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We are what we eat 09/14/2009

Food Stories is an interactive feature from the British Library, designed for school children, to learn about the changes that have taken place in UK's food culture over the last century, and the issues concerning food production now. With animation and audio, the feature is a great way to explore how food relates to identity, cultural diversity, the environment, technology, farming, shopping, travel and more.

Food is something we eat daily, without thought. We usually take it for granted too. But besides being necessary to live, food forms an integral part of culture, and recipes are something that have come down through generations. Food helps define who we are. A lot of our memories and happiest moments involve food on some level. Who does not long for good home food? Mom's cooking can make the most unemotional deeply nostalgic. Often traditions revolve around food, especially in India where any festival has its own cuisine. Nowadays there are a whole lot of new issues surrounding food, such as fair trade, health issues, and so on.

This site tells us about all these things, and more. After seeing the site, I realised there are so many things connected with food, which I had never thought of, in spite of being a foodie. Under Food and Identity they talk about Food, Nation and Cultural Identity, and Ritual and Tradition. There are discussions on typical English dishes, how eatables that were scare are now common, or vice versa, and the changing habits of people, such as eating in front of the TV.

On the Shopping for Food shelf, there is Retail Experience, Consumer Knowledge and Power (an area of growing importance), and Changes in Eating Habits. Consumer Knowledge and Power is a great way to get kids to know about safety issues concerning food and public health. It's informative without being scary. The Production and Technology shelf talks Food and Regulation, and Technology and Change. These tell is about the life-cycle of food, how it travels from field to stomach, and all the things it goes through between. This is specially relevant in the developed world and large scale farming and corporatization has taken over food production. It tells us about the challenges faced by farmers, the role of governments in agriculture, new issues such as bio-technology and gene patenting.

All these sections enable users to understand how food deeply connects different parts of our lives. India, with its rich heritage and diversity of food,recipes and food culture, could really do with such a site, or a more interactive one. Meanwhile, do check out the site to get a more in-depth picture.

As American chef and food writer James Beard said, "Food is our common ground, a universal experience."

By Armeen Kapadia

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Eating off leaves 09/11/2009

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VerTerra dishes

Michael Dwork, founder and CEO of VerTerra, was inspired by the Indian leaf plate when he visited India. Since then he has been constantly refining that simple organic plate. On similar lines, VerTerra focuses on producing more durable and versatile single-use products. The products can be used to bake in the oven, store in the fridge and reheat in the microwave.

VerTerra is rooted in the Latin phrase 'Veritas terra' or 'true to the earth'. The VerTerra dinnerware is made from fallen leaves that they borrow and then returned to the earth. The methods that Verterra uses to produce its quality dinnerware is sustainable. Most of VerTerra's dinnerware are made in South Asia by creating hundreds of fair-wage jobs. The company claims that their craftspeople are well-supported financially, provided healthcare and safe working conditions.

Their top priority is to be true to the earth. Although water is used to clean gathered leaves, no trees are cut, and over 80% of the water is recaptured and reused. The dinnerware is 100% free of chemicals, lacquers, glues, bonding agents or anything toxic.

VerTerra has won many awards for its innovation. The products are stylish, versatile and compostable. The dinnerware is light and looks like a beautifully grained piece of wood. It is rugged and feels almost like thin bamboo. But it is the strangeness that is so attractive. The thickness of the plates gives no hint them being disposable products. They replace paper or plastic plates in over 500 parties and events across the globe. It takes about 62 days for a plate to fully decompose. A set of eight 6-inch plates retails for $4.99. Via its website, customers can directly buy VerTerra products. Critics haven't been able to report anything negative even after abusing the plates and bowls.

VerTerra's products are so good that they are now the official serviceware of the Statue of Liberty. Price is a crucial factor that stops people from buying such products. In recent years, the cost of their products have been cut by 50%, making them as affordable as disposable products. Their factories use 10% of the energy that most recycled paper plate factories use. The leaf-scrap that is left while making the plates is crushed into powder and provided as fertilizer to the farmers who send leaves to VerTerra. A manufacturing plant only produces around 2-3 regular trash bins worth of waste in an entire month.

Michael Dwork regrets the fact that all items are put in recycled plastic shrink wrap for hygenic reasons. He wishes there was a way around that use of plastic, but it is necessary. There are no other heat and water stable materials that will ensure that customers get the product in a sanitary condition, but he will happily entertain suggestions. The only complaint that he has got in 9 months of selling is that people feel bad throwing them away since they feel so sturdy and look so attractive.

These products are the biodegradable, aesthetically pleasing dinnerware and they are as green as it gets. Do see the interview with Michael Dwork.

By Sanjay Basavaraju

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Objects reborn 09/10/2009

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Waffle Iron Heights © David Trautrimas

Photography, old cast-off machines, and a shockingly new sense of scale combine to form unique pieces of art in David Trautrimas' work. He creates a fictional world, with old junky stuff most of us wouldn't look at twice. The objects, in their new surroundings look amazingly like real architecture in actual townscapes. You can almost imagine little beings working, living and sleeping in this slightly dreary new world.

David collects old objects, photographs them, then digitally re-creates them into these little worlds. On the computer he adds trees, fences, doors and windows, that will make the old gadgets come to life. The gadgets themselves are a range of old kitchen mixers, hole punchers, waffle irons, staplers, vacuum cleaners, coffee machines and other household objects. There is a fantastic sense of juxtaposition, and abstraction, which leads to totally unexpected results. The dramatic deconstruction, and then re-construction blends the lines between the oddly familiar and totally bizarre.

No object is too old or too ugly. In this new place, they all become homes and offices, belonging both to the future and the past. They make a new architectural style, and gives the old and forgotten renewed purpose. Why do everyday things like this fascinate humans so much? Probably because a drastic change of context and surrounding almost change the object itself. What was garbage, is now art.

David is pretty much a full-time collector, always on the look out for old household objects that he can transform. The more scratches, dents and missing parts, the more beautiful it is to David. He sifts through garage sales, e-bay auctions and flea markets to find them. He confesses to being an 'obsessive junk hunter', even taking apart his own Toyota to complete a piece. He is technically adept enough to dismantle a piece, extract and replace the bit he needs, put it back together, and still keep it in working condition.

When he gets the junk back home, he shoots it against a white neutral background. He then roams the city again, taking thousands of photographs of lawns, buildings, driveways, trees, lights and sidewalks, all of which will form the visual database that will surround the objects. His attention to detail, the placement of the trees, windows, the realistically airy sky, all contribute to creating the urban, industrial ambience of the piece. More than his photoshop wizardry, its his ability to imagine the piece of metal in a parallel universe that makes his work unique.

Have a look at the range of 'factories' he has created, and take a look at the rest of his work on his site.

By Armeen Kapadia

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