Food is political.
With all of the conflict going on in the world right now, it feels trivial to write an article about dining out and food. But what’s going on out there isn't separate from what’s happening here. Food travels the same routes people do, including the forced ones. What's on the menu here came from somewhere, and someone carried it.
When we go out to our clubs (I <3 Miscellania), galleries (TCB Art Inc. is my fav) or events (yet to go but I hear Nongkrong is amazing… no the editor didn’t tell me to write that), we think about who is behind them, what they stand for, what they’re saying, or what they’re not saying. When we go out to eat, do we do the same?
Recently, I visited two venues – both inherently political, whether they realise it or not. Similar price points, different locations, different crowds, similar promise: something yummy, something considered, and something that will look good on insta. I ended the night feeling undecided about what it all meant. Thinking. Anxious.
The sun is setting, and a soft salty sea breeze is chapping my lips. Table for two. Maybe three if my other friend’s uber gets here in time. I hope it doesn’t. These share plates are small and I’m not made of money. There weren’t many free seats, so we perched ourselves between a rock and a hard place.
A carefully drafted menu is pinned up on the wall. My key takeaways are ‘‘seasonal’, ‘Mediterranean’ and ‘fishy’. The menu could belong to any overpriced seaside restaurant from Sandringham to St Kilda.
We inspect the menu slowly. The room is a cacophony of Spotify’s Middle Eastern Beats and the echoes of 85 people I have never seen before. This must be peace.
Most items here could kill me (I have a lot of allergies); I brace for the worst. I get myself a beer and a cocktail for my friend. We order two dishes, a salad and some fish tartare with crisps.
The salad comes out first. Sodden, thinly sliced red onion rests on olives the size of chicken nuggets (great if you were copping those in a martini), shoulder to shoulder with chunks of tomatoes just as big. I patiently wait for a big spoon or a piece of flatbread to attempt consumption.
The taste is as good as the salad is practical. Not very. The bitterness of the olive oil is a saving grace – I mean a good bit of olive oil goes a long way and is much harder to come by these days.
The sun approaches the horizon, radiating a soft peachy hue across the bay. Salt crystalises in my throat and tonsils, forcing me to take another sip of my half-empty Peroni. Man, I love these imported beers. No additives, just simple beer.
I’m reading over the menu and considering my next move. I’m trying to place where some of these dishes are from, what they’re drawing on, what their relevance is, why here. What is this place saying? Nothing is presenting itself. The flavours are more of an aesthetic.
Oh yes, the fish. Mushed swordfish with sumac. A combo for the ages: sweet, citrusy sumac rubbed all throughout what appears to be an attempt at cubed swordfish. The highlight of this dish isn’t the freshness of the sea-side fish, or the earthy complexity of the sumac. It’s the pairing of the crisps and beer. Maybe that says more about my palate than it does the restaurant.
We sip our drinks, overlooking the bay. Nearby, people are upset they can't transit through Dubai on their way to Europe. My friend cleans up the remnants of the fish as I slice my dry mouth up with the crisps.
We’re still a bit hungry. I’d come back here again, though. Maybe with my bathers next time, on a slightly warmer day.
One long ass tram ride and we’re back. The other side of the river. It feels a bit warmer. Maybe it’s the fumes of the city, the lack of the sea air.
I plonk my dodgy knee off the tram, praying it doesn’t give way. My Myki stays firmly locked away in my wallet (I'm not fare evading; at time of writing we have free transport in Melbourne. #welovePTV).
We pull up to the bar.
Foreign music. A sweet aroma I can't quite pin down, but it brings you to the feeling of a meal cooked by your grandma. Moody, dimmed lighting. There must be a natural wine guy pretending to understand skin contact within a 15m radius of the venue. There simply must!
I order a round of snacks, not really knowing what will come out. The menu is less polished here. There are a few dishes that I can’t pronounce sitting next to ones that I can. Around here, plates are being shared. People are ordering two serves and the chef is bringing out four with an additional plate. It felt different. Sharing, learning, and connecting through eating felt important.
Still, sitting next to us is a couple in tabis (I wonder if they know the split toe design dates back to the 15th century, built for lab our rather than aesthetic) splitting a bottle of something orange. Next to them are a couple of DJs and micro-influencer promoters.
A plate comes out. On it, Dog Creek tomatoes doing what they do best – not much (jk, I love their toms and the way they run their farm). Simple. We get our phones out, take a couple of pictures and prepare to post on our stories without tagging (#IYKYK). This post will give me at least 15 social credits. I wasn’t prepared to do it at the last place. I didn’t want people knowing I was hanging out southside. In my circles, that’s nothing to promote.
Next up, some small fried goods, nothing overworked or trying too hard. But the colours aren't vibrant, and they're smaller than the olives I was woofing down earlier (flagging this as a DCP, a Dog Creek Pun). Suddenly I’m thinking, where do new flavours come from? Are there such things as newly developed flavours? The morsel tells me that though there may not be new combinations, there are new contexts. The food can be served far from its ‘home’ by someone who hasn’t visited there. It could be made with ingredients grown in a different climate.
For a similar price point, I was hoping for a little more. I dip one in an undisclosed sauce, take a bite, burn the roof of my mouth, feel a punch of ginger hit my wisdom teeth. Luckily for me and my burnt mouth, the DJ is playing corridos, which brings my heart rate down.
Later, I can’t stop thinking about it. Price, intention and plating: on paper and how they present on social media, these places are comparable.
Going from one to the other, it’s hard not to feel the textural difference. It’s subtle. Food doesn’t have to stay the same from one city, country, village, to another; people migrate, climates change, people exchange ideas, seasons vary. People adapt. Food adapts.
To eat is to remember. For diasporic communities, food is a living archive. Recipes carried across borders, adapted to new climates and ingredients, sometimes forgotten. A dish can hold the weight of migration, conflict, survival. Think of hummus. It spans regions from Egypt to (free) Syria, to (free) Lebanon and (free) Palestine. So when we blend those chickpeas up, are we just gonna chuck in some lemon, tahini, salt and not say anything?
I'm at a point of internal tension. Not about which place was better, but about what I'm participating in when I sit down to eat and drink. If I'm willing to boycott multinational corporations and their products (Obela, I'm looking at you), to hold community spaces and organisations to the same ethics, to question the intentions of collaborators and what they stand for, then maybe it's worth asking the spaces we dine in, or have a natural wine in. What is being served. What is being said. And what isn't.
Our sumac and silence say it all.