PERFORMERS & SPEAKERS
Joanna Moore
The Loaded Table
Fire & Knives favourite artist gives us a brief history of how western artists have used food to comment on contemporary society. Joanna will consider masters including Bruegel, Beuckelar, and Hogarth, before asking whether the themes of prosperity, status, sensuality and the sin of gluttony remain as relevant today in modern works by the likes of Warhol and Banksy.
Florian Siepert
Foodcamps - Combining the best of Geekism and Food Culture
Florian organises events in Germany that bring together chefs, writers and foodies to spend time on specific food related subjects.
For ‘Porkcamp’ they slaughtered and processed pigs themselves and turned
them into delicious meals.
Florian employs the participatory tools developed by geek culture
to jointly learn, work and eat. Pics of happy people with buckets of blood included.
Lucy Inglis
How to Lay an C18th Table
Lucy Inglis grew up in rural Lincolnshire before moving to London to trade in antiques and reconstruct historic interiors. In 2009 she began blogging on the lesser-known aspects of the capital during the Long Eighteenth Century – including food, immigration and sex (though not all at once) – at GeorgianLondon.com, which was voted website of the year by the readers of History Today. Lucy will demonstrate the art of table dressing using authentic props from the period
Bompas & Parr
Ether Bar
When Sam and Harry are organising the drinks almost anything can happen. Ether, they tell us, has been off cocktail menus since the 1890s. It's potent stuff. and they've been doing research on it with Mike Jay, the curator of the High Society exhibition at the Wellcome Trust and expert on 19th Century drugs. “All, they tell us, legal and above board”.
Chris Neill
BBC Radio 4 regular Chris Neill is well known to millions of listeners from his waspish and acidic regular appearances on Just A Minute and Broadcasting House. He has written for and appeared on a multitude of other BBC networked shows. What is probably less well known is his brilliance as an amateur chef - just as happy transforming a pig’s head into a giant wobbling brawn, gutting cuttlefish, and cracking eggs as fast as the jokes
Andre Dang
Eye Level is Buy Level
Ever wondered how retailers influence what you buy? Working at Harrods, Selfridges and Villandry, Andre has become one of the top experts in buying, strategy, development, marketing, public relations and brand building in the retail food world.
Andre gives us the inside track on how layout, design
and range planning effect how we spend our money and explains the life cycle of a product - how a producer and his product goes from production to retail.
Presented by Rachel McCormack.
The Carpenter’s Pencil
Novels from Spain are full of culinary references ever since Don Quixote, disgusted at the delicacies served in palaces called for plain honest stews. In 1998, The Carpenter's Pencil was published, one of the biggest selling novels written in Galician - the language spoken in the far North West of Spain - and it too acknowledged this great tradition. Its author, Manuel Rivas, wrote one of the first Galician books to deal with the aftermath of the civil war, the story of an imprisoned Republican Doctor and his escape into exile.
The extract we’ll read contains a fantasy lunch eaten in prison while we enjoy, in real life, one of the dishes he imagines.
Kavita Favelle
Supplements on Fixed Price Menus
London-based food blogger Kavey loves to eat well and, frankly, finds people who don't rather odd. On Kavey Eats she shares cookery book and restaurant reviews, recipes, random reflections on food and interviews with food producers and restaurateurs.
Most of the time, she's a relaxed and gleeful food-lover but supplements on fixed price menus make her rather cross. She'll be explaining why and asking what you think during her rant.
Chris Heathcote
Micro-organisms I have Known and Loved
Chris is a designer by day, but by night he's a knife wielding,
cocktail shaking, chemical reacting, yeast taming gastronome. He
writes about buildings and food at anti-mega.com.
He’ll be telling us about his favourite bacteria and fungi
The ones everyone knows about but from some interesting angles
(yeast), plus others that make interesting things (cheese, kimchi, gellan)
Betty Herbert
The Food of Love
Food is central to relationships - and not just those early candlelit dinners, either. When, how and what we eat are all part of the dance of love, and probably feature in a lot of our arguments too. This talk will look at the way in which long term relationships are really just a series of meals, and will include a tasting of Betty's special aphrodisiac mole
Betty Herbert is the author of 52 Seductions, which follows the year in which she and her husband decided to seduce each other all over again. She lives on the Kent coast with a burgeoning collection of cats, and blogs at BettyHerbert.com.
Sam Leach
Do the artisan marketing trumpets fanfare false idols?
Can human hands and head truly be better than robotic precision? Is artisan food better food? Sam Leach thinks he has some answers. He’ll be talking about how craftsmen can outsmart their mechanical counterparts and even gliding lightly over the subject of artisans and the economy.
