FoAM - open kitchen

Open Sauces Voedsel 2.0

christina — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 13:59:10 +0000

Start: 2011-08-18 15:59 GMT+2

During the Days of Sustainability (10-14 October 2011), the Flemish Government invites FoAM to host a debate lunch about the future of food - Voedsel 2.0.

The format of this "open sauce world cafe lunch", is an exploration of a facilitated discussion paired with the open sauce concept.
After an introductory talk by Maja Kuzmanovich on alternative food, a three course menu will be served to the participants. The dishes are created to match the discussions, using taste, texture, scent, temperature and colour to encourage the conversations.
The discussions will revolve around topics of food-waste, the health aspects of food and transitions in foodculture resulting in change of behaviour.

more info:
http://www.lne.be/voedsel 2.0
http://opensauces.cc

This event is organized for the Vlaamse Overheid,
Departement Leefmilieu, Natuur en Energie, on the 13th of october 2011.

Sound and Taste Workshop

christina — Thu, 05 May 2011 15:24:42 +0000

Start: 2011-04-18 00:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2011-04-20 00:00 Europe/Brussels

The workshop organized by Filemon at the youth center " A place to live" in Laeken and guided by Bram (Aifoon) and Rasa (FoAM)
was introducing different tastes and sounds by association methods.
The children involved created visual expressions of different edible ingredients and sounds that surround us. They correlated tastes and sounds in order to create an imaginary edible neighborhood.

The 7 young participants kids started their first session blind folded, smelling and tasting different vegetable extracts and ingredients.
While tasting a number of questions where asked: what color do you imagine, what memories come to you, what shape and texture do you see, etc...

Still blindfolded, the children were drawing what they imagined on the table cloth using the ingredients and extracts and going by color and intensity of 5 tastes (sour, bitter, sweet,salty, umami).
Later, the children started to experiment with extracts on a piece of paper. Honey, cinnamon powder, red cabbage juice, paprika - landed on the paper creating a number of wonderfully bizarre drawings!
Then, some scented oils were prepared using mushrooms, beetroot, carrots, lavender.

The second session was guided by sound experts. The children where introduced to the basic techniques of listening, finding the sound, record, place it on the computer etc. They were also asked to match the drawings they had made to one of their sound recordings.

The third session was about edible “building materials”:
waffles, Chinese crackers, corn puffs, seeds, flowers, honey, wasabi paste, condensed milk, coconut oil and many others. The task was to build your imaginary house! Strange and beautiful buildings were erected. Some kids did not stop after one building, but kept on building until their stack of waffles was gone...

When everyone was satisfied with their results, they were invited to tell us a story about the inhabitants of the house, which country it is in, who are the neighbors. So we learned that there is a duck called Paprika who lives in the des(s)ert of Africa, or a group of students occupies a house with a wild swimming pool.

For the last session, the children split in two groups -
one went looking for sounds, that could fit well with the created houses. After recording on the streets around the youth center what they found interesting, they composed some very beautiful soundtracks.
The second group was working party treats for an imaginary street feast.

According to the food pairing principles, components were chosen to add to make chocolate. All the ingredients had to be prepared, chocolate melted, assembled together, pored into forms, cooled down.

Then it was time for the small exhibition - We hung the drawings on the walls of the terrace, the houses where displayed on the tables, the sound system installed. After a few words of reflection, we all could enjoy sweets, smelly oils , self made breads and a few compositions for the ears.

Special thanks to children for enthusiasm and energy,Aifoon for expertise and calmness,Coralie and Jura for the assistance, “A place to live” for a warm welcome, Pieter for transport, Lina and Christina for sharing ideas, Maki for introducing a wonderful world of smells!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/5669776138/in/set-72157626607731984/
http://www.aifoon.org/projecten.php?id=84
http://www.filemon.be/2011/04/taste-sound-workshop/

Design met Wortels

christina — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 12:47:51 +0000

Start: 2010-12-08 09:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2010-12-08 16:30 Europe/Brussels

Design the Future for (Art)Craft

Does craft have a future? Craft sounds old-fashioned, but is getting hip at the same time! Numerous initiatives put handmade design in the spotlight, young talents go for old techniques and traditions.

