Alive (A-Live) food event at Halstow (Here’s to Thee)

14 May 2022 at Gray’s Devon Cider, Halstow Farm, Exeter

I drew on both the conceptual and ‘experiential’ to realise this event that not only refers to the cider-making process itself but relates to the broader ‘more than human’ worlds this project touches upon, where people and microbes live symbiotically. This event takes its starting points from the farm’s rich landscape, the cider, the lyrics and paraphernalia of the wassail as its ingredients which are then carefully crafted to create a complex edible journey.

I applied some of the terms appearing in Simon Pope’s poster Cidermaking terms in the Devonshire dialect as menu items for the event, re-imagining and transforming some of the terms into a series of food courses and tastes for guests to sample. Through my research, I have been working with Simon Pope, the farm and local food producers for guidance regarding produce and to consider its re-application within the menu. The emphasis of the menu is on the ‘liveness’ of the foods – using cultures present in unpasteurised cheese, sourdough starters and ferments alongside the tastes of apples, cider, lichen and windfallen fruit.

I also worked with ceramicist Abigail North to present hand-held plates and tableware for the event with the clay sourced on the farm itself, and using the impressions of the orchard’s trees to create platters of beautiful textural surfaces.

Food is passed in a convivial nature from guest to guest, sharing bread as a symbol of companionship and resonating with the traditional passing of the wassail bowl. Having eaten together the guests will be invited to feed the ‘more than human’ life on Gray’s Farm, using fire and burial we will feed into the diversity of the soil, the trees, the lichen, the air.