What does Brixton taste like?

Fan Sissoko, Camilla Marshall Photos by Katarzyna Perlak

When you are an immigrant, whether you have traveled across seas or simply moved from one tube zone to another to find yourself here, one of the first things that you rely on to find that sense of ‘homefulness’ is food.

Food is a link to home. It triggers our emotional memory. Smells, tastes, sounds - all the senses wake up when we eat. These senses bring us home.

Brixton is a food hub. A place where people have build a sense of home through the foods they have brought and shared. A place where food is the centre.

Brixton is changing.

And the Brixton food landscape is changing along with it. With gentrification comes a new food landscape.

A new food “culture”. New tastes. And this has an impact on who feels at home here. Gentrification is when people lose “home”. Home is not just bricks and mortar.

Home is also a sense of belonging. It is about feeling a sense of connectedness with the place you live in.

What does Brixton taste like now?

What flavours, what smells have we lost?

Which ones could be lost?

A menu of shared memories The photos in this book were taken during Brixton Exchange 2, a one-day event led by artists group Anchor & Magnet using creative workshops to discuss and debate heritage, regeneration and loss in the city. The event took place on 23rd April 2016.

We ran a workshop where we asked participants to bring an ingredient that linked them to home, or that linked them to Brixton. We then had less than an hour to cook a three course meal that would join all the flavours each person had contributed.

Dianne Plantain

“To me, Brixton food is all about the colours.

The colours are what noursih me.�

Fan Mango

“Every time I go home to France, my father gives me mangoes to take back home to London. It’s a tradition he took with him from Mali, where people don’t give material gifts, and where mangoes are associated to travel. It means a lot to me, because our relationship hasn’t always been easy, so it’s like a bridge.

Ellen Lettuce

“In Brixton, I can find most of the foods from Sierra Leone. Many ingredients are associated with traditions in my country. For example, the scotch-bonnet chillis are given to girls 8 days after being born and boys 9 days after along with some honey to introduce them to the sweet and not so sweet sides of life.�

Noel Chow Chow

“I work in Brixton. I’ve always been curious about this fruit so I decided to try it. I don’t know what’s the right way to eat it!”

Camilla Potato

“I’m half German, half English, so I grew up on potatoes and only discovered sweet potato as an adult. I’ve left Brixton to become a farmer, and I’m now building a new relationship with potatoes. I’d like to grow sweet potatoes here if possible.”

Arooj Okra

“I have a love hate relationship with okra because it is in so many dishes in South Asian food. It’s also in a lot of West Indian food. I grew up in East London and when I was little, in my mind, I split London into segments with specific heritages. Brixton was the Caribbean area.

That’s why I associate okra with the area.”

Starter

Main

Tricolour salad

Sweet Julienne

• Cut the chow-chow into thin slices.

• Chop some tomatoes, spring onion, parsley and coriander.

• Sprinkle with black onion seeds and season with lemon juice.

• With a peeler, grate some potatoes and sweet potatoes.

• Slice some okra, chop some ginger, garlic and spring onions.

• Heat up some oil on a frying pan and add everything in.

• Spice with ground coriander, cumin and salt and pepper. Add some fresh coriander leaves to serve.

Side

Side

Plantain Chips

Manchow

• That one is easy. Slice the plaintain, fry in vegetable oil, and eat when golden brown and crispy.

• The sweetness of the mango and sourness of the chow-chow go surprisingly well together!

Š2016 Fan Sissoko - whatfandoes.com - fansissoko@gmail.com Photos Š 2016 Katarzyna Perlak