On the 8th of December, thriving cases shall inspire policy makers, education institutions, organisations and designers to reflect and discuss, in a cross over of cultural heritage, design, education and creative economies.

Delicious kitchen gems by FoAM will accompany the participants through the day and inspire through the taste buds.

The event is organised by tapis plein vzw, Design Vlaanderen en FARO.

Participation fee: 20€ – lunch included
Please sign up via project@tapisplein.be / tel: 050 68 37 94.

More information and detailed program on
http://tapisplein.be/projecten-op-stapel/project_wortels.html

Launch Open Sauces Book

maja — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 13:54:32 +0000

Start: 2010-10-22 19:00 Europe/Brussels

Launch of the long awaited Open Sauces book & the Open Sauces Cooking Club.

Flemish Primitives

maja — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:21:24 +0000

Start: 2010-02-08 11:30 GMT+2

End: 2010-02-08 12:00 GMT+2

As a guest of the international gastronomic event The Flemish Primitives, FoAM will present a sneak preview of the Open Sauces book.

http://www.theflemishprimitives.com/

Urban Sanatorium Supper

theun — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:31:54 +0000

Start: 2009-10-17 14:00 GMT+2

End: 2009-10-18 19:00 GMT+2

A supper for pathologic appetites will be served 19:00h on 18 October 2009 in the W.G kunst, a former sanatorium as part of the Wilhelmina Gasthuis hospital complex, Amsterdam.

The meal will be prepared with urban medicinal plants, harvested from in and around Amsterdam. Each course is a victual vaccine made of minute amounts of urbanic matter to provide resistance against and treatment for most of our urban ailments, real or hypochondric. From antiflogistisch aperitif to spleen fortifying stew, this supper is sure to stave off persistent urban pathogens and unleash the hypochondric in all of us.

Cooked up by Wietske Maas in collaboration with FoAM as part of the Blinde Vlekken manifestation.

http://www.urbanibalism.org/urban-sanatorium-supper

Rethinking Food #2

maja — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:35:20 +0000

Start: 2009-01-22 19:00 Europe/Brussels

Rethinking Food #2

FoAM, a cross-disciplinary, trans-local laboratory and the artist Kate Rich complicate the equation of food miles. This meal is prepared with products and ingredients freighted in from around the globe, in the spare luggage space of social and cultural travellers.

Feral Trade is a grocery business trading outside commercial systems. Goods hitchhike on other sources of movement, often using the art world as an energy source, harnessing the surplus freight potential of the many journeys logged by artists, curators and audiences to move grocery items intercity.

FoAM's food team prepares, presents and reflects on meals in unexpected contexts and uncertain conditions. They scavenge ingredients and techniques from regional traditions around the world, as well as contemporary innovations of food science. For Burning Ice, they have sourced ingredients from the Feral Trade catalogue of goods, as well as FoAM's international network of cultural travellers, to cook up a trans-local feast with ingredients carried in by friends visiting from Australia, the Balkans, Asia, Scandinavia and various European centres and peripheries.

http://feraltrade.org/
http://x4.fo.am/feeding/

This event is a part of the Burning Ice festival:
http://www.kaaitheater.be/burningice

open kitchen

nik — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:19:18 +0000

Open Sauces

maja — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:47:54 +0000

Start: 2008-11-22 18:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2008-11-22 23:00 Europe/Brussels

FoAM and the Guild for Reality Integrators and Generators invite you to a synaesthetic dinner, to jointly sample, celebrate and debate the future of food.

Food is a nutritious and delectable product of our reciprocal, sustaining relationship with the environment. It is also one of the oldest cultural expressions, rooted in hospitality and sharing. As the gastronome Brilliat-Savarin noted three centuries ago, “the discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.”

Open Sauces will unfold in a sequence of experimental courses, matched with drinks, improvised music and esteemed guests. While savouring the foods, the guests will be engaged in table conversations, sharing experiences, recipes and ingredients needed to demystify cultural, environmental, technical and ethical aspects of contemporary food systems. From molecular gastronomy to fair trade, from permaculture to food-tracking, from open source to open sauces, we will blend seemingly unrelated elements of our food chain. In an era riddled with environmental and cultural anomalies, these transdisciplinary and trans-local connections will become one of the keys to our survival, as individuals, communities and species.

