Episode 3 with Chantal Powell & Duru Bebekoglu

In this episode Huma, Chantal and Duru reminisce about their Freudian Bites collaboration titled Grain of Life  a year ago. They go on to talk about their first memories of food, tomatoes, ritual, Egyptian mythology, passed on recipes, conviviality and more... 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:15

Hi, my name is Humakabak. Welcome to Freudian Bytes, a podcast that extends an invitation into the intimate world of the Freudian Bytes Supper Club series. This is a space where art, food, and psychoanalysis meet, not as concepts alone, but as lived shared experiences across a table. Through taste, memory, and conversation. For those new to our table, Freudian Bytes began as a series of curated supper clubs in my living room, bringing together artists, chefs, and thinkers. Each dinner was more than a meal. It was a space for sensory exchange, intimacy, and unexpected discovery. Before we begin, I want to thank the Eden Arts Foundation for supporting the Freudian Bites podcast. Their belief in slow, thoughtful cultural production, where conversation, care, and generosity matter has made this oral extension of the project possible. On that note, I'd like to welcome Chantal Anduru. Welcome. Thank you. So great to have you today. So I will um ask the same questions I ask for my other guests as well. This is the third episode, as uh you might uh know uh for those who are listening, and I'd like to thank Eden Arts Foundation once again for sponsoring this um amazing podcast. So I'll start with our signature questions. Maybe we can I'll first direct it to Chantal and then Doro. What is the first meal you remember that stayed with you emotionally rather than gastronomically?

SPEAKER_01 2:14

It's such a lovely question to think about and go back in time with, isn't it? Um I think for me it's probably going to be these giant platters of the most amazing sliced tomatoes that my French grandmother used to serve at the start of every meal that she would do. So my mother's mother's family lives in the countryside in the south of the southwest of France. How wild dreamy. It is, yeah. And as a child, we used to go there in summer and stay for a few weeks, uh, stay on the farm there. And my grandmother is this amazing cook and she had a giant kitchen garden that stretched down one field where she grew tomatoes, amongst many other things. So much of her days revolved around food. So I've got images of her sitting on the kitchen step shelling peas or plucking, literally plucking a chicken for our dinner that evening. You know, when we come to that meal, so much of what was on the table had been grown and tended and harvested. So much labour, actually, when you think about it. Exactly. Yeah, by either her or members of the family. Um and then we'd have dinner on this table that would be taken outside because it was summertime. And so you've got this meal immersed in nature with the sounds of like the insects, the cats and dogs begging for food under the table. So it all felt so alive. Um, it was so very different from meals back home where everything's from a supermarket, and so there's this real disconnect between food and animal and nature. Um, so I think for me, those like tomatoes and all the other amazing food that she brought out were really embodying that time of freedom and fun and love and family and nature. And I think for me it was also the first time I saw food or experienced food as a child as something that was able to carry, like you said, carry labour and love and belonging. So yeah, tomatoes and tasted good.

SPEAKER_03 4:02

Yeah. Like I guess, like uh post-Brexit as well. I mean, the tomatoes are not no longer the same, like you know, well, you can literally have them.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Sometimes she would do them with um little prawns or sometimes with peppers and so that it's just tastes amazing. Literally warmed by the sun that day, and she'd pick them so it's luscious. What about you, Dorul?

