WEBVTT - Ruthie's Table 4: Afua Hirsch 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.960 Welcome to River Cafe Table four, a production of I 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:10.280 Heart Radio and Adam I Studios. Having read her moving 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:15.160 historical political memoir British, I asked staff for hers if 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:18.200 we might have a conversation for River Cafe Table four. 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.680 Lucky for me and lucky for all of your listening today. 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:25.920 She said yes. Now before going into the restaurant for 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:29.840 lunch together, we're going to talk about life, her grandmother's 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:33.680 food from Ghana, growing up in Wimbledon, surrounded by her 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:42.320 family and much much more. Lucky us, Lucky me, my 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:46.320 grandmother who turned ninety three last week and lived around 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:49.040 the corner for me and Wimbledon. She came to the 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:53.159 UK with her children, including my mom. In My grandmother 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:57.240 is of a generation I suppose of the first mass 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:00.520 immigration of Ghanaians to London, and it really was a 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:04.080 community and many of them were very highly educated. My 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:06.880 grandfather had been to Cambridge in the nineteen forties on 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:13.120 a colonial scholarship. They were diplomats, they were doctors, nurses, entrepreneurs, 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:16.200 and my grandmother's house was a place that people who 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:20.240 had recently arrived would come stay, be fed. And then 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:22.400 I talk about my grandmother's house I can smell it. 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:27.160 What do you smell? I can smell fish, dried fish, 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:31.920 salt fish, grilled fish. I can smell kenk, which is 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:34.160 a very goodame dish which my grandmother actually used to 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.200 make and sell at the market. And Kenk has made 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:40.280 out fermented corn dough and then you knead it into 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.119 these dumplings and then you wrap it in banana leaves 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:45.720 and then you steam it to eat it. And then 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.720 you eat it with usually fried or grilled fish, with 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:53.680 this incredible pepper sauce called sheet or, which is made 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:57.960 out of dried shrimps and pepper. It's very spicy, salty, 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:03.480 oily shrimp eads, absolutely delicious. You were growing up and 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:09.600 as English and community, I know, Wimbledon. Did you go 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:11.919 to school and eat the kind of school food or 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:14.240 did you go after school and need the kind of 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.880 fast food? Did you experience Sarah, did you always come 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:20.839 home to wanted to eat the food of Yeah, we've 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:23.400 definitely ate dinner together every day in my house and 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:26.120 that was the meal you would look forward to. But 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:31.080 I loved school food, ashamed to say. I just remember 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:36.440 really oily lasagnas and lots of puddings because my mom, 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:40.040 I think, coming from Ganaan heritage, wasn't a big dessert person, 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:44.240 and I was all there for the steamed puddings that 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:49.280 Roodie Poly's, the sticky toffee pudding, the crumbles, the pies. 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:54.160 Absolutely loved them. From like about seven. I remember getting 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:57.920 well too until about fifteen, and then I started to 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:03.200 lose interest in you know, traditional nutritiony balanced meals, and 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:05.320 then I started I was a real party girl in 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:08.560 my team, so I got into clubbing and we would 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:10.600 always have McDonald's at like three in the morning on 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:13.400 the way home. Rich in hindsight is terrible, but you 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:15.160 get away with a lot, I suppose when you're really 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.160 when you're that young. But it also is very liberating 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:20.240 that you ate so much as a girl. You know 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:24.160 that you didn't worry about you know, how you love 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:27.560 to fashion or way. I wouldn't say I didn't worry 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:31.359 about it, but I definitely loved food, and I loved 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:35.160 food more than I wanted to try and change my body. 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:37.840 I do think it was a much less healthy time 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:40.080 for girl's body images than it is now. I mean now, 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:42.080 of course there's so much pressure on social media, but 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:47.440 I also feel really positive about the diversity of images 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:49.760 of women who have celebrated as beautiful. Now it's just 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:51.800 night and day from when I was growing up, and 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:54.600 I think I find it so much easier to see 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:57.800 women who make me feel positive about my body now, 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:00.880 and I hope that for younger and women growing up 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:05.080 now that that helped shape their perceptions. So that didn't 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:09.280 really exist, and I did definitely struggle just because I 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:11.280 was the only black girl in my environment. A lot 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.240 of the time, you know, I looked different at a 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:15.480 different hair texture, I had a different type of figure. 