What is Good Food?

What is good food: A conversation about food and the construction of value - with stories from Morocco and Croatia. Katharina Graf is a postdoctoral research fellow at the SOAS Food Studies Centre, University of London. Her research interests pertain to the preparation of food, material and social change, gender, urban space, food security, risk and uncertainty, and global food markets. Regionally, she focuses on Morocco, North Africa and the Mediterranean region. Anna Colquhoun is a part-time doctoral student, currently based in Croatia for her fieldwork with rural food producers and restaurants. Having previously worked in food professionally, Anna returned to university to study the anthropology of food at the SOAS Food Studies Centre, where she continues her research. Her interests include the social construction of cuisine and place-making and value-creation through food. Hosts: Katharina Graf Anna Colquhoun Studio production: Anna Cohen Editor: Mukta Das Music: Brandi Simpson Miller With thanks to SOAS Radio. Music credits: Double Down by Silent Partner Shesh Pesh by JR Tundra Gypsy Dance by Topher Mohr and Alex Elena

"For example the produce that my farmers sell at the farmers' markets can be up to seven and a half times more expensive than conventional produce... 500 grams of spinach at a convention market in China is 20 pence whereas the same 500 grams of organic spinach at a farmers' market is £1.50. People that complain about how expensive that food is expect good food to be affordable as well as not containing any additives. And secondly, at the farmers' markets, the farmers usually make claims about their food being grown without synthetic inputs but they don't have certification so there's a lot of scepticism among potential consumers that pass by about the claims that farmers are making".

"In Taiwan, MSG has been widely used as a flavour enhancing food additives and in the 1980s and 1990s, nutritional scientists appealed to the public to reduce their consumption of MGS and claimed it caused cancers and allergies and all these diseases - the most famous ones was Chinese Restaurant Syndrome. And this came from a letter published in a medical journal in 1968 from the sender who claimed he felt strange every time he ate at a Chinese restaurant, symptoms such as numbness in the back or the neck, general weakness and so on...and after that there were several reports of serious reactions to Chinese food across the United States and more and more people saw MSG as the cause of their symptoms. But it was exactly the opposite in the 1920s, MSG was considered a more advanced way of cooking. It was a symbol of culture and civilisation"

What is good food: A conversation about 'real food' in and around farmers markets in Shanghai and in food education in Taiwan. Leo Pang is a PhD candidate at the SOAS Food Studies Centre. His research is on small organic farmers, farmers’ markets and the farmers’ market organisers in Shanghai. In his thesis Leo examines the issues facing farmers in the marketplace and their relationships with consumers, food marketers and environmental activists. Mingtse Hung is a PhD candidate in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. His dissertation focuses on the problematisation of food and how it contributes to the development of food education in Taiwan, shaped bills, local projects, and news reports. Hosts: Leo Pang Mingtse Hung Studio production: Anna Cohen Editor: Mukta Das Music: Brandi Simpson Miller With thanks to SOAS Radio. Music credits: Double Down by Silent Partner The Voyage by Asian Feel Finding Movement by Kevin Macleod

"One of my main interlocutors is an older lady called Fupu, and she suggests that these agrochemicals have made the environment toxic, and that all food today is 'bhejal'. So actually in my research I look at the opposite of good food, through that of 'bhejal' food. While good food is maybe the norm, it is the corrupted, adulterated, impure foods that is the everyday reality of my interlocutors and of many Bangladeshis."

"Ruminants that are raised on grasslands, because they are using more of their muscles, those muscles develop a deeper flavour, because they are consuming a wider variety of grasses. The flavour is also complex. The 'terrior' of their landscape you could say, is indeed translated into the flavour of that meat giving it a - people have described it as a meatier taste, a gamier taste, there is a depth and complexity of flavour, that is not considered very desirable quite frankly by the majority of Americans consumers at this point."

What is good food? A conversation about farming and ways of knowing in the US and Bangladesh Megan, a PhD researcher at the University of Exeter and programme director at Glynwood considers the challenges in developing a sustainable local food system in and around New York and in contemporary America. Camelia, an anthropologist, environmentalist and academic at Stockholm University looks out from her research with coastal populations in Bangladesh as they attempt to exert some control over a contaminating oversight-light development agenda Hosts: Megan Larmer | Instagram: @m.larmer | Twitter: @meganlarmer Camelia Dewan Studio production: Anna Cohen Editor: Mukta Das Music: Brandi Simpson Miller With thanks to SOAS Radio. Music credits: Double Down by Silent Partner Despite the Traffic by Wes Hutchinson Tapes and Tubes by Salad Days

"Ultimately I’m looking at food and parenting or “good food” and “good parenting” are used to promote what I think is a white middle class model of family and nutrition which unfortunately often is not achievable for the people to whom these messages are promoted.... I argue that this idea of good food is inherently moral and it’s interesting that children who are meant to be the people to whom the policies are doing good seem to be ignored a bit in the policy discourse...and furthermore I was quite surprised that women still carry a lot of the burden of doing the food work at home."

"A simple way of thinking about this would be the food subsidies that governments provide and which crops the food subsidies are provided for. In most developing countries what happens is the focus has been on staple food grains; maize, wheat and rice, which is brilliant because the problem of hunger has been, we’ve been trying to solve it for a while and we’ve made great progress globally. However what that has also done is neglected other food crops for example fruit and vegetables, There’s not much subsidy provided for those food crops which are essential for micronutrient deficiencies or hidden hunger as we call it in lay man’s terms."

"In the late 19th Century The British government began a project whereby they started recording oral histories because they were assuming that once the Gold Coast was turned into a colony that it would begin to lose its culture. It really hadn’t happened but in any case there’s lots of oral histories that come out of that and I discovered that eating good food doesn’t really have so much to do with taste, food is very tasty, but it’s more about ensuring that you’re following the prescribed rules for how to behave, how to eat in such a way that you’re propagating good relations with deities or with ancestors"