Well I need to consolidate the experience of this pilot tour before the chilli world tour concept fades into the non urgent background.
Some of the lessons are obvious: but there's no harm in repeating,just to give me an action plan for next time maybe, in handy dot point form. There's also been a few suggestions already made by family and friends that I can sew into that list, and for which I'm grateful.
There are also some refinements at the technical end that might give this chilli tour more substance next time around. I imagine.
Actually I don't know, although I do imagine. Probably people reading the blog, were there still any, could make the suggestions. I need to add a kind of wiki dimension to encourage external guidance and advise on the run.I have resisted facebook in my life to date but I have a feeling that it would make sense to add a facebook dimension if I were to try to make the blog something more than me just talking, more or less, to myself.
The list so far:
Some of the lessons are obvious: but there's no harm in repeating,just to give me an action plan for next time maybe, in handy dot point form. There's also been a few suggestions already made by family and friends that I can sew into that list, and for which I'm grateful.
There are also some refinements at the technical end that might give this chilli tour more substance next time around. I imagine.
Actually I don't know, although I do imagine. Probably people reading the blog, were there still any, could make the suggestions. I need to add a kind of wiki dimension to encourage external guidance and advise on the run.I have resisted facebook in my life to date but I have a feeling that it would make sense to add a facebook dimension if I were to try to make the blog something more than me just talking, more or less, to myself.
The list so far:
- Research destination in concrete ways prior to departure
- Seek to make some contact with target population before departure
- Advise Aus consulate at destination and destination consulate in CBR.
- Read and act on advice as received through blog
- Seek out and absorb multiple perspectives on local culture - don't get distracted
- Implement facebook or other social media links to blog to encourage input
- Develop technical blogpacity in order to add links and interaction
- Follow other blogs
So Grette and I are in no immediate rush to do another leg of the tour. But some degree of planning can start now. Do we want to go to some where less equivocal about its Portuguese connection. Such as Mozambique, Goa or Brazil? Or Portugal itself? Or perhaps another ex trade hotspot such as Zanzibar or Hoi An?
If so, is there a community here in Australia I should look out for first?
Anyone got any links to culinary social histories they can forward, or Zanziban colleagues they can introduce me to?
Anyone got any links to culinary social histories they can forward, or Zanziban colleagues they can introduce me to?
HI Roland,
ReplyDeleteFran here - just wandered across your blog - 2 months too late but perfect timing really because I have a sore throat (the fluish sydney winter kind) and of course it reminds me of that delicious/slightly scary sensation of having eaten too many too hot chillies too quickly and wondering if that tickling, slightly allergic swelling of the throat will produce a coughing attack or the rather pleasant buzz associated with chilli eating. So i could read about you're chilli trek without longing for a decent salsa (had mexican in sydney (is that an oxymoron?) the other night- nice but mild and NO salsa!) because the thought of chilli right now makes be reach for the vicks.
BUT - were i to fantasize such a tour, i'd organize it around a dish, or a series of dishes, and search for the best manifestation. Could be a recipe could be a meal, could be an ingredient, cooking method etc.I'd also give myself some restrictions just to make it - well - disciplined, but also to avoid that taste-bud derangement that can happen with food overkill.
I reckon Portugal next!
Well Portugal has to be a near next step. I have been thinking quite a lot about the idea of the project, and it seems to be about accidents as much as it is about culture and legacy. The chillie clearly wasn't a big deal in the commercial sense or there would be some documented references to it's arrival and distribution
ReplyDeleteA starting point on Portugal might be that. A search for trade notes...
Clearly the financial big deal was more like golfand silver and ceramic and the eastern spices and cochineal et al..
Rol
hmmm - off to Cairns tomorrow and thinking about thai. Have you researched the chilli in australia yet? I think the closest my collected family histories come to spicy is keens curry mix. Is there much of a chilli history in Australia (well of course there is, but not something i know anything about!) Would be interesting to know. But i agree, accidents and serendipitous occasions seem to propel people and objects through history as much as, or maybe more than 'rational' causes, and can be a great research guide. I mean, the chillie by accident might be an interesting addition to the chillie by taste.
ReplyDeleteFran