Thoughts From Becca

I've always had an interest in cooking in the way that is now called Slow Food. The movement to local is again gaining popularity. It never lost momentum with me. Flavour marriages are at a premium when you take the local produce from the same region and season; you can't go wrong! Classical food combinations are historically based on these regional and seasonal marriages. Although my reasons for cooking seasonal regional and fresh were always based on taste, there are lots of other reasons to use this base in understanding food, produce, cooking. For a start in our industrialised, and then technology based societies, (global) transport is easier and quicker so we've come to enjoy produce from other regions at any time of year. Long distance hauls have an impact, on not only flavour, but also have a huge cost to the environment. What is the impact to our world on transporting water in a bottle up to 15,000 kilometres (or sending pears to China from Australia?) Long stor...

Exploring the hub of a city (the food market) is my number one travel priority. Towns historically formed as a market centre. The town emerged around the market place well before industrialization. Farmers brought their produce to town to barter or sell, long before we turned the fashionable 21st Century city phrase ‘farmers market’. When I was younger, and long before I ventured away from home, I found a love of travel, of discovering other cultures. Discovery was pursued in my mother’s kitchen by exploring the food of other lands. Cooking became more than sustenance, more than nourishing myself and others, and became a way to embody myself in other cultures. From this, there also unfolded my deep love of well cared for produce and slowly crafted cookery that became an integral part of my being. Now that I do travel as often as I can, the first thing I do in a new city is to find the food market. I felt right at home on my first sojourn to Paris because of the attention and importance...