Sam Leach is an artisan baker and freelance writer based in Bristol, writing about the disparate topics of food and mountaineering for various publications. He also runs the monthly Blue Door Supper Club in Bristol.
Piff the Magic Dragon
announced his arrival by reaching the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year 2009 final, and has gone on to become a staple of the London cabaret circuit, headlining at Madame JoJo’s and the Boom Boom Club. He has also supported some of the biggest names in comedy including Simon Amstell, Jessica Hynes and Stephen Merchant. Every hero needs a sidekick, and it was during 2009 that Piff acquired Mr Piffles the World’s First Levitating Chihuahua™. Piff is the creation of award-winning magician John van der Put; one of the youngest magicians to ever lecture at The Magic Circle, International Brotherhood of Magicians Close-Up Champion and has creator of magic for Heston Blumenthal, David Blaine and the National Theatre. He is the official magician of the Experimental Food Society.
Marawa the Amazing
loves to hoola hoop and loves to eat. Her fans follow her as she shakes and spins her way through international performances, blogging all that she eats along the way. She as wowed audiences in Edinburgh festival, Glastonbury, Lovebox, Le Baron Paris, Melbourne, Sydney and Dublin Festival. Her signature hooping style is recognised the world over, both live and on various music videos and TV shows. She performs internationally with the Olivier award winning La Soiree (formerly La Clique). Her favourite London meal is a halloumi and lamb burger on a bed of salads at Broadway Market.
The Broken Hearts
Well-known for their distinctive brand of spectacular DJing, the Broken Hearts have played some of the most exclusive venues in the UK, as well as shows throughout New York, Paris, Moscow and Milan. Their eclectic sets have been described by The Independent as "a Hollywood musical on hallucinogenics”.
The Fabulous Russella
Host extraordinaire of London's Next Top Tranny, The Fabulous Russella really is too fabulous. Known and worshipped by housewives the world over Russella demonstrates how you can cook up a meal in a flash and still stay glamourous in full make up and 6 inch heels. Her Glamourous Gardener Blog and Russella Vision TV channel has all the DIY tips a girl could ever need. www.russella.co.uk
Tessa Stuart
How Food Companies are Researching You
Food companies used to do market research with eight strangers in a room with a one-way mirror and a researcher, whilst the client looked on. Today everything has changed. The advent of social media has made hearing from consumers easier and cheaper. But there are other new approaches too, because there's big money in food and drink products if these companies get it right.
Next time you're in Sainsburys, look out for the spy in the aisles. Someone may be watching you...
Tessa Stuart began in advertising, but turned her back on the dark arts, and became a consumer researcher, working for Cadbury, Nestle and other big companies. She has researched female fantasies about the Milk Tray Man, developed Wispa, and explored in-flight entertainment options in British Airways Business Class to New York.
She works with Innocent Drinks and other food and drink companies on new product development and branding.
Matthew Fort
The Gourmet Private Eye
One of Fire & Knives most respected and well-loved food writers walks us through his secret fascination with food in detective fiction. From initial clues in Mrs Hudson’s teas for Sherlock Holmes and ranging who knows where, the brilliant Chief Inspector Fort will lead us on a mystery tour
YUM CHA CHA
Delicious treats for your eyes, ears and mouths
Food, fun, performance and skill all chucked in the blender and set to impress! Marawa the Amazing will perform “The Fruit Salad of Death”; Piff the Magic Dragon will teach survival in the wild, dragon style. The Fabulous Russella will demonstrate how to dazzle in the kitchen and still look fabulous and The Broken Hearts will feed the senses, providing a delicious soundtrack to the days events.
PICTURE
TO
FOLLOW
Philip Lowery
Is it all a Big Fat Lie?
It seems an almost religious certainty that obesity and heart disease is caused by the excessive consumption of fat. Your GP, the FSA, nutritionists and health campaigners has been telling us for years that we should reduce the amount of fat in our diet. Yet the increase in obesity and the incidence of heart disease continues unabated.
Why? How come it’s not working? Could it be that the science behind this accepted dogma is flawed? It’s a shocking notion that the official public health recommendations of the last 50 years might have been the worst advice we could have ever been given!
Philip Lowery is the founder of the Real Food Festival (www.realfoodfestival.co.uk) an annual event that celebrates extraordinary food and drink and aims to reconnect us with our food and where comes from. He promotes the extremely unusual idea that we should buy as much of it from the people who actually produce it.
Liz Calvert Smith
Museum of Culinary History & Alimentation
MOCHA (www.mocha.org.uk) will be a centre for all those who are interested in food and its allied subjects, a place where children and families, as well as academics, professionals and those in the industry can enjoy discovering more about a subject which is important to every one of us – after all, food is one thing we all have in common!