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:17.440 There were so many things about me that didn't conform 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.560 to what was being celebrated. I was this little mixed 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:22.920 race girl growing up in a world that at the time, 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:26.880 you know, I was born in one, it wasn't as 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.440 prevalent as it is now. And I very rarely or 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:31.880 never saw other people who looked like me, and I 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:35.599 was trying to work out where I belonged, you know, 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:38.760 in between these communities. I had this first generation gana 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:41.160 in community on my mother's side, and then I had 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:45.800 on my father's side, also complicated family because my grandfather 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:49.520 was a Jewish German refugee. He had worked really hard 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:53.800 to assimilate into Britishness. Understandably, arriving in Britain in nine 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:56.760 he wanted to assimilate. He changed his name from Hands 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.480 to John, as so many people did. He learned English 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.080 as quickly as he could. He married my grandmother, who 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:06.520 was from Yorkshire. And so even though he also had 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:10.599 an immigrant story, a refugee story, a totally different cultural backdrop, 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:16.400 he he really didn't communicate it. And he I wouldn't 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:18.360 say he hid it. He had just kind of made 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:22.680 it disappear over time, and initially I suppose by necessity, 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:26.320 and then once you've kind of assimilated, it's quite hard 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:28.920 to celebrate. And I think there was so much trauma 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:32.200 in his relationship with his heritage because of what he'd 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:34.920 been through growing up in the nineteen thirties in Berlin 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:38.039 as a child and seeing the Nazis really kind of 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:42.160 destroyed the world around him. No, my father is not 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.520 I wouldn't say he's much of a cook, but my dad, 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:48.880 I think, um, he's really into these am I was 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.040 reflecting as I was about to come and talk to you, Ruthie. 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:55.239 I think my grandfather, who came from Berlin, I think 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:58.000 the thing that I can trace from him that I've 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:01.520 inherited that. My dad certainly, how as is lots of pickles, 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:05.120 and there would always be pickles, all kinds of pickles. 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.240 And my dad is a big pickler. He will pickle that, 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:13.320 he will pickle pears, he will pickle onions. Is it Yeah, 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:15.039 I think it is. It was unusual that you have 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:17.960 a passion for Yeah, I never thought about that until 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:22.120 today German perhaps that influencer Brellin. When you have the 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:26.960 pickle the cabbage, oh, they will make sour crows. And 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:31.680 my dad always pickles red cabbage in the winter. So yeah, still, yeah, 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:45.640 I remember so clearly. I didn't go to Garner until 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:49.920 I was fourteen, and my first memory was stepping off 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:53.599 the plane and two things hit me. The first was 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:57.599 the heat, which I thought was the heat from the engines. 0:06:57.640 --> 0:06:59.560 I thought they haven't turned off the plane engines yet, 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.200 still blasting me with hot air, and it was. It 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:03.920 took me a minute to realize that's just the air 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:07.599 temperature I've never been anywhere, and it's very humid as well. 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:10.920 It's a very humid tropical rainforest heat. And the second 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:14.360 thing was the smell, And the smell has never left 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:16.520 me and I still every time I go to Ghana, 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:23.760 um In instantly hit with this intoxicating smell, and I've 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:25.640 tried to work out what it is. I think it's 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.760 a combination of just heat and sea air because it's 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:32.040 very the capital is on the coast and it's it's 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:34.440 a quite rough Atlantic coast. There's a lot of sea 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:38.120 breeze and mist and salt in the air. And then 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:41.320 one of my favorite Ganean dishes, which because the BA 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:45.520 flight from Ghana lands basically at dusk, and at dusk 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.600 is when food vendors in the city start selling this 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:53.720 afterworks snack which they fry outside. It's called Kelly and 0:07:53.800 --> 0:08:00.000 it's ripe plantain diced that seasoned with ginger, black pepper, tie, 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:03.320 a bit of nutmeg, chili and salt, and then it's 