With: Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, Kultivator, Sher Doruff, Maja Kuzmanovic, Alok Nandi, Sneha Solanki, Wietske Maas, Matteo Pasquinelli, Kate Rich, Femke Snelting, Andreas Strauss, Maki Ueda, Allison Zinder and other local and trans-local food experts and enthusiasts.

There are limited places for this event so please RSVP if you would like to attend.

The extended menu (in the form of a cookbook) is available online at http://opensauces.cc/open.sauces.pdf

Feral Trade Tea Party & Raffle

maja — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:43:26 +0000

Start: 2008-11-16 17:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2008-11-16 19:00 Europe/Brussels

Kate Rich will introduce Feral Trade (http://feraltrade.org), serve ferally traded tea & coffee & conduct a raffle of the Feral Trade Hamper, a seasonal selection of goods sourced and transported over social networks.

Feral Trade is an artist-run grocery business, trading since 2003. Goods are run outside the global market, using the surplus freight potential of commuter, vacation and culturally funded travel to transport groceries intercity. Preliminary attempts to map this terrain show a constellation of complex connections - an intricate time-space system covering thousands of miles. Products assembled in the Feral Trade Hamper (Xmas 08) have been hand-freighted in from all corners of the social/cultural networks and include tea from Bangladesh, grappa from Croatia, cacao from Brazil and sweets from the world's newest nation Montenegro.

A hamper is a place where diverse grocery items can congregate. Traditionally in times of trouble, persons or community groups donate to needy people a hamper of food or other household necessities. Here, stockists from 3rd world and subsistence economies have been grouped together to provide relief for the West European food shopper, currently suffering from degraded supermarket shopping on offer.

Each product is accompanied by biographical information, recording relations with producers and couriers, transit conditions, route information and the bounteous detail of delay, seizure, communications and other failures which present a persistent challenge to the assumed smooth transit of goods.

If you would like to join us for this event, please RSVP by the 10th of November 2008 to bxl[at]fo[dot]am

Food pairing & Molecular Gastronomy

maja — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:28:03 +0000

Start: 2008-11-14 19:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2008-11-14 21:30 Europe/Brussels

Bernard Lahousse, an internationally renown food scientist, one of the founders of CREAX Food (http://creaxfood.com/) & consultant to creative chefs worldwide (in Belgium: L'air du temps, Oud Sluis, In de wulf, Kasteel Withof,...) will prepare a nutritious lecture on food pairing, molecular gastronomy and new kitchen techiques. Bernard will talk about the concepts of coupling and replacing ingredients based on their chemical components. He will explain how to use his food pairing website (http://www.foodpairing.be) and introduce "The Flemish Primitives" (http://www.theflemishprimitives.com/). The talk will be accompanied by a tasting of various examples of food-pairing, including pralines by Dominique Persoone (http://www.dominiquepersoone.be/).

There are limited places for this event so please RSVP before the 10th of November if you would like to attend. Best to contact us by email on bxl[at]fo[dot]am

Edible Perfume

maja — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:18:04 +0000

Start: 2008-11-16 14:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2008-11-16 17:00 Europe/Brussels

Edible Perfume is a hands-on workshop on extracting and composing aromas & flavours, inspired by the concept of flavour pairing.

The workshop is led by Maki Ueda (http://scent-lab.blogspot.com/), assisted by Nik Gaffney (FoAM).

A natural smell is often extracted from a material using chemistry techniques for retrieving essential oils, such as distillation, ethanol extraction, or oil maceration. In the Edible Perfume workshop, these techniques will be adopted in the kitchen.

In a temporary laboratory setup, the participants will experience the complete process of extracting aromas and flavours from raw food ingredients. Learning from the chemistry of flavour pairing, the participants will couple aromatic extracts to compose complex and surprising scents. Imagine an oil flavoured with basil and black tea, or coriander and ginger; a liquor scented with strawberry & carrot, or grapefruit & Parmesan cheese...

