Geography is a flavour
I have just retrieved this Ideas suggestion from my list - from a long time ago I think. That's all it says so I have no idea where the idea came from, but I thought it intriguing enough to tackle. And coincidentally I have just finished reading Kate Atkinson's latest novel Our Noble Selves, which is a sort of combination whodunnit/meditation on the state of Britain post war at the time of the Festival of Britain as well as her usual mordantly funny reflections on life, the universe and everything, in which, near the end she says this:
"For the first time the British public had experienced open-air cafés, spaghetti, hot dogs, ice-cold drinks, soft toilet rolls and the opportunity to drink wine with a meal. So Continental. So modern. The glimpse of a possible future."
Coincidental because I guess one meaning that you can take from 'Geography is flavour' is that there are so may different ways of cooking, or dealing with the ingredients that geography provides and that these days - as the opening picture demonstrates - geography is almost irrelevant because of globalisation. Hamburgers can be eaten anywhere in the world - although almost always with some kind of small local touch.
However I suspect that those words probably appeared in my list because of its connection to Starbucks, whose slogan it once was - later changed into Geography is Our Flavour and, I think, now disappeared.
The slogan was supposed to distinguish their coffee from the usual dreadful stuff served in America, by emphasising the various geographic origins of the coffee that they served:
"a marketing strategy designed to educate consumers to treat coffee more like wine, with flavor connected to locale." Foreign Policy in Focus
And as we know it was hugely successful. Not so here however. In an article for ABC News John Mescall explains why - beginning with how it became such a success in America, because of gradual growth - from its origins in Seattle. I don't know if this was the original store, but it's definitely Seattle, which we visited way back in 2005. Mescall explains that:
"in a nation bereft of genuine café culture, that single store soon captured the imagination, and became a second store. Then a third. Before long, it had become a demand-driven phenomenon; everyone wanted a Starbucks in their local area."
A strategy that MacDonald's followed when they first came to Australia, so that now there is a MacDonald's just about everywhere.
However, Starbucks made a big mistake in Australia and particularly Melbourne by going big from the start:
"they immediately tried to impose themselves, with multiple store openings in every city. And in one of the stupidest moves I've ever seen, they decided that one of their very first stores would be in Lygon Street, Carlton.
"Now, Lygon Steet may have lost much of the lustre it once had, but it still holds a place in the collective consciousness of Melburnians. To a Melbourne coffee-drinker (which is pretty much every Melburnian with a mouth) coffee was born in Lygon Street, and this big Starbucks store with its big backlit corporate signage and its carefully arranged linger-all-morning sofas... well, it was an affront to the senses. A great big middle finger, raised imperiously in the general direction of your local café." John Mescall/ABC News
And so they failed. Most of their stores were closed, until the Withers family who own 7-Eleven bought the licence, and they have gradually reappeared. And yes, they do sell all those sugar heavy drinks such as the Pumpkin spice shown below, but they also are one of the claimants to having 'invented' if that's the right word - the flat white, which has become hugely popular around the world. The flat white having more coffee than a latte, and with foamy milk.
I'm not really sure how Starbucks is going now in Australia, but I did read that the Melbourne Central store has just reopened with a featured mural designed by an RMIT student:
"The collaboration is part of Starbucks’ international art programme, which commissions local artists to produce site-specific works for its stores."
Whether this is a Starbucks USA thing or an Australian one I do not know.
But back to 'geography is flavour'. It's astonishing really, in view of those words in Kate Atkinson's novel, how the whole world is now used to eating foods from everywhere else. Well almost. Does eating food from Thailand, India, Italy, Mexico, Greece, Japan and China - just to mention the cusines the citizens of Eltham can access at will - not to mention Britain and Australia of course, with touches of a host of other countries here and there - does eating these foods help us to understand the peoples of those lands - or at least feel warmer towards them?
When we came here in 1969 there was still a lingering distrust of anything Japanese. A hangover from WWII. Now the Australians flock to Japan for their holidays, have Japanese electronic devices and cars, and eat tons of sushi. Was it the sushi? Or the cars? Or just time?
Geography as a flavour, in a way, is something that drives the food industry in all its forms these days. Even the flavours of home via the increasing interest in indigenous foods, be it elderflowers in England or finger limes in Australia. Traditional foods are tourist attractions, and almost every day it seems to me that there is some new sauce or spicy paste from somewhere new. And still so many more to explore.
It also drives the growers to create new hybrids that will fit the geography of where they are, or start growing new things from far away but which will thrive in their own backyard. Britain is making wine these days and Australia is growing rice. Ok up there in the monsoon areas not elsewhere though.
Geography - and history too - also featured in Kate Atkinson's book - are two major subjects that influence just about everything, and which those in power seem to think are insignificant.
Maybe I should try a flat white.
YEARS GONE BY
September 30
2025 - Cookbook covers
2024 - Nothing
2023 - Two English experiments
2021 - Missing
2020 - Missing
2019 - Salted caramel