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.920 deep fried, absolutely delicious. I made some last night. Actually 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:09.600 season it first and then you do you season it, 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:11.800 and then you do take that and you eat it hot. Yeah, 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.680 you eat it hot. And it's street food. It's street food, 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:20.080 and that makes the entire city have a fragrance of 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:25.720 kind of slightly sweet spicy nut meggie air. And I 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:28.280 honestly think it's it's a little hint on the air 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:31.520 in a cr When you think about Ghana, because you've 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:34.440 been there quite often, do you also think about the 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:36.960 markets and the smells from the market. I love the 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:39.720 markets and remember asking David J about going to the 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:43.840 markets with his grandmother. Tell me your images of the market. 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:46.360 When I moved to Garner in two thousand eleven, my 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:49.400 daughter was six months old and my partner and I 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:51.280 decided we were going to move to Gardner and raise 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:54.400 her there for her first few years. And my grandmother 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:57.720 came with us, and so did my mother. So four 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.280 generations of women in my family rearing around a craw together. 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:03.520 And my grandmother took me to the market to go shopping. 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:08.559 And it's a really big food market called Bachana, and 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:11.439 there are these it's a problem, actually, there's so much 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:14.920 rural to urban migration and Garner. Lots of girls and 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:17.439 young women from quite poor parts of northern Ghanna have 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:21.079 migrated to the city and they they're called Kaya girls. 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:23.800 They carry these big buckets on their head and you 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:26.640 can basically pay them to follow you around the market. 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:29.720 It's not really safe work and they often sleep outside, 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:32.840 obviously very poorly paid. So I've never really been to 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.240 market and seen them before, so that was one thing 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:38.600 I really remember that. There was just so much going on. 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:42.319 There'll be fish, there'll be meat, vegetables, everybody's haggling, everybody's talking, 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.000 They'll be kind of little bits of the market where 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:47.880 they sell magical things, talisman's and weird bits of animals. 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:49.960 There's just a lot going on. But the thing I 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:54.480 remember is my grandmother haggling with the market vendors. And 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:56.200 I think if you didn't know Garner and you saw it, 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:57.880 you'd be worried that maybe a fight was about to 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:01.440 break out, because it it's very it looks very emotional, 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.720 and there's a lot of hand gestures and very vexed 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:08.400 facial expressions and insults flying around. But actually I think 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:11.480 that's just how you do business. And I remember making 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:13.480 a vow to myself that day that I was going 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:16.400 to learn that language, because I felt like if you 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:21.120 can't speak that language, you just can't really get involved. 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:24.079 You know, English is just far too polite, just it's 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:27.160 not expressive enough. I just remember seeing my grandmother kind 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:29.760 of screwing up her face and waving her arms around 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:31.280 and thinking I need to be able to speak to 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:34.920 someone like that and embarrassed. I was determined that I 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:36.960 was going to be able to do it. And I 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:38.880 have my little daughter on my back in a cloth, 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:40.720 you know, which is the wagon and women carry their 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:43.000 children around, and I thought, I'm going to live here 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.079 and I'm going to learn this language. I'm still trying. 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.680 What are you write to now? What is your next project? 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:52.040 So I started my own TV production company, Good and 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:56.960 I'm working on a combination of documentaries and dramas. So 0:10:57.120 --> 0:10:59.640 I'm I'm always challenging myself to try and reach a 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:04.880 different audience. And I love journalism. I will always, i think, 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:10.120 write newspapers and magazines. But I'm also noticing I think 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:15.800 the things that have often impacted me are fiction, novels, dramas, films. 