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Well, actually, that really reminds me of my grandma and our tomatoes we had on the kind of where I used to go for the summers, and I would stay for like three months whenever school was like uh they would just leave me there. It was the dream. My grandmother was like a theatre artist, so we would like workshop plays. But yeah, I I remember a lot about tomatoes and the salad we used to make. But actually, when I was thinking about this question, more than that, because that I think is a taste I keep going back to, and it's something that there's a specific salad we used to make that I could never make here, really. Yes, for the tomatoes, and also like there's a specific like cheese curd we use that I could probably never find here unless I'd made more. Wait, what's the salad's name? Uh it's called Jingam Pileva. It's a I haven't heard of it either. It's something that a lot of Turkish people have not heard of. It actually comes from what it's called gypsy rice. Yes, okay. And it comes from the gypsies that used to live near in Aydon, where my grandfather used to grow up, because they couldn't afford to buy actually actual rice, the cheese that they used to make from their own, you know, cows and the milk, they would put it on top of the salad. So it's a salad made of onion, tomatoes, and peppers, and then the cheese curd they would put on top, kissik, makes it look like rice. Oh that was a little bit. So that was the ride. Oh, it's just the like the juice of lemon and olive oil, and it's just delicious. I mean, exactly. It's just such a and I think I would have that every meal. Like I have images of me making that like zillions of times. But but when you ask emotionally memories, I have a memory of like probably being like a young teenager, I think, and I I have a lot of memories of like fights at dinner tables or like crying at the like. Oh wow. A lot of people always talk about like the the togetherness and the happiness. I have a lot of memories of like a lot of especially with my stomach. Yeah, lots of pain, like like arguing about politics or you know, uh or um feminism and the other and I remember my like emotional memory that I when I thought about that question was one day we talked about I don't even know if we were eating fish, but we talked about fish meat. So the concept of a woman having a body type that is called fish meat in Turkish. And I remember my stepdad saying to me shockingly, I think I was around 14, he was like, It's okay. Yeah, uh for some reason we were talking about my body, and he says something like that's an attention. It's okay for him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, him, I really don't think he mentioned a bad just the way he goes. Uh very straightforward, like he's like, I'm a visual guy, which is an excuse, but he was like, Yeah, it's okay. Fish meets, you know, Turkish men love fish meat, women. And in my head, I had all these questions also. I was like, Well, you're all trying to kind of plan for me to go abroad anyway. Why are you telling me that Turkish men like it? And also, why am I fish? I was really confused by that. But uh, it was so visual as well. So I really, I mean, I I used to probably hate it, probably cried about it that night, but Yeah, now when you face motions now, like I'm I'm remembering like a stream of events, like in different contexts.

SPEAKER_03 7:39

I remember my late father used to love cooking, and um yeah, without going into too much, like his cousins and not everyone got along well uh in the family, but for some reason when my dad and would like plan a meal at my grandma's house, he would be able to bring each one of them on the table. Any other day, any other occasion, they would refuse to. So, and I I found that quite powerful, even though like there were awkward moments, as you say, or like some fights or some disagreements, it was like always the food that brought all of them together. My second question is do you think memory lives more strongly in taste, smell, or ritual? And why? And I'll start with you, Doro.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Well, I think just about and it would be really good example is just based off of the salad I was just telling you about last year for my birthday, and it was like I saw a cheese curds in a Turkish off kind of frozen, but similar enough to the one that you know we can that I was like, okay, it's almost my birthday, I'm gonna make this for my birthday and it's gonna be my birthday cake or something. And I think it was like um this idea that I've been talking a lot with my friends, if something is a taste is reminiscent of home, the fact that it's just reminiscent, so I guess the ritual part being similar enough is enough for it to be fulfilling, I think. Like the tomato definitely wasn't as juicy or hearty, or maybe it probably lacked flavour, but it was still there, so it made it so like alive and exciting for that moment. So I think ritual ritual, lovely.

SPEAKER_03 9:21

And what about you, Chantal?

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Yeah, it's it's tricky, isn't it? Because they they all folded on each other. Yeah, don't think you can they're they're all into open, but I think I'm gonna pick ritual as well, actually. Um because again, when I think about the food-related memories that are like light up in my mind, and they are often around that time in France, um, I think it is around the actions and the things that were taking place. So, for example, my grandma bringing in an artichoke from the garden, which as a kid I hadn't even seen one of those, you know, these amazing forms, and her showing me, she made a little vinaigrette and showed me how to peel off the leaves and dip them in and scrape off the sort of meat of the bottom of the artichoke. And it's I can't even particularly remember the taste of that, but for me, it's that whole the whole ritual of that, the choreography of it stays with me because I remember as a child that felt really magical and unknown.

SPEAKER_03 10:17

And so you even with string cheese, like I remember I used to like, and I would turn it into like an octopi, like play with a photo bro, and then eat it.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Nice. Yeah, so those actions I think form so even sorry, I diminished that the the heart. Yeah, it's not it's not safe. It's not so much even that we're trees. Even there was uh a beach we would go to as well as part of that holiday that was obviously amazing time as a kid. But there was a a guy who would go up and down the beach selling um apricot donuts, and obviously, very as a kid, you're very excited because it's apricot donut time, and so we'd look out for the man with his thing, and he would be calling ben y apricot as he goes along and apricot donuts. I didn't know what the word meant at the time, ben apricot. And you'd get really excited and you get your donut for the day. And again, I I can remember the taste of that because it's all warm from the sun, the sticky thing that would end up, you'd end up with like the sand mixing with the the sweet sugar, the crunchy sugar, because you're messy children. Um, and it's even got a bit of the salt from the sea, water running in your head. So it's kind of this that that memory is all encapsulated in the environment of that space and the I think the things that were happening and the fact that it's repeated. So a ritual is something that keeps happening, and so you know you go to the chip. No expectation, but you know it's good. You're kind of you're waiting for it to happen, and and it's something fulfilling in that. And I think ritual, we use an alchemical word, coagulates something, it makes it solid. So I think it solidifies that memory with with actions and repetition. So yes, you fold in the taste and the sight and the smells, but I think something about ritual really um coagulates a memory.

