Katarzyna Raszewska:making a creative new life in Edinburgh

Thanks to Clara Massie we are ending the year with words and pictures from an inspiring exhibition celebrating the great contribution migrants make to the cultural wealth of Scotland. The exhibition is over – for the time being anyway – but the impact remains.

JOCK TAMSON’S BAIRNS

‘My friends and I were standing in the shop when a cop walked in. I’d never seen an Asian man in a police uniform before.’ Irfan

Where to start? Each story stops you in your tracks. Different tales of war, persecution, loss, love, courage and determination to survive and succeed are all the more moving because they are told with unsentimental simplicity.  What they have in common is the search for a new life in Scotland.

Here’s David, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, a translator at the Nuremberg trials who ‘looked Hess in the eyes’. David eventually made a new life in Edinburgh running a cleaning and valet service next to the Empire Theatre. Here’s Kasia (pictured above) who remembers the light going on in her homeland when the Berlin Wall fell and ‘Poland went a little mad with excitement’. She’s busy making a creative new life in Edinburgh too. And here’s Irfan, who defied unwritten rules and set his heart on becoming a policeman after seeing that cop in a London kebab shop when he was a kid. He made family history – and a career in Lothian and Borders Police.

Peter: "Scotland has changed so since the 1970s. When I first came here, people wouldn’t sit next to you on a busy bus. Not now. Why I’ve even met Prince Charles."

These are just a few glimpses of Jock Tamson’s Bairns, a photographic exhibition created for Previously Scotland’s first Festival of History in November. The aim was to explore notions of identity and belonging and the impact was something of a revelation. Here in the Axolotl Gallery in the heart of Edinburgh’s New Town was a startling reflection of Scotland’s vivid multiculturalism.

“A snapshot of a dynamic multi-cultural Scotland” as the exhibition literature puts it: “ We have shared Italian, French, Polish, Ghanaian, Chinese, Pakistani, Russian, German and English accounts. Their journeys have not been without encounters of racism and prejudice. We could have added Irish, Scandinavian, other African and Caribbean, Indian, Flemish, Lithuanians, Gypsies/Travellers and a rainbow of Refugees and Asylum Seekers.”

The exhibition is over now. But the message lingers on. We’re all Jock Tamson’s Bairns – the old Scots saying recognises that people are essentially all the same and that seems especially important at a time when some politicians seem set on looking for differences.

Both exhibition and history festival were the inspiration of Susan Morrison, a Leith based comedian with a passion for history and a talent for storytelling.  Another stroke of inspiration was asking Clara Massie to be the curator. A warm and welcoming presence in the exhibition (that’s her with long dark hair slightly to the right of the picture), Clara is a third generation child of Russian and Italian migrants. As a photojournalist with a portfolio of work from publications like Heat and Sunday Mirror magazines she is well used to working with people and pictures.

“But I had never curated an exhibition before,” she says with enthusiastic astonishment at what she achieved.  Rather than presenting a history of migration, Clara chose the challenge of telling stories of people here and now.  In six short weeks she gathered nine case studies, working against time to find people who were prepared to tell their often deeply moving stories. They came,  “By word of mouth, through family, friends of friends, searching through mailing lists.” Fascinating images came from National Museums Scotland and the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre in Glasgow.

Together Susan and Clara interviewed the volunteers, Susan meticulously documenting accounts to be displayed alongside sympathetic and expressive portraits taken by photographers Albie Clark and Jenny Wicks and printed by Edinburgh Signarama – everyone freely giving their time and talents to create the collection.

And the result was a huge success, attracting people from across Edinburgh – and many other parts of Scotland – to share memories and make discoveries. As one frequent visitor tweeted afterwards, “The exhibition is so moving I can’t read the panels without tears!” A highlight of the collection was the DVD of Scottish Italian family picnics which were great social events in Glasgow and Edinburgh between the 30s and 50s.  One day Clara noticed a woman wiping her eyes as she watched the film. “She told me she was the little girl with the huge bow in her hair, she could pick out her whole family.”

Words and pictures are safely packed away for now but the stories have left a lasting impression and Clara is exploring ideas for developing the collection and perhaps taking it on a tour of Scotland.  If comments in the visitor book are anything to go by the exhibition will cause a stir wherever it goes. To end with just one:

Wonderful exhibition with moving stories & great portraits. Brought my 11 yr old son who’s studying WW2 at present & he found it very interesting. Would be great if this exhibition could tour schools, as it’s extremely educational!