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:19.080 And I'm really interested in reaching people so they think 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:22.760 about themselves culturally, not just intellectually. I think that a 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:25.480 lot of the change that really takes place on a 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.840 deep level is when something touches you very emotionally. And 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:33.720 I really want to take the message that I always 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.360 work towards. I really I care about justice and fairness, 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:38.040 you know. I think it's that the DNA of who 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:39.880 I am when you look at my family story, I've 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:44.760 inherited it on both sides, that yearning towards freedom. I 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.680 am really curious to see if I can reach people 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.360 through different mediums. So that's something that I'm really challenging 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:54.040 myself on at the moment. And what about the fact 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:57.200 that we're looking at a political situation here with Ukraine 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.439 and the fact that the effect of more will be 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:05.520 feeling the people of Africa because without the grain that 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:09.720 is meant to come through Ukraine too good world, but 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:13.200 particularly to northern Africa, there could be a huge TV 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:17.480 It's already impacting the whole continent of Africa because of 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:21.760 energy and oil prices. Again, Africa is a huge oil 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:25.520 producer but still relies on imported oil and gas. It's 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:28.160 a huge food producer that still relies so heavily on 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:31.319 imported grain. In One of the consequences of colonialism is 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:33.800 that African countries don't supply each other, they don't trade 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.560 with each other. Everything is designed for export to the 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:38.520 rest of the world because Africa was integrated into the 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:41.400 global economy as a place that you take from, and 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:44.880 that legacy exists in a very literal way. So one 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:48.360 of the challenges is that Africa's producing huge amounts of food, 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:51.120 but it's all getting shipped straight out of the continent, 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:55.880 and you have nations that are in food crisis coexisting 0:12:55.920 --> 0:13:01.040 with nations that produce food and abundance. So this has 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:03.360 got to be an opportunity for people to look again 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:06.439 at the structure of African economies. But it's you're you're 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:08.880 talking about four hundred years of colonial legacy. It's not 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:11.920 something you can easily overturned. But I think it's a 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:15.320 real wake up call to just how something that happens 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:18.040 in Europe or something that happens in Russia can have 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:21.000 a huge and immediate impact on people's lives on the 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:22.599 afric continent. I was in Ghana the other day and 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:25.320 everyone's talking about Ukraine that the roads were had half 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:28.040 the traffic they usually do because people can't afford to 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:32.440 drive their cars. So that's the reality of globalization, and 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.680 I think we've got to start upping our game in 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:38.679 terms of making sure that countries are self sufficient as 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:55.200 much as possible. I was really sensitive, I think as 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:58.480 a child to where there was a sense of openness 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:01.320 for me, and you know, people now often ask me 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:03.960 why I self identify as black when I'm mixed racing. 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:05.960 You have one white parent one black parent, and I 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:08.559 self identify as black, and I suppose I have leaned 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:12.000 much more towards my Gaean heritage. And I think from childhood, well, 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:14.599 it's two things. It's one because the world racialized me 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:19.200 as black, you know, and the colonial conditioning we've all inherited, 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:24.760 it's created this really nonsensical binary and categorize people, and 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:27.000 that was the category that was assigned to me from 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:30.760 an early age. But also, I think because Ghanian culture 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.480 is just so expansive, and you know, it welcomes everybody 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:37.640 and will over impress a sense of you have a 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:41.080 place and you have a role. And it was attractive 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:42.840 to me because it was a place that I could 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.400 feel part of something. Even though I should say one 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:48.720 of my earliest memories of being my grandmother's houses of 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:50.800 all of my aunties, when I say Auntie, you know, 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:54.080 all the women who came to the house laughing hysterically 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:55.920 at me when I tried to speak the language. So 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:59.360 they just thought it was very funny and they would 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.520 say they call me or Berny, which means white girl, 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:03.200 and they say that the white girls trying to speak 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.280 to you and it wasn't mean, it's just how And 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.920 still often are amused by the idea, who's something that 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:13.280 someone who has access to kind of you know, the 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:16.520 English establishment would choose to try and speak their language. 