Cook’s Book

We excite our olfactory senses each time we open a spice jar. This cook’s book documents some of the spices and flavourings I found exciting in our kitchen. These photographs of latent ingredients can’t convey the fragrances  but your recognition of them may evoke their aromas.

The contents of home spice racks and cupboards come at a terrible cost. It is easy to overlook histories of subjugation and oppression. It should be harder to ignore working conditions which would be considered intolerable by today’s consumers and practices that guarantee confidence-of-supply to supermarket shelves.

It’s over 500 years since Vasco da Gama first rounded the Cape of Good Hope. His journey sparked vicious trade wars between Portuguese, Dutch and English trading companies. The corporations only answered to themselves and their shareholders. Their competition ultimately brought about a system of imperial colonialism involving widespread enslavement and asset stripping that continues to have reverberations. 

The spices in our homes may prompt us to question whether ‘The Enlightenment’ that was borne on the back of slavery was really about humanism and reason. Was it greed disguised as knowledge, freedom and happiness? Is history repeating? Is corporate technology driving military thought, outpacing governance and ignoring injustice?

If ever there was a message in a (spice) bottle, maybe it is that colonisation and slavery continue as ingredients in the recipes of the privileged.

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The Bracket Books chapbooks are available for online purchase through FabHappy but perhaps you’d prefer to enquire here. They’re published each calendar month, each copy uniquely numbered and posted at the end of each month. Prices include packaging, delivery, all currency and inflation risks.

2023/4 SUBSCRIPTIONS
Chapbooks 25 to the final issue 39 (15 issues):
Republic of Ireland: €135
Rest of World: €145 / UK£125 / US$145

Any one issue:
Republic of Ireland: €14
Rest of World: €15 / UK£13 / US$15
Institutions add 30%