Apple pancakes with cinnamon butter, a variation on a traditional Scottish theme, went down well at World Kitchen in Leith events this year, here’s the recipe from Fay Young.

Ok, I know dropped scones are really meant for teatime. But they can be good at breakfast too – perhaps, sinfully, fried with bacon and served with maple syrup as a Scottish variation on the Canadian theme.

So when I was helping to organise a World Kitchen in Leith multicultural brunch earlier this year, dropped scones sprang to mind.  Not quite the simple kind my granny used to make in her tiny flat in Glasgow, where Barr’s Ginger Beer was delivered by horse and cart once a week (I was very young!).

Granny’s recipe was just flour, egg mixed to a thick batter with a little milk then dropped on to a sizzling hot griddle and served with butter

This is a slightly posher version by Lady Claire MacDonald who lives somewhere altogether grander on Skye.  She adds apple, sugar, butter and spice to the recipe and you can eat the pancakes just like that but the real magic touch is the cinnamon butter she spreads on top.

I lost count of how many apple pancakes I made for the brunch (and again for the World Kitchen lunch on World Food Day in October] They went like hot cakes but they do also freeze well.  Here’s the recipe, adding lemon rind and juice is a very slight adjustment of my own.

RECIPE

225g (8oz) plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

60g (2oz) caster sugar

0.5 tsp ground cinnamon

60g (20z) butter, melted

2 eggs, beaten

300ml (0.5 pint) milk

2 tasty apples peeled and cored

grated rind and juice of half lemon

mild oil for frying

Cinnamon butter:

120g (4oz) butter

2 tsp ground cinnamon

120 (4oz) soft brown sugar

METHOD

First make cinnamon butter, beating all ingredients until smooth. Keep covered in fridge, until you want to serve pancakes, will last for at least 2 weeks (longer, I find).

For pancakes, sift flour and baking powder into bowl, add sugar and cinnamon. Beat in melted butter, beaten eggs and milk. Grate apples into mixture and mix well.

Oil a griddle, hot plate or frying pan. Drop spoonfuls of batter on to hot surface, roughly 2-3inches or 5-7.5 cm across (you can make pancakes bigger or smaller depending on spoon).  Cook for about 2 minutes until small bubbles rise to surface then flip over with palette knife and cook on other side.  (I find it can take a bit of trial and error to get the temperature right, the first couple of pancakes might be either too dark or too pale…but still good to eat).

Remove cooked pancakes to keep warm on plate, covered with cloth.  Serve hot with cinnamon butter.  (They freeze and reheat well). Plate soon empty.

According to Al Tibbitt of Greener Leith, the award would mean £80,000 for the Leith scheme and it would not be the end of the story. But the money would help to pay for essential research (bird studies, wind monitoring and so on) as well as the cost of submitting planning and grid connection applications.  All  working towards the goal of a handsome turbine capable of supplying energy for up to 1300 local homes.  But of course there is much more to a windmill than electricity.

I may be biased, but I feel the turbines actually add to our skyline, rather than detracting from it. [The Island of Gigha website]

There are all sorts of myths and plain old fashioned lies about windmills, but you just have to look to the success of community schemes like Gigha to see how well-designed projects can bring new hope and pride as well as real tangible benefits to local neighbourhoods. On Gigha, The Dancing Ladies (more prosaically, the first community wind project in Scotland) have generated enough income to build new homes and bring people back to live on the island.  What’s more they paid for themselves within six years. In fact the scheme has been so successful the Isle of Gigh Heritage Trust is now raising money for a fourth turbine.

Leith and Portobello are not an island, but these urban communities could share the same benefits of regeneration; the renewed pride and hope that goes along with investment in homes, jobs and opportunities for young people.

And, given pride of place, windmills have a way of winning hearts, minds and tourists!  On Gigha a walk to see the Dancing Ladies is now a popular tourist attraction.

This is how Gigha schoolchildren greeted the arrival of the Dancing Ladies in 2003 (I hope they won’t mind me grabbing the images off their website: see them for yourselves here).