SPEAKER_03 12:05

Maven, thank you. Third question Was there a moment during the supper um where something unexpected emerged? A shift, a discomfort, or a revelation? And that will be you, Chantal?

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Yes, definitely. I think maybe maybe this is a good point to kind of share what we actually did in the particular Freudian Bites, because there was there was definitely a gradual shift that happened because of this collaboration. So we were looking, I wanted to talk about the myth of Osiris, which is a really beautiful myth, Egyptian myth, about a god who is killed and dismembered by his jealous brother Seth, and then these body parts are scattered along the Nile like seed sowing, and then there's a resurrection. So it's a really beautiful story. And Huma brought Dura and I together, and Jura Dura responded to this myth in food, and in the way that she chose to curate that meal, and and Huma curated that meal. So the way that it worked was I would bring part of the story, and I had images and other archetypal symbols to bring in with that, and then there would be a food response that embodied that aspect of the story, and then I'd go back again and read another part of the story. So we did this across courses. And when we started, there hadn't really been this eating aspect yet. So I presented as I would usually present, I quite often present information and symbols and imagery, and it felt as I was used to that feeling, this this delivering of information and imagery. And then the food came and it shifted and it changed everything because it changed the way that was received. And I think it's because we were then literally eating the myth. And instead of me giving something uh outside, instead of being outside of the myth and outside of the story, suddenly we were all in it together and we were all participating in it in the moment because we were eating together. We were eating the parts of the myth that Dura had now embodied in food, and we were able to take that in and ingest it.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

And even the tablecloth, I mean, it wasn't a tablecloth, it was a drain and it was a runner, it was a green runner. And I I remember a lot of people, and including you, Chantal, said that it looked like the river Nia.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Absolutely, yeah. So it was literally bringing this thing to life, and myth is a living thing. So we were able, because of the food and the and the curation of it, to enter into that myth. And I think so I felt that shift in terms of how people receive, but also for me, because I think it collapsed a kind of hierarchy that you can sometimes get with lecturing and giving information. And the act of eating together collapsed that. It made the ideas bodily. And the revelation I had, I think, at that moment was that realizing that food very quickly can dissolve hierarchy.

SPEAKER_03 14:57

Thank you. That's beautiful. It was so special. Toro, what about you?

SPEAKER_02 15:01

How did you Yeah, I think I mean you explained it beautifully, Shantar. Um, it was a really exciting moment. I think most of the n like I would be in the kitchen preparing, stressing. It was really my first big gig, I would say, personally. I even though it's 12 people you wouldn't maybe call that big, but um, you know, making sure that everything's turned perfectly. I was really stressed about the cake I remember. Um, because I had I'd failed to a couple of times previously. So I feel like I was stressed about it rising. Um I think it was perfect. I I don't know, like I I I remember being the the shift would be like when I served it, and I think the biggest shift was, and this is quite quite personal, I guess, rather than maybe shared, or about the well, I guess it's still about the be beauty of like a gathering. I think it was really nice when everyone was leaving, and I didn't really realize that it had been impactful for people and it had been nice and it was um not just an honor for me to cook, but people actually really enjoyed it. And I think that's made me cook way more now. Like it's giving it's sort of a like I showed that gratitude towards you and it's a lot of people. I was sort of shocked because I've been used to being around these people like my mom, my grandma, these people, my grandfather, like all these people I talk about, or even my my friends that cook, um, even though I have uh such a deep admiration for it, I think maybe I was certainly shying away from doing it. And the to see that like it's a creation and that it resonates with people and it's something someone enjoys is really beautiful. It's uh certainly a shift. Thank you, Peru.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