Liz Calvert-Smith, food historian, writer, researcher & cook, gives talks and writes articles on anything food-related, from ice houses and coaching inns through food adulteration to London’s costermongers and food in Nelson’s Navy.
Exhibitions she has curated include: “Tea”, “A Victorian Picnic”, “Curry in England” and “A Toll Cottage Christmas Dinner”.
She is curator of oral history for MOCHA.
Stefan Gates
Stef’s Bad Food World Tour
‘One man’s snack is another man’s poison’, they say. What a load of crap. Stefan Gates has eaten some of the foulest foods on the planet whilst making telly for the BBC and he wants to cleanse himself of the experience by telling you all about it with photos and a few weird snacks for you to try, too.
Dr Morgaine Gaye
Food Trends 2012
...will be unveiled in this rapid-fire show and tell. You'll get to hear about some of the newest products, trends, ingredients and dining experiences which are about to become big news and you'll also get to taste samples of the future. If you're sick of hearing about cupcakes, this could be the antidote.
Dr Morgaine Gaye is a food futurologist and senior academic lecturer at Nottingham Trent University. Her work involves applying modern scientific research to history, nature and global cultural theory to help people advance in the technology of wellness, anti-aging, new brand extensions, future gazing and nutriceuticals. Amongst other things, this may involve public lectures, academic research and publications, fun journalistic insights into food trends, helping established companies to develop new food products, advising people on wellness protocol, assisting on health retreats, keynote speaking at corporate events or developing new edible beauty products. In short, as a Food Futurologist, Dr Gaye explores all the facets of food; why we eat what we eat, believe what we believe and what the future of food looks like. And just so you know, she is terrible at following recipes, doesn't really watch cookery programmes shows and is not the world’s best cook, in fact, she is very average.
Max Halley
Everything comes to he who waits...
Why are so many restaurant goers so rude to their waiter? Max Halley suspects a post-colonial hangover about being served or insecurity brought about by a lack of motherly love. Hear about rude customers, how they are dealt with and why despite the bad and the ugly, the good always prevails in the world of the waiter.
Max Halley is the resident foodie on BBC Radio Somerset where he recently announced National Scotch Egg Day, a much-needed fixture in the calendar. He is a freelance food journalist who began his career selling food for Brindisa, worked as a chef, a waiter and has managed restaurants including London's Salt Yard.
Philip Dundas
Reading: ‘Dad’
Philip Dundas began life as a greedy child and this gave him a lifelong passion for exploring and having fund with ingredients and cooking. He is a food writer and writes regularly on his blog
He is currently putting the finishing touches to a book called Cooking without Recipes. Since leaving the BBC he has pursued a career as an actor and director, working in London and Edinburgh Fringes and has written a short play about Laurie Lee, called As I Walked Back. Philip hosts a regular supper club called PipsDinners which you can find on Facebook.
Read by
Jose Estudillo
Jose trained as an actor at the City Literary Institute. He has worked mostly on stage and has also taken part in several devised performance pieces in different venues throughout London. His credits also include roles in both TV and Film.
Jeffrey Mayhew
Reading: A Modest Proposal
Jeffrey Mayhew has cooked and acted for as long as he can remember. One of the more culinary highlights was his association with Olivier winning director Guy Masterson for whom he played Puccini in Cooking With Puccini. In this show he sang, danced, played piano and cooked live on stage in a cheeky reincarnation of the celebrated composer and philanderer. Masterson offered to directed Jeffrey Mayhew in a play about Jonathan Swift. The text of The Modest Proposal formed the climax to the play as Swift raged, alone and crazed, against man's inhumanity to man
Music from...
Strawberry & Cream
Strawberry and Cream are a cabaret band with a different sound and a different take on the songs you know.
Strawberry is Charlie Pyne, a jazz double-bassist trained at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Cream is Catharine Rogers, a classically-trained singer who has worked for the ENO and Scottish Opera.
Cream secretly loved the bass, and Strawberry loved to sing, so when a mutual friend with a penchant for girl bass players suggested they get together and do both, they clicked instantly.
Strawberry and Cream are accompanied by their drummer, Neil Davey, who adds an extra dimension to the sound. On occasion, Strawberry even lets Cream get out her ukulele...
Tilly Culme-Seymour
Strawberry-Picking with Mr Knightley: Jane Austen, Heroism and Food.
Tilly considers the feasting, fasting and fainting of some of Austen's best-loved heroines and examines the pic-nic as scenario to determine whether bonnets and berry-picking ever really mix.
A packed programme of talks, panels, lectures, presentations, pitches, rants and strangeness. Check back regularly and watch things develop.