At World Kitchen in Leith events, Alice’s beans in coconut  disappear off the plates in record time and everyone wants to know how to make them.  Well, here Alice Musamba shares the secret and a little extra tip:  the coconut sauce can be adapted to suit many other vegetables. In fact at last night’s World Kitchen meeting she brought a pot of delicious mushrooms in coconut.  They soon disappeared off the plate too.

Ingredients:
2 cups dried African sugar beans or cannellini beans
2 big yellow onions, chopped
4 tbsp. Oil
2-3 tomatoes, chopped
1 tbsp tomato puree
2 tsp. turmeric  or mild curry powder
2 cans coconut milk
1 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper

Method:
It is best to soak the beans overnight.
In a large pot, cover the beans with water and simmer until they are just tender. Sauté onions in oil until golden brown add the remaining ingredients to the pot and simmer several minutes until the beans are very tender and the tomatoes are cooked. Add the coconut milk last and do not cover the pot whilst simmering for about 20mins, season with Maggie veg cubes. Serve over rice or Sadza

Ed: You probably also know Alice from another great cooking enterprise. Until recently she ran the very successful monthly CORE World Cafe at North Edinburgh Arts Centre. See their new Facebook page for details of the next World Cafe on 25 November.

Now the story of a remarkable (but largely forgotten) local hero – a nurseryman who lived and worked in Broughton until his death in September 1924 –  is told in the latest issue of Broughton History Society Newsletter. It’s something of a detective story that involved several local people and many trips to Rosebank Cemetary.

I picked up the trail after Kate Love suggested the story of James Grieve was worth exploring. Julian Siann produced invaluable clues in notes prepared by Jennifer Woods of the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society after visiting the (new) Redbraes Community Garden in 2010.

The first few trips to the cemetary came to (sorry but this terrible pun is unavoidable) a dead end.  For some reason both Julian and I thought James Grieve would be easy to find. But there was simply no sign of his grave among the fascinating headstones in the older part of the cemetary running along the wall beside Broughton Road.  That was until my email to Jamie Reece, Support Officer – Bereavement Services at Mortonhall Crematorium, produced a map and a helpful hint.

“The way to find James Grieve’s grave is to look for Robert Sproull at Plot H 77.”

And there it was, surrounded by merchants, candlemakers and shipmasters of Leith, hidden by a holly bush at Section H Grave Plot 76 (according to the cemetery plan).

Just to be sure, I sent Jamie a photograph and he confirmed that this was indeed the right spot. No-one knows when or why the nurseryman’s headstone disappeared. But, if cemetary rules permit, perhaps an apple tree would be a better way to honour James Grieve.

You can find the whole story with some extra detective work by Alice Lauder (and much more besides),  in Broughton History Society Newsletter. Back copies are  kept on Spurtle website along with the programme for a great series of local history talks. The next one is on Monday 14 November at 7pm with David Patterson on ‘”Cocky Nit, Cocky Nit, Come and Buy, Ha’penny the Bit” – Life on the Streets of Old Edinburgh’

When Agnes Ngulube Holmes goes shopping for World Food Day she finds herself transported from an Edinburgh street to the African continent.  This is what she found.

One autumn afternoon in Edinburgh, I join Meena and Mark at Out of The Blue Drill Hall for a brief meeting about World Kitchen in Leith plans for World Food Day. We agreed we would produce a menu based on seasonal foods from local shops. For African  dishes that could be a challenge!

I decided to take a walk along Junction Street on the lookout for small businesses that source their products locally. I wandered across James Anderson Butcher, where I got engaged in an interesting discussion about where foods were sourced from at some supermarkets.  The friendly staff informed me that their products were sourced from the Highlands, Orkney and places in Scotland.  I left the butchers very satisfied with what I had purchased.

Where to get my other ingredients?  I went to Gorgie Road where I came across Shumba Meats and African Crest two African owned businesses; I can only describe my experience in these two businesses like suddenly being back on the African continent for brief period. Then I walked out of the premises back into Scotland.  It was a great feeling, and made me realise how interconnected we are (I like both).

