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Food Junctions: a cross-cultural festival packed with flavour

19 April 2010

Links:

A selection of food food-junctions.org.uk/" target="_self">Food Junctions
  • Download the Food Junctions programme
  • Reveal festival
  • UCL YouTube food series
  • Food Junctions is a new student-run festival that crosses cultures, countries and communities to celebrate the fabric of food in all its forms.

    Food Junctions is designed to promote healthy living and local food production, as well as to encourage visitors to explore the world of food politics, culture and research. It forms part of the Reveal festival in Kings Cross and the Camley Street Natural Park's 25th Anniversary Festival.

    Running over two weekends from 24 April to 2 May, Food Junctions will feature more than 200 contributors from the academic community and beyond. The festival is jam-packed with a smorgasbord of free events including talks, hands-on workshops, demonstrations, tasting sessions, art and architecture installations, performance, film and much more.

    The audio soundscape below (6 mins 49) provides a taste of the experiences to come and features urban beekeeper Brian McCallum, wine tasting expert Professor Kathleen Burk (UCL History), Curator Mark Carnell (UCL Grant Museum) on why we aren't eating our cats, and poetry extracts from Tim Wells and Simon Barraclough from Poet in the City.

    A series of food-related films is also available to watch on UCL's YouTube channel at the link above. The films look at food in the life and research of UCL students and staff through the ages.

    Some tasty teasers from the festival programme include:

    • Growing wine inside the M25: urban wines (with tasting)
    • Why aren't we eating our cats? Food culture and taboos (Mark Carnall, UCL Grant Museum)
    • An evening of food-inspired performance with Poet In the City
    • The war of the vegetables: A history of the English allotment movement (Lesley Acton, UCL Archaeology)
    • Hot Stuff!: The bioscience of spicy foods (with tasting) (UCL Biosciences)
    • Become a chocolate expert: tasting workshop with Choc Star
    • Healthy-eating doctors: Interactive stand (UCL Health Behaviour)
    • Free hands-on urban gardening workshop
    • Posting preserves: jam as a social networking tool (Dr Rebecca Litchfield, UCL Outreach)

    UCL context

    Food Junctions has been facilitated through The Public Engagement Awards which are funded by the UCL Public Engagement Unit, one of the six UK Beacons for Public Engagement.

    The Beacons act to encourage public work among universities and create a culture in which universities share their research, teaching and learning with a wider public audience. The Beacons for Public Engagement are funded by the UK Higher Education Funding Councils, the UK Research Councils, and the Wellcome Trust.

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