The last question to ask both of you is um how did the intimacy of a small table shape the way you shared, spoke, or listened that evening? And I guess you respond to that a bit now, Duro. But and when I say small, again it was 12 people, it's kind of I think it's a limit, maybe on a seated table, but uh there are some other like luscious art events where you go to gallery openings and you can see sometimes 40 people, and that's like I think for me that that just it becomes something else. Definitely, yeah. Um and while I understand the reasons for doing something like that, and obviously when you're fundraising or doing something, that's yeah, that's a total different mindset.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

But yeah, so how did that in intimacy, and maybe you were more in the kitchen, Doru, but I can imagine it's sort of because you were still dipping in and out and more intimate in the way that first of all, like then when you come out from the kitchen, like all 12 can be looking at you rather than being like, excuse me, like listen up, stop talking, like with 40 people. Um and I can imagine that certainly it would be easy to get to know everyone at the table and maybe a part of their experience or even for the night and to share something. I think that's what what's nice with your supper clubs as well. Like I think it's often a mix of friends, curators, artists, but it's certainly never the same, right? Yeah, two events, which is really nice.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

I mean, I have some recurring friends that I wouldn't really expect them to always come to them. But like I have, yeah, one friend and curator, Indira, and then another friend who's not from the art world at all, Grace. And they've just really wanted to buy the tickets. And they were like, I want to come again. And I was like, I are you sure? Like, you don't need to do this because you're my friends. But and each time for them is a different experience as well, because you can't recreate, it's it's different artists, different chefs, and it's still the same. I guess the repetition or the ritual becomes my living room. It's your home, it's my home, but then I I leave it up to the rest of my collaborators to, you know, in the last supper club I hosted, it wasn't a supper club, it was a workshop actually, with Sichliera. She put all of her paintings all around, and I really like I I it changed the whole atmosphere and it really responded to the the grains of the the Turkish coffee and the the shapes and stuff texturally, so it worked out, but usually I wouldn't even think of putting new work on on the walls, for instance.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

So I guess you're you're ho you're providing as a curator the vessel if you're thinking it like alchemy terms, and then the the other people are putting the substances in and there's that interaction and something's gonna happen, you're providing that that um agent for change to happen in the vessel, isn't it? But this is it's lovely that you've offered your home, which is an incredibly intimate thing to do as that public vessel of transformation. It's really lovely.

SPEAKER_03 19:41

Yeah, but I think it was a good group as well. And you and you were there more there. I think you were relaxed towards the end like yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Yeah, yeah. Nervous at first, but then because of the food, it changed it changed the energy. Because food does that, doesn't it? You can't not be relaxed when you're full of delicious food.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

And it was so nice to have the images and the TV was a screen then, and people could look and reference, so it was it was very well orchestrated.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

For the intimacy of the table, I think it that changed for me that shift from maybe teaching to offering. It very much felt like it it it created a space of offering uh a bit like going back to my grandmother again, offering those meals at the table that she she had spent time preparing and and and harvesting and nourishing. And I think, you know, Dura and I had obviously prepared and and tended to something, but then it was offered. And the setting of an intimate table allows for that in a different way and allows for a sense of ritual that is different from how I perhaps usually teach or deliver something. So it changes how some how something is received, and I think it is it enables it to be nourishing in a in a new kind of way. Myth is something that should be nourishing and it should be received as an offering, and so it was such a great opportunity for me to share that myth in a way that felt more appropriate for it to be taken in because it's a perfect way of receiving that kind of story.

SPEAKER_03 21:27

Thank you, Chantal. That's beautiful. Now I have more specific questions. Um, first we'll start with you, Chantal. Okay. So does your artistic process resemble how you behave in the kitchen? Is it structured, intuitive, slow, maybe chaotic? Or uh we mentioned rituals or ritualistic. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Um chaotic. I knew that. You know me by now. I so I tend to work, I think, in a I tend to operate in a very strong Structured way across everything, probably, that I do, whether that's in the studio, in the kitchen, or planning. Um, and I think that's that's part of my neurological makeup. So I'm autistic and so I tend to create structure around how I move through the world. And for me, that gives me a sense of safety to some degree, but it also provides a basis in which my natural brain pattern, which its strength would be something like pattern recognition and seeing things, it enables that to work more freely. I can I can see better when I've removed the chaos and things are are clearer for me. So I've learned that I need to prepare carefully, I need time, I need time to process, to let things percolate, and then then I can, then I have got space to respond more intuitively, whether that's in the studio or in whatever setting. And so I don't think structure creates rigidity. It's I think it just creates a kind of vessel from which then uh I can respond more intuitively. And yeah, one way of thinking of it, I think, is in terms of heat. Again, if you want to think about things alchemically, in the alchemical process, you have different kinds of heat that are needed at different stages. Sometimes you need a really intense fiery heat to burn things up. And I think that's like quite passionate NGO associate you with quite a lot, whom are this kind of I am both a fire horse and a Leo in my astrology. That provides change and things happening. And then for other times you need this gentle brooding heat to to incubate things. If you're cooking, you might need to slowly simmer a stock. Sometimes you need to stir fry something up quite intently. And it's the same in the studio. And I think for me, once I've got the structure, then I can think about when different times of types of heat or speed or intuition need to come in. But yes, it all I think I do work from a place of structure first.