For World Food Day, my contribution to was nshima (maize meal thick porridge), which meant good team work with Alice as this needed a lot of stirring to get the nshima nicely thick and smooth with no lumps. Then there was cabbage cooked with peanut sauce, tomatoes, onions, mixed peppers and spices; and beef stew cooked with onions, tomatoes, matoki (green bananas), mixed peppers, spices.

Some more good teamwork went into preparing Alice’s contribution: beans with coconut dish.  Also Temeka and Leija helped with the mandzi and serving the food to the customers.

We all enjoyed being part of the World Kitchen in Leith…making the day a brilliant experience for everyone who attended the event. GREAT SUCCESS!!!

Rami Okasha rustled up a taste of Egypt for World Food Day.  Here he gives his recipe for Felafel and makes it sound very simple.  That’s Rami in the picture on the right busy dishing up to the stream of people arriving for lunch at Out of the Blue Drill Hall (Ellie and Maka are on the left).

Felafel

You can use either chickpeas (Turkish, Israeli) or broad beans (Egyptian).

250g dried chickpeas or beans
1 medium onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 large bunch parsley
1tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground coriander
¼ tsp each of ground cinnamon, caraway, fennel, black pepper
1 tsp salt
3 tablespoon plan flour

Soak the chickpeas overnight, covered by about 2-3 inches of water. Next day, drain well and put in a food processor and blend the chickpeas with the garlic and salt. Transfer to a bowl.

Finely chop the onion and process with the spices and half the herbs, stalks removed. Add to the chickpeas. Finely chop the remaining herbs. Sprinkle flour and mix. Chill for an hour. Then form into small balls.

Line a baking tray with baking parchment. Space the balls so they don’t touch. Bake at 200C for 20-30 minutes. Halfway through, shake the tins so the felafel roll about.

Serve with hummus, harissa & garlic yoghurt in a pitta bread.

Flashback to 2006: Rami serving lunch at Leith Open Space second multicultural discussion event

Editor’s note: Rami by the way is a founder member of Leith Open Space and we seem to remember he was the one who first had the great idea of inviting people to bring multicultural dishes to our first Open Space event very nearly six years ago.

For World Food Day in Out of the Blue on Sunday 16 October, Ellie Casson set out to overcome her fear of failure – the perfect paella is hard to make and she has tasted the best in Spain where it comes with sun, sand and the Med.

I have always loved paella. How could anyone not love sitting in bright sun on aged wood decking, pale blue paint peeling off the beams, 10 feet from the sand and just 20 feet from the Mediterranean?  It really doesn’t matter what you’re eating, if you’re sitting at the back of Restaurante Kati on a Sunday afternoon surrounded by families enjoying the day, the view, the food and each other’s company.

Restaurante Kati is in a fishing village called Cabo de Palos in Murcia, where there is also a lovely Sunday market.  It is run by a family of fishermen.  The men bring back their catch after an early start, and their wives and sisters cook in the kitchen for locals returning from the market laden with bags of oranges and this week’s fashion must-have.

No not sunny Spain: Ellie went shopping in Edinburgh Farmers Market for World Food Day.

My father was the first brave soul in our family to attempt to replicate the paella that we know to be the best in Spain.  With a St Michael’s cookbook for guidance, the first product was delicious. But not quite a paella.

Dad persisted over a number of years, learning from Spanish friends the secrets to their paellas.  One would add ñoras, dried whole red peppers.  Another would prefer a fish-only paella.  All agreed that the golden yellow comes not from saffron, but colorante – the amount of real saffron you need would cost a small fortune and a herd of camels.

Unfortunately for Dad, he is British.  So even when he replicated the recipe of one Spanish friend to the letter, another would tut and say that it was a very good effort. But not a paella.

This is why I have always been anxious about making paella. However, for the World Food event on the 16^th of October, I set self-doubt and fears aside.

I do not have the benefit of Dad’s Spanish master classes, but I have a good stock of cookbooks, the internet, and I know what the best paella in Spain tastes like.  Research done, I set about my trial run.

It seems the secret to a good paella is first the oil.  In 80ml of olive oil (from my friend’s very own trees) I separately cooked then removed a whole, unpeeled head of garlic, a ñora, a good bunch of thyme, chopped chorizo, chunks of pork belly, squid cut into rings, and chicken thighs.  Had I had the heads of some prawns I would have cooked these too.