At the end of the workshop, each participant will be be able to take home their flavored and fragrant oil and/or liquor. These edible perfumes remind us to enjoy the harmony and complexity of the interactions between the sense of smell and the sense of taste.

The workshop will proceed as follows:

step 1: introduction
step 2: processing the material – cutting, chopping, grinding
step 3: extraction – ethanol extraction, oil maceration, infusion, etc.
step 4: composition – balancing the strength of two flavours so that they create harmony.

Have a look at this site for the procedure (with photos):
http://scent-lab.blogspot.com/2008/10/perfume-to-ingest.html

If you would like to participate in this workshop, please send an expression of interest to bxl[at]fo[dot]am, before the 10th of November 2008. Places are limited to a maximum of ten participants.

Instructions for participants: http://lib.fo.am/edible_perfume

A few more images from Maki:
http://picasaweb.google.com/witchlab/YzxYr?authkey=mUdz_c4ybx8#

Semiotics of the Kitchen Radio

maja — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:13:25 +0000

Start: 2008-11-15 15:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2008-11-15 18:00 Europe/Brussels

Semiotics of the Kitchen Radio (Verbindingen/Jonctions 11.4)
by Constant

Saturday November 15, 15:00 (doors open: 14:30)
FoAM, Koolmijnenkaai 30-34 Brussels and on-line

With Martha Rosler’s classic performative alphabet 'Semiotics of the Kitchen' as a point of departure, Constants' design collective Open Source Publishing (OSP) presents a live radio broadcast from the FoAM kitchen. Experimenting with the displacement of multi sensory experiences, they reflect on the preparation and distribution of food as metaphor, structure, vocabulary and rhythm.

With amongst others: an interview with artist Kate Rich about cooking and trade, a 'Comédie de moeurs', a conversation with Nicolas Malevé about Cake PHP frameworks and other recipes, a reportage on Colruyt computersystems, The Swedish Cook, a text-to-speech cookbook, instructions for producing a manual, a foley artist and of course a mouthwatering playlist.

More info: http://ospublish.constantvzw.org
Photos: http://gallery.constantvzw.org/main.php?g2_itemId=22398

Open Kitchen

maja — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:06:57 +0000

A variety of activities will be served from FoAM's kitchen, including a workshop on scent extraction by Maki Ueda, presentation on food-pairing by Bernard Lahousse, Kitchen-radio by Constant, a conversation about 'public diets' of Brussels-based arts organisations, a tea-party & feral-trade hamper raffle by Kate Rich, ending on the 22nd of November with the grand "Open Sauces, On food and coding", where we will attempt to demystify the production, distribution, presentation and consumption of food in a degustation dinner, with matched artists, scientists and other trans-local food enthusiasts.

Public Diet: Recipes for Disaster

maja — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:08:40 +0000

Start: 2008-11-13 19:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2008-11-13 22:00 Europe/Brussels

Recipes for Disaster
A feasibility dinner for sustained sustenance...

Artists, cultural organisations and members of the assorted cultural proletariat are invited to a potluck dinner and round table conversation on nutrition, catering and survival in the art world and the cultural sphere.

From the early afternoon, FoAM's cooks & guests will open the kitchen doors to our friends & peers from the cultural sector, to help us cook up a nutritious dinner and figure out what constitutes a Public Diet of artists and organisations in Belgium and abroad. Where do we source our materials? Do we cook? What do we cook for ourselves, and what for our guests and audiences? How is the contemporary environmental, cultural and economic turbulence effecting our diets? These and many other questions will be picked apart in an informal conversation over dinner.

Kate Rich will introduce the topics and questions by presenting the findings from her research into the Public Diet of cultural organisations - where foods for thought and consumption might crossover - including nutrition suggestions and cooking techniques for the travelling artist, as well as stationary organisations. We will exchange experiences, sources, recipes and ideas, attempting to assure a sustained sustenance of the cultural world in times of increased turbulence.

If you are interested in participating, please write to bxl[at]fo[dot]am before the 10th of November 2008.