SPEAKER_03 23:57

Thank you. How did seeing your practice translated into food alter the way you think about your work? If it has, when we collaborated uh with Duroux, and I guess we can mention the title of because we we did give it a title, the Freudian Bites, it was Grain of Life. So maybe you'd like to talk a bit about that as well.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Yes, I mean it was a really fantastic learning for me. You know, something I'm really grateful to you both for, because it's into in a way it's perfect in terms of my journey in terms of understanding alchemy as something that's embodied because the myth and this this story connected to grain. So we called it the grain of life because Osiris is the personification of vegetation and he's he's one of the gods. There's a number of gods and goddesses that are connected to grain, this life-giving symbol that's to do with resurrection, but also to do with nourishment and fertility. And so food is so absolutely interwoven in that. And so to not have food kind of doesn't make sense. So normally I've been talking about these things in terms of imagery and words, but to actually have that life, I mean, because so dura used grain literally within a lot of the dishes. So we're literally embodying that myth and that that story and that experience. So for me, there was a shift away from working with object and image and words into literal experience. Um Dura transformed what I bought into a substance that could be literally taken in and consumed by the people who were here. It was able to become part of them quite literally, which is so beautiful. It's actually a really mystical thing. It's if you think about the uh Holy Communion, you know, the this this transubstantiation of food into something, it's that's that's what was happening with myth at that table. So it was a real honour for me to have my thinking and work transformed by you, Dira, in that way and brought together by you, Huma. So yes, it was it was really exciting for me and something I'm really grateful for. And it's it's it's definitely made me think more about this embodying of of things.

SPEAKER_03 26:12

Yeah, and and currently we have the menu in front of us we can we can look look back on, and you know, we always serve a welcome drink uh with the Freudian bites. And I remember we had like a spicy shalgum. What is shalgum? How do we use it? It's like a fermented turnip juice, yeah. It's like with raku, which is like the lion's milk. It's a bit similar to oozo or arak, but I guess not as sweet as ozo. Um, and then we we had like those little caramelized dates uh with feta and pickled melon, which was yummy, and then yeah, like you said, the kasur and the fra uh frika, um, and the some of the 14 elements in the pida, that was all kind of tailored towards grains.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Barley and the soup. Oh, yes, of course. We had like a kind of I guess a healing broth. Yeah. Sort of with some asparagus and like seasonal vegetables. I remember we had leek. We had leek today as well.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

Full full circle.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

I remember reading that barley was also directly like associated with Osiris in ancient Egypt. And I think I think I became a huge fan of barley after cooking with it so much. Because I think this must have been my first time really encounter like cooking with it personally. But yeah, I remember making kusur, which has like obviously like kind of um grounded up boogur. There was the arcade like dessert was made with semolina, which is also ground up, and frike. Yeah. Like you said, so they're and these are all kind of tempered grains as well. Like they're ground up or they're burned, kind of. So I think it was really, really interesting how they were responding to the story in itself anyway. Like they had their own journey coming there, and then we have their own journey journey that we're telling while making it.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

So it's an ancient Egyptian coffin text that I've been working from that's called a spell for becoming barley. And so that idea that you were, you know, in some ways they were ingesting that barley and in in association with the myth, just it's it's such a beautiful coming together of things.