The next important stage is a flavoursome sofrito. [see above].  I made mine with garlic, onions, and chopped chargrilled peppers.  Then I added 8 small, peeled tomatoes and cooked the whole mixture until almost all the moisture was gone.

Now the rice: Spanish Calasparran or bomba rice is added and cooked for a couple of minutes before half the stock is added, along with browned chicken, thyme, garlic bulb, ñora and, in this – but not future – cases, saffron.  A good amount of salt is added too.  Then the hard part.  Do not touch!  All I did was add more stock if it was looking a little dry.

15 minutes later, I added chunks of hake plus cooked chorizo, pork belly and squid.  Another 15 minutes later, with a touch more stock along the way, in went prawns [above] to simmer with the rest of the ingredients until just cooked.

Result? Almost spot on.  In future I shall use colorante and I will take a little more care about how much stock to add, but I think I am as close as I can get to the best (British) paella I will ever be able to make.  No sand, no Med but so far there is sun: Scotland’s October weather this year seems to be on my side to complete the experience!

Editor adds: The sun shone and Ellie’s paella certainly passed the test at the World Food lunch. Here she is sharing a few secrets of success.  For more mouthwatering pictures see Ellie’s World Kitchen in Leith collection on Flickr

Things are heating up again at World Kitchen in Leith as members prepare to take part in World Food Day at Out of the Blue Drill Hall.  Please consider this your invitation to join us!

“Eat your way to a better world”, that’s the invitation on the World Food Day flyer and World Kitchen in Leith is really delighted to be asked to take part in this event organised by Take One Action in association with World Development Movement, Oxfam, Transition Edinburgh South and  Out of the Blue.

Not least because it means working with our friends Chris and Isi at OoTB Drill Hall Arts Cafe again. As well teaming up with  Multi-Cultural  Family Base (MCFB) now we have all recovered from our sell-out event, Multicultural Family Brunch, at the Drill Hall in March.

This time the menu is a kind of multicultural tapas with dishes from France, Spain, Africa and India as well as Scotland. As much as possible we will be using locally sourced and seasonal ingredients so you can bet that apples will be on the menu.

With live music, talks, workshops and stalls this special multicultural meal is a chance to celebrate good food – and question our global sysem of growing and distributing food among 7 billion people on our planet.

FREE ENTRY

WORLD FOOD BUFFET – £5

No need to book but first come first served!

World Food Day in Out of the Blue Drill Hall will explore the impacts of politics and economics on food supply and health of people in Scotland and around the world. The aim is to discover how we can all make a difference by the way we shop, sow and grow our own food, and take action alongside a billion people across the world.

For more information contact worldfoodday@takeoneaction.org.uk  call 0131 553 6335 and keep checking World Kitchen Events page on Facebook.  Look forward to seeing you on Sunday 16 October.

Brunch is served: flashback to the multicultural family brunch at Out of the Blue in March when we served around 100 people and helped MCFB raise £100 for their art therapy work with young people.

A tempting invitation in my inbox.  An evening of multicultural music, poetry and food at the next Swietlica Open Day on Monday 3 October.  It’s the winning combination that draws crowds to the friendly gathering at Fort Community Wing and so I’m very sorry to miss this event but other members of Leith Open Space will be able to join in.

Joining-in is what the evening is about. This time the programme links the work of Polish artists and musicians with Scotland and other European countries.  Swietlica will be marking the centenary of Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz with  a performance of his work by Scottish poet Ken Cockburn who will also explain his recent project in partnership with the Polish Consulate in Edinburgh.

There will be a photographic exhibition on the theme of migration including work by Radek Slomnicki. Traditional folk music of Eastern Europe offers another chance for the audience to join in with the singing duo TOCZKA introducing music from Ukraine, Russia and Georgia. (The picture, by the way, shows the Ukrainian choir Chrząszcz at the Welcome Home Refugee Night in June). And as always food is a central part of the evening. Once again World Kitchen cooks are invited to contribute dishes to the spread.

If I hadn’t already got my tickets booked to Spain I would certainly be there too but I will raise a glass at 6.00pm (7pm Madrid time) over some tapas maybe when the doors open at Fort Community Wing.  Cheers.

For more information email Dominika.Kasolik@swietlica.org.uk and take a look at Swietlica Facebook page