What kinds of questions would you ask if you practiced the ancient Mesopotamian art of 'haruspicy'- fortune telling with a liver? English artist and scholar Amanda Couch tries to answer the big ones, from mortality to Brexit by reading the lines and lobes on a sheep's liver.
 
Produced by Anna Sigrithur. Mixed with help by Thomas Krause. Editorial Help from Naomi Duguid and Fiona Sinclair. Music by Bicycle Face and Freesound.org. Copyright 2017 Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery.

Episode Two - The Liver is the Message

Delicious and thought-provoking stories about food, served fresh from the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery.

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Filipino food scholar Bel Castro tells the oft-repeated story about a mythic era in the late 19th century in which wealth abounded for Philippine coffee growers thanks to lags in the world market. She debunks and complicates this myth with a political and post-colonial analysis that has relevance for all commodity tales today.
"[The] history of coffee in the Philippines … is told as a fairytale of great golden days, that if you work hard and if we do our job right and we can go back to it when actually it should be a cautionary tale."
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Ox Tales is produced by Anna Sigrithur, edited by Naomi Duguid and Fiona Sinclair and mixed by Thomas Krause.
Music in this episode was by Ava Glendinning, Uuriter, Nitoy Gonzales and his Rondalla  and The American Regimental Band. 
Find out more about Ox Tales and the Oxford Food Symposium by visiting our website at https://www.oxfordsymposium.org.uk
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SUPPORT THE PODCAST! 
Donate via our website or listeners in the UK can conveniently make a one time donation of any amount by texting OXTALES and the number you'd like to donate, to 70085. (For example, donate 10 pounds by sending OXTALES10 to 70085).
And don't forget to rate and review us on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen!

Episode 14 - The Grandeur that was Lipa

What responsibilities do public institutions have in resisting the corporatization of food? Canadian chef and activist Joshna Maharaj shares the trials, the quirks and the successes of a one-year project to overhaul a Toronto hospital’s food system, taking it from frozen pre-packaged foods to fresh, local fare.
"If there's any place on this planet that should have a rolling broth pot, I think it's a hospital."
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Ox Tales is produced by Anna Sigrithur, edited by Naomi Duguid and Fiona Sinclair and mixed by Thomas Krause.
Music in this episode was by Ava Glendinning, Uuriter, and Bensound. 
Find out more about Ox Tales and the Oxford Food Symposium by visiting our website at https://www.oxfordsymposium.org.uk
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SUPPORT THE PODCAST! 
Donate via our website or listeners in the UK can conveniently make a one time donation of any amount by texting OXTALES and the number you'd like to donate, to 70085. (For example, donate 10 pounds by sending OXTALES10 to 70085).
And don't forget to rate and review us on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen!

Episode 13 - Taking Back the Hospital Tray

English food writer Bee Wilson traces the genealogy of kitchen utensils and how they shape our lives-- from vegetable peelers to paleo lithic knives, chopsticks and even the mortar and pestle. She begs the question: why shouldn’t we consider kitchen tools to be just as important as military or industrial technology?
"We think technology means cannons or, I don't know, guns-- and we forget it could be a pot or a pan or even a wooden spoon." 
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Ox Tales is produced by Anna Sigrithur, edited by Naomi Duguid and Fiona Sinclair and mixed by Thomas Krause.
Music in this episode was by Ava Glendinning, Uuriter, Abing, and the Advent Chamber Orchestra. 
Find out more about Ox Tales and the Oxford Food Symposium by visiting our website at https://www.oxfordsymposium.org.uk
--
SUPPORT THE PODCAST! 
Donate via our website or listeners in the UK can conveniently make a one time donation of any amount by texting OXTALES and the number you'd like to donate, to 70085. (For example, donate 10 pounds by sending OXTALES10 to 70085).
And don't forget to rate and review us on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen!

Episode 12 - Why Kitchen Technology Matters

Arctic culinary scholar Zona Spray Starks explains the diverse range culinary techniques of the Iñupiat people of Alaska, and how the seasonal food landscape shaped family relations. While doing so, she shares the story of her later-in-life return to Alaska and the connections she's built there. 
"Frozen is a way of altering food and cooking is a way of altering food, but freezing does the same thing. …And in fact the taste is very different when the meat is almost thawed, it's still a little bit Frozen, but it's almost thawed."
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Ox Tales is produced by Anna Sigrithur, edited by Naomi Duguid and Fiona Sinclair and mixed by Thomas Krause.
Music in this episode was by Ava Glendinning, Uuriter and Hit of the Week Orchestra. 
Find out more about Ox Tales and the Oxford Food Symposium by visiting our website at https://www.oxfordsymposium.org.uk
--
SUPPORT THE PODCAST! 
Donate via our website or listeners in the UK can conveniently make a one time donation of any amount by texting OXTALES and the number you'd like to donate, to 70085. (For example, donate 10 pounds by sending OXTALES10 to 70085).
And don't forget to rate and review us on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen!

Episode 11 - Family, Freezing and Fermenting in the Arctic

What do famine foods throughout history tell us about the world in which they were eaten? Medieval food and magic scholar Andrea Maraschi makes a mythical and historical foray into the history of the lowliest yet most versatile famine food in Europe, the acorn. 
"In times of hardships we need to keep trusting that things are going to get better. We need to keep thinking that yes we are still ourselves we are still who we used to be yesterday and the day before. The easiest way to do so is keeping doing the things that we used to do."
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Ox Tales is produced by Anna Sigrithur, edited by Naomi Duguid and Fiona Sinclair and mixed by Thomas Krause.
Music in this episode was by Ava Glendinning, Uuriter, Lina Palera, Seikilos Epitaph, Mid Air Machine and Kevin Macleod.
Find out more about Ox Tales and the Oxford Food Symposium by visiting our website at https://www.oxfordsymposium.org.uk
--
SUPPORT THE PODCAST! 
Donate via our website or listeners in the UK can conveniently make a one time donation of any amount by texting OXTALES and the number you'd like to donate, to 70085. (For example, donate 10 pounds by sending OXTALES10 to 70085).
And don't forget to rate and review us on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen!

Episode Two - The Liver is the Message

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