18 – 20 December 2017: three sausage making research workshops, Slade Research Centre, then at Woburn Square.
I asked researchers from across disciplines to think together about the borders of human and non-human matter, our human relationship to the food we eat, and how we cook, through the delicious metaphor of the sausage and sausage anatomy. I wanted to test whether we could think differently through processing, making, cooking and eating sausages together, and to further develop research methods.
The sausage as a comic object – both lovable and rude, worked as an appealing way to get people involved with the project, and to have fun playing with ideas without the event becoming too earnest. The sessions were structured around a part of sausage ‘anatomy’: skin, substance and spice, which links to my interest in how structure affects behaviour, but also in the analogy of the body or organism. The first session used venison, the second a variety of ingredients, and the third was entirely vegan.
SKINS
Permeable/non-permeable membranes, protective layers, boundaries, inner/outer skin, surface, stuffing, touch.
SUBSTANCE
Body, mass, animal, vegetable, mineral, organs, lips and arseholes, glues and binders, chemistry, structure, sustenance and nutrition, mixing, processing, texture.
SPICES
Active ingredients, flavour, aromatics, identity, meaning, emotion, medicine, recipes, ritual, value.
Workshop participants included a food writer, chefs, cheesemaker, designers, artists, a biologist, materials experts, a chemist, a mechanical engineer, an anthropologist and a ceramicist.
