‘Eat love’, eating designer Marije Vogelzang describes eight different dimensions of food, that she provides as an inspiring starting point for people working with food:
– the senses – nature – culture – society – technique – psychology – science – action
Looking back in food history, certain foods obtained specific roles in a nutritional class hierachy and cultural data base, so that eating certain foods distinguished one group from another. To cultivate food and shape it into man-made products such as bread and wine was looked at as an indication of civilitas – Roman and Greek writers such as Procopius wondered e.g. about Lapps, who only lived off hunted animals, without cultivating any food from the earth. Pride of the nutritional and cultural identity, and maybe also the lack of understanding for other food cultures characterized all groups.
Rather than having a ‘plant of cultivation’ such as corn in America, rice in Asia, and wheat in the Greek and Latin worlds, Celts and Germanics were characterized with an animal, namely the pig. Similarily, Germanic mythology often used pigs as a symbol of the origin of life, whereas Greek and Latin writers valued above all all the fruits of the earth, an earth that would give food as a result of human labour. ‘It is from [bread] that the whole world begins’, did Pythargoras write. It was bread that, together with wine, allowed the savage man to become civilized, as can be read in the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest testimonies of Mediterrean culture. What is the definition of civilization, what is the true meaning of culture?
Source: The culture of food//Massimo Montanari; Blackwell Publishers Ltd., Oxford 1996
Filed under: Art, Bread, Design, Theories | Tags: bread, culture, simple living, sourdough
I did it again. I baked. Bread. I just cannot help it. This one is a mix of maybe Finnish, Italian, and German bread. Rye-sourdough with walnuts and olives. Really good with pea soup, another very typical Finnish dish. Hmm, it seems like I am jumping from art theory to ‘bread theory’ today, doesn’t it? But, just a reminder: bread is the basic metaphore of this project, each event had its own special bread that actually connects to a theory; 1/5: Rieska, 2/5: Reikäleipä, 3/5:Piimälimppu, the rest will still be kept in secret. Plus, baking bread is just the most beautiful and relaxing thing to do after getting done with some work. By the way, it is time for true contemplation, since halftime has been crossed – two more out of five events to go!
Filed under: 3/5, Art, Bread, Food, Helsinki | Tags: bread, city, culture, elements, event, experimental, food, history, local, nature, participatory, process, slow, storytelling
I hate talking about the weather, but I am still in awe of the weather circumstances we were blessed with last night: what are the odds to wake up to pouring rain after a beautiful sunny/ moonshiny night on Seurasaari, which was actually preceded by a minor snow storm the day before? So, big thanks to Petrus and his buddies for the meteorologic conditions!
The third event 3/5:PREPARE started last night around 5pm at the BBQ-area of Seurasaari. A big pot was filled with different surprise ingredients brought and prepared on location by the guests: lanttu (turnip), onions, lentils, cauliflower, carrots, cabbage, brussel sprouts, and hemp seeds were cooked into a delicious stew, which was topped with water cress and nuts and seeds. It was no problem to brave the cold with that hot stew on the table and improvised story games at hand. Each spoon was marked with a letter from the alphabet, which was used as a starting point for a long long story. When dew started to fall on us, we decided to pack things up and leave for the warmer realms of city indoors. What a night! More pictures can be found on the 5-Facebook page and Picasa!
P.S.: As always, a huge thank you to all the brave participants who made it out there in a cold late-fall-almost-winter night!!! :D
Filed under: 3/5, Art, Design, Food, Helsinki | Tags: bread, city, culture, event, experimental, food, history, local, nature, participatory, slow, storytelling
http://foreca.fi/Finland/Helsinki?details=20101023
After this year’s first real, very light and blitheful snowfall yesterday afternoon, I was getting prepared for some snowshoes and heavy weather gear for today’s event 3/5:PREPARE – but no, the forecast tells us, we will have a bright sky and sun, plus a clear night with a full moon shining on us!
So, get ready, pack your one ingredient and story for our get together tonight at Seurasaari’s grillipaikka!
Filed under: 2/5, Art, Bread, Design, Food | Tags: activism, bread, education, event, experimental, food, participatory, semi public
Tonight was the finalizing event of the 2/5 installation, an experimental harvest dinner. So, for first course: cress, second: cress, dessert: cress? Well, the food was simple, ingredients inspired by season, place, and roots, and very symbolic. Won’t loose too many words about it, just let your imagination go. It involved apples from the earth and from the sky.
I had asked people to bring their favourite bread and salt with them. The soup was unsalted, so those two ingredients made it enjoyable. We had rye bread and crisp bread from Avikainen bakery, Samsara rye bread, hole rye-bread from Leipä Aitta, and a Fazer Country Loaf. The crowd was mixed, with people even joining last minute, the atmosphere beautiful, the discussion inspiring. Everybody in the round of 12 people introduced oneself and talked about his growth, his background, his studies, his aspirations. 3 teachers from Environmental Art and Art Education, 9 students from Industrial Design, Ceramics, Textiles, Fine Arts, Applied Art & Design, Environmental Art, and Art Ed. 2 hrs of the talks are videotaped and ready to be edited for a final video. Looking forward to that! And: the idea to have more open dinners with discussions amongst students and teachers across departments in the exact same location came up… – me like!
Potato soup with… cress, homegrown!
Oven apple with lingonberries and vanilla sauce
Thanks to all you people who came, ate, thought, talked, and helped!
Filed under: 2/5, Art, Bread, Design | Tags: bread, culture, education, event, exhibition, experimental, gardening, slow
Another day of change for the installation – today, I sew the four old bedsheets together to one big huge tablecloth, and sowed cress seeds on top of it. Now, watering time has started. The seeds start to sprout already after one or two days, so if you want to see the process, come check it out regularly. The growing process will also be documented regularly.
Last week, I have given out personal invitations to professors from the school for the final ‘harvest dinner’ (date: 27.09.2010, 4 pm), but it seems like most of them are too busy to attend. I will start to put up a list for interested people who are either studying, working, or anyhow involved with Taik nex to the exhibition. First 12 people get in!
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