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:19.080 And I think that's the colonial hangover as well, that 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:21.640 you know, many Gnaians come here and encourage their children 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.240 not to speak their language, which just speak English. But 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:28.640 it's really sad because you can be bilingual and and 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.160 you don't need to downplay your heritage to succeed. So 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:34.920 I think that's a journey that many immigrant communities are 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:37.520 on well. Also in terms of food, you know, I 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:41.760 think that you know, you say that your grandmother identified 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:44.360 with cane and food, so she was cooking the food 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:48.320 of the culture. Maybe your mother adapted more And do 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:50.280 you think that she adapted more to be in the 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:53.400 situation she was in rather than bringing the food of 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:56.000 her culture. Did she only cook and food as well? No, 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.040 she definitely adapted more. And I think coming here as 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:01.160 a twelve year old, she had so much of her 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.000 formative life in Britain. But it's interesting and I've reflected 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:06.760 on it so much more lately that whenever my mom 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:10.560 was sick, she would say, I need food of my country, 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:12.600 and then she would make and she would always make 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.880 very specific things. She would make groundnut soup, which is 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:20.280 a soup made out of peanuts, ground peanuts, and it's 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:25.080 spicy with some kind of tomato broth with peanuts like 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.320 peanut butter in it with meat, but it's quite light. 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:30.280 And she would have that with ffoo, which is another 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:33.960 Guinean dumpling um that you used to kind of soak 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:37.120 up soup. And she would rarely make game food except 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:39.280 when she was either sick or suffering in some way, 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:42.400 and then it would be her definitely her comfort food, 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:47.040 and she would always say, I need food of my country. 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:49.800 And so it's it's always been. I think when you 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:53.360 strip away the layers at the at the root of 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:56.240 who she is. And I think having children and having 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:59.600 grandchildren has made her reflect on her and she she 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:02.600 does eat the language, and she does go back to Gharner. 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:05.280 But I think more frequently since I've become somebody who's 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:09.800 who's been so connected with Garner. So yeah, I think 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:13.000 her daughter and granddaughter have have have moved her back 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:15.480 more in that direction. Maybe then she would have anticipated 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:19.000 we've discussed the culture of food and the taste of 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:22.240 food and the family of food. That kind of brings 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:26.159 me to the political nature of food. And as we know, 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:30.199 during the pandemic, many children this school lunch and so 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:33.119 they didn't eat. And I think you said as well 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:37.360 that government and society shows itself in the way we 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.280 feed our children. And what are your thoughts about Parlty. 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:46.600 I feel so angry at the way that healthy and 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.760 nutritious foods have been turned into a luxury for the privilege. 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:52.280 I just think it's one of the scandals of our lives. 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:55.439 And when I was in my early twenties, I became vegan, 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:58.520 and you know, I'm I've had a privileged life, but 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:00.520 at the time I was training to be a barrister, 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:03.040 I had to borrow money to pay for my education. 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:06.480 I was living below the minimum wage, you know, and 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:08.880 as a barrister, people think you kind of enter into 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.919 this like super huch lifestyle. I earned ten thousand pounds 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:13.840 my first year at the bar, and I had tens 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:15.679 of thousands of pounds of debt to repay. It was 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:17.760 a real struggle at that stage of my life financially, 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.359 and I went vegan because I was starting to really 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.760 think about health and climate and I just couldn't believe 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:28.159 how expensive it was to feed myself on fresh and 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:31.800 whole foods. I really struggled. And that's an Oxford graduate 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:33.560 who's training to be a barrister, and it for me, 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:35.560 it was a real wake up call as to how 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:37.879 if you do try and do the right thing, and 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:39.600 you do try to be mindful of what you eat, 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:41.960 and you do make an effort to source things that 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:45.679 are grown locally or produced ethically, you price