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            吃-吃-吃


A project on cooking, inviting, and gathering as ways to think and rethink regeneration, community, history, social dynamics, migration, and the marginal.



 















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Foraging / Harvesting / Hunting

& learning the uncultivated


 



Wine Cap Mushroom
Stropharia rugosoannulata
(Dann taught us this)



Sumac Flowers
(Joas helps me to harvest it)




Bay Bolete
(kastanjebolee)


Currently ~~~ at Gagel Farm ( Diary/field notes )
 6 Sep - Oct




On the question of how to become “native....”

                                      “Regeneration”

                    “Becoming a good ancestor”    

                                            “Inhabiting a community that gives with generosity”





(hand pulled noodles)

                                                 


                   




 

                               










On thinking about spices 


On the edges of the vegetable beds, there are quite some aromatic herbs that are growing, and there is also a big patch of chive flowers. Seeing and smelling them made me think about how much we are drawn to the aromas and sensory qualities of herbs, and how spices can also carry stories of movement, exchange, and history.

I have been thinking about these as situated spices and wondering what it could mean to think about spices through the place where I am now.

The duality of what is “native” and “non-native,” “local” and “exotic,” is not always so simple. These ideas are connected to histories of trade, colonialism, appropriation, and the movement of plants, foods, and people. The “legacy“ of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) can still be traced in the botanical, cultural, and culinary landscapes of the Netherlands.

Since arriving, I have been thinking about this through the aromatic herbs I have encountered here. They made me think of the wǔ xiāng (五香) concept in Chinese cooking, the “five fragrances” or “five aromas.” Wǔ xiāng is less about the plants having a botanical relationship, and more about bringing different aromas together to create a certain balance.

The flavours can be thought of as:

sweet + warm + aromatic + spicy + slightly numbing / earthy 甜、温、香、辛、麻

Following this idea, I started to imagine a kind of situated five-spice, working with herbs that grow here:
  • hyssop seeds (sweet)
  • basil seeds(warm)
  • myoga ginger leaves (aromatic)
  • chive flower buds (spicy)
  • tarragon (numbing/earthy)

I am drying and mixing these herbs to experiment with what happens when I bring this way of thinking about aroma into another landscape and history.









13th September
The fallen tomatoes
Lacto Fermentation in the tomato greenhouse







12th September

Regeneration

I wanted some comforting broth today. I still had a soup chicken leg that I got from the organic shop the other day, and I really wanted to make a brothy soup for this long weekend.

After the Holistic Context session with Anna and Ricardo, I had been thinking about my statement of purpose and about the kind of life I want to inhabit. After a weekend of holistic reflection, I wanted to accompany these dreams with something comforting, so I was feeling like it was a broth day. 

In Cantonese cooking, we often make broth with medicinal roots and herbs, which bring both fragrance and layers of flavour to the soup. Ginseng, angelica root, and burdock are some of the ingredients traditionally used. What interests me is that angelica and burdock can also be found in the Dutch landscape, especially towards the end of summer. I have not yet found them around the Gagel, but I did find some other roots with a beautiful fragrance. I can also imagine wood avens root working beautifully in a broth.


The chicken leg I got was from a “soup chicken,” which is normally an older, mature female chicken—typically an egg-laying hen past her prime. I thought this was a good way to eat chicken and to honour and thank her for the time she gave and the comfort she provides me. 
RECIPES

Ingredients
  • Soup chicken
  • Wild thistle roots
  • Corn from the farm
  • Carrots from the farm
  • Chinese toon leaves (香椿叶), from fellow resident Hanne
  • Ginger
  • Bok choy from the farm
  • Coriander from the farm
  • Water
  • Salt

Method

Put everything into a large pot except the bok choy, coriander, and salt. Add enough water to cover the ingredients and bring to a boil.

Reduce the heat and simmer gently for 1–2 hours.

Towards the end, add the bok choy and salt. Cook until the bok choy is tender.

Finish with fresh coriander before serving.



         

11th September


Last night, I soaked some soybeans that I had bought from a nearby organic shop. I wanted to try making tofu—to test the process first, before eventually experimenting with some local beans.

Even though I am still in a very rural area, I was surprised to see the shelves filled with beans that I know so well: soybeans, red beans (adzuki beans), and even mung beans (绿豆).

At that moment, I thought that if these beans had travelled so far to arrive here, whether through packages or through the routes of trade, then I should greet them with hospitality and honour. I wanted to bring them back into a context that feels like home—to work with them through the food practices that make sense to them.

And so, making tofu came to my mind.

As I was making it, I began to pick up stories that had been hidden somewhere in me. My imagination drifted towards my great-grandmother, who was a tofu maker and seller. I started wondering how she might have made tofu with her own hands, what kind of acidity she would have used to form the tofu, which market she would have sold it at and when, who had taught her, and why she had chosen to work with tofu in the first place.

And if I want to master tofu making, who do I learn from?

RECIPES
Ingredients
  • 500 g dried soybeans
  • Water
  • 30 ml vinegar
  • 40 ml water
  • 3 g salt

Method
  1. Soak the soybeans overnight, or for at least 8 hours.
  2. Drain and blend with about 3 times their volume in water.
  3. Strain through a cheesecloth to separate the soy milk from the pulp.
  4. Remove the foam and bring the soy milk to a boil, stirring constantly to prevent burning.
  5. Mix 30 ml vinegar with 40 ml water.
  6. Slowly add the vinegar mixture to the hot soy milk in several additions, stirring gently. Continue until the milk separates into curds and whey.
  7. Cover and let it rest for 30 minutes.
  8. Transfer the curds into a tofu mould lined with cheesecloth and press until firm.

  


      Cauliflower mushroom (Sparassis)



8th September

The day after arriving at the farm, I took a bike trip to explore the surroundings. Just 300 metres outside the farm, I found a cauliflower mushroom the first mushroom I harvested that autumn, and the first wild encounter I had since arriving.

What made the moment even more special was that it was the same mushroom I had included in my application form to the Gagel Farm.

It felt like one of those rare moments when everything suddenly seems to speak to each other


RECIPES

Ingredients
  • Oil
  • Acorn miso (made by a previous EAT resident, Nicole)
  • Tomatoes, cut into small pieces
  • Garlic
  • Water
  • Mushrooms
  • Bok choy from the farm
  • Homemade tofu
  • Salt

Method
  1. Heat oil and add the acorn miso.
  2. Add the tomatoes and garlic, then add water and bring to a boil.
  3. Add the mushrooms, bok choy, and homemade tofu.
  4. Simmer until the vegetables are cooked.
  5. Season with salt.