SPEAKER_03 28:18

Next question to you, Chantal, is was there anything about relinquishing control? Um, allowing a chef and a curator to interpret your ideas that felt um either you know vulnerable or surprising.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Um we were laughing about this earlier when we were talking about the questions because uh yes, human knows that it's something that I don't find very easy, relinquishing control. I can identify to an agreement. I I do find it an incredibly vulnerable thing to do and something that involves a lot of trust. Um, so it's easier with the right kind of people. But it's I think I'm very used to holding conceptual and material threads quite tightly. And and I think it's because I care so much. And so I the things that I work with I'm really passionate about, and so I'm very nervous about them being reinterpreted in another way. But it was such an important lesson for me because the transformation that I experienced that took place when I did let go of some control and and and invite people in to collaborate was was so beautiful and so much more than I could ever have done by myself. And I learned so much from it and saw the extra depth that was was taken on. It's um yes, trust is really important here. Yes, I think it is it taught me that collaboration has such immense capacity to bring extra life and new life into things. So again, thank you both for that.

SPEAKER_03 29:50

Thank you. No, I strive in with collaboration. I think I can only feel inspired and do something with when it's with others, or else it gets too isolated. So yeah, it's uh Freudine Bite Bytes has become what it is because of all of them.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Collaborators, so such a beautiful thing. I think there is something about perhaps knowing that you have certain affinities or connections with with people when you're sharing things that are very vulnerable and important to you. I think maybe there does need to be some. I guess if you're trying to work with a very corporate situation, it might be very difficult because there's there's too much of a a mismatch. Something about an affinity, I think, is important in that.

SPEAKER_02 30:32

I guess that's your curation in some sort of way, right? You pick the people that will come together.

SPEAKER_03 30:39

I mean uh yeah, with with the artist and chef, definitely, but I guess with the guests like who attend, yes, like I I do advertise through my uh professional Instagram, so usually there is some sort of knowing, but I've had three or four people I didn't know in the last workshop, for instance. So it can change depending, but there's always acquaintances or friends of friends or linked to the artist, or has you know, at least someone who has interest in these type of events because it's not for everyone. Maybe sometimes people don't even know what to expect. So my next question is for you. When you responded to Chantal's practice and the Osiris team, where did you begin? Conceptually, emotionally, or sensorially?

SPEAKER_02 31:30

I guess I kind of started talking about the grains and like how I was looking at them because I started with the story, so it wasn't a myth I was necessarily like familiar with. I think I would have heard the name, like it sounded familiar, but I don't think I knew the story. So it definitely started there with educating myself. I guess it's sort of what emotions does it bring up in me? What what sticks out? I remember the dismemberment to 14 pieces, like the number kind of being very like strong and like you know, being said was something that stood out. So for me it was like how can I make a dish that has 14 elements in a way it has and in a way we made that. Could you share a bit about that? So obviously people I wouldn't know what that looked like. It was amazing. So I remember then the idea was to do cafe, which is like meatballs, kind of a homemade recipe. And we also want I remember talking about this breaking bread element and it being important to us, but also in a way to the story and the rituals of the time. So I was so we we have like meatball and bread together a lot as well, and it's a very casual food. So I thought it's an interesting way, and then you could kind of I was gonna I surround it by 14 elements, so you don't have to have it all, but you can pick to have which one. So that was kind of an also in a kind of logistical way. Some spices, pickles, um, there's a bunch of different things some cheese, there were spices that we like like cumin that we really like with meatballs, you know, you dip it into it, like that's a vivid image for me.

SPEAKER_03 33:04

And for the pescatarians, I think they had sardines, but it's also like you know, more or less yeah, grilled.

SPEAKER_02 33:09

I think they could I mean they use the same kind of condiment, so to say, to accompany them. So that was where I was starting, but also because this was like a sort of I guess my cooking is a lot of things I've heard and learned and seen, like especially from my family, rather than like, I've had this here, let me replicate that, which I'm starting to do more now, but at the time I think it was very like basic of like I like to make, you know, I can make kissir because my grandma taught me to make it, and that's safe kind of feeling. So I was like, how can I relate this story that I've learned about set in a culture that's sort of similar to my own, or what what is similar? Like, I mean the the Semolina cake that we made at the end, basbusa, is Revane in Turkish. Like it's um there is a very similar cake that we make, there's like little adjustments. So it was interesting to kind of play with that, and that's where I started.

SPEAKER_03 34:06

Lovely. Do you see cooking as a form of translation, interpretation, or authorship, Doro?

SPEAKER_02 34:14

Yeah, I think I would say translation in a lot of ways interpretation anyway. I'm interpreting when I'm translating, you know, the the story of the gypsy rice. Or when I'm talking about I mean, the gypsy rice is a good example because the way, for example, my grandfather would use the word gypsy in that sentence versus how it would be in the English language or in the London, yeah, you know, 21st century versus my grandfather's mind is completely different. And I couldn't explain it to him. So I think there is a huge there is no politically uh correctness like being my person that probably strives to be politically correct myself. I wouldn't change the name of that. Like it is what it is, because that has its own authorship.

SPEAKER_03 35:01

And and you know, if you look at the history of Turkey or the Ottoman cuisine and how everything was translated and how how it shifted, you know, it is what it is today because of all of those nomads and migrants, and there is there was al always this trade and you know uh there was a love for it as well.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

I think hugely that sometimes maybe we miss in modern day. I mean, every food we have comes from a collaboration of uh uh journey lived. So yeah, I would say translation, I guess, especially because I'm based in the UK now, and I guess my background is from Turkey, and I think my so we have the saying that I think translates really funny to English, but my taste of mouth, like kind of my taste was what I like to eat, is very Turkish. So I'm a huge fan of acidity, lemon, um, you know, vinegar, onion. I love garlic. Garlic. Yeah, I love garlic. I smell of garlic. Um and so this question makes me think a lot about especially about the the my own like how if I were to open a restaurant, hypothetically, how uh far could I take this kind of like I can't make five men salads on the menu and they're all like you know, lemon and really heavy on the vinegar. Um so that's something I've been thinking about recently as well.

SPEAKER_03 36:24

Of the Yeah, thank you. One last question, Daru, um, and then we'll get to taste one of your dishes from last year. And then you're you're gonna share the recipe. But yeah, uh, how did do you balance your own voice when collaborating on a project like this?

SPEAKER_02 36:58

I I think I've kind of touched on this.

SPEAKER_03 37:00

Yeah, you did actually. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

It's just the fact that it's a similar while vastly different culture. Uh it's trying to learn about that, and then it's for me was looking into the similarities and what we share and how I could balance that with my personal taste button stories.

SPEAKER_03 37:16

Yeah, great. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you both. Uh so Duru, now we're gonna taste your cursor that you recreated after one year. Let's taste it. And we're gonna be sharing this on Instagram. So for our listeners, you can go on my Instagram account, Humaka Bakchu, and it will be there. And also the website for the invites page will be also shared. Thank you for feeding us again.

SPEAKER_02 37:45

Happy too.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

The grains.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

This is probably the first thing I learned to make on my own. Next to the the the tomato salad I was talking about.

SPEAKER_03 37:55

Okay. It's it's something now like I And I love the pomegranate molasses that you use.

SPEAKER_02 38:01

Yeah. But when I can, it's my grandma's that I bring with me. Oh yeah. Did you bring it last time? Yeah, I think so. I think I had it. I still had stock. Right now I'm on to the Turkish markets that aren't as good. Yeah. The funny thing was when we were talking about sharing the recipe, um, for the longest time I hadn't memored that my grandma told me if you're giving someone else a recipe, you always should have one ingredient missing so they can't make it as good as you. Oh yeah, I've heard this. I thought she told me this and I told talked to her about the last time I was home. She was like, never. That's evil, dude. I would never say that. And apparently someone she knew would do this, and she was probably telling me to not do that. But I thought my grandma was telling me to do this, and she was like, oh no, no, just share the recipes.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

Does this mean we'll be getting the full recipe on the website with no answer? So no, just as boom stored. Okay, excellent.

SPEAKER_03 38:53

Funnily enough, I think my grandma from my dad's side actually did that.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

So I think people do it.

SPEAKER_03 38:59

Um, yeah. So let's not call it evil.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

But but the point is we can recreate your recipe.

SPEAKER_03 39:04

Yes, that's good. Yeah, we'll share that.

SPEAKER_02 39:07

I think it's smart anyway. I think it is. It's like um definitely it's it's quite intimate to share your recipe. Yeah, it's yours. Like you go also want to make it as good as necessary.

SPEAKER_03 39:18

And then like you look, you mentioned grandmas, and you know, back then there was not no technology, nothing. And the labor, the I mean, maybe it was passed on as well, and there's a sentimental value, and it's all handwritten. It's quite, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

It's hand knowledge again, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 39:36

Yeah, it's valuable. Okay. Well, thank you for listening. Thank you. Um, and we will share the recipe so you won't just only hear us eat.