out the 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:47.800 vast majority of people. And that that was a period 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:49.879 that really radicalized me about how I'm fair. This was 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:52.239 and also being part of the vegan community, which at 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:54.960 that time was very white and very privileged, and I 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:57.920 really didn't feel included in that community. And it really 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:01.280 made me think about why, you know, all of the 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:04.080 black people I knew, and people in underprivileged environs. I 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:05.760 was living in North London. You look look at the 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:09.800 area around me. Every child went to the chicken shop 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:14.639 after school and bought k chicken, which terrified me in 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:19.480 terms of its quality and um production. And then there 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:22.160 were all these kind of vegan and raw shops which 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:25.359 were for people who just had huge amounts of disposable income, 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.520 and I I think it's got worse, if anything, and 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:32.040 I feel really strongly about it. And I think there's 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:35.000 a you know, there's a there's a race aspect because 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:39.080 Black people in America and in Britain are massively overrepresented 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:43.879 in heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and struggle to get access 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:47.320 to high quality foods, and you know, it's just something 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:50.040 that I think it's just rarely talked about. It's interesting 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:53.320 during the pandemic who was There was a piece in 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:57.240 the New York Times and who sucked was a woman 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:02.520 and she said that if you want to know why 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.600 I have more African Americans are getting COVID and why 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:08.639 they're afraid to go to the hospital, it's one word, 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:12.520 and it's slavery. You know, that really looked back into 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:15.280 the history of what the experience of being a slave 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:17.960 in the United States was only you know, a hundred 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:21.119 and fifty years ago, and you were you weren't allowed 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:24.080 into hospitals, you didn't get to see doctors, you were fearful. 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:29.240 And with nutrition, it's in every poor community, black or white, 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:33.080 they don't get fresh vegetable there's a tendency also to 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:35.880 see that as an American phenomenon. But you know, Barbados 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.600 is the hypertensive capital of the world because Britain ran 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.560 its colonies in the Caribbean. It's slave plantation colonies the 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:44.200 same way and force people were force fed a diet 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:47.080 of sugar, and now you can actually trace the health 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:50.760 consequences of that in today's population of Caribbean heritage in Britain. 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:54.040 It's such a recent history people, it is still manifested 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:56.360 in people's bodies. And then then there's the other side, 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:59.120 which when I go to Ghana, which makes me raging 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:06.120 that Honor imports rice, tomatoes, so many foods that grow 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:09.879 naturally in Ghana that are not made profitable because the 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:13.360 market is flooded with cheap imports from America, from Europe, 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:16.679 and instead of becoming a country that's allowed to be 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:20.560 self sufficient, all of these market forces, even aid has 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:23.720 been made conditional on African countries having to import cheap 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:28.760 products from Europe and America, and you can trace that 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:31.560 directly to the nutritional and financial problems that people there have. 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:36.359 It's really scandalous, and you know, I just I often 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:38.880 kind of wonder why we're not all up in arms 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:42.159 about it, but it never seems to be the priority. 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:45.080 And so what would you do? How do we reach 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:49.320 this government or the governments we've had every government? I mean, 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:51.239 go to hospital and see the kind of food they 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:55.439 to schools and see what they feed children, you know, 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:58.920 go to food banks and see the food that is given. 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:01.280 I think, you know, we started this conversation by talking 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:03.280 about the political I think that we really need to 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:07.560 reconnect this with the political foundations of society. And I 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:09.560 think this is where we talk about class and we 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:13.160 talk about race. And it's so important to understand the history. Why, 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:17.320 um do people on lower incomes have access to such 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:19.600 bad food. There's this history behind it. There was a 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:23.720 decision that was made that um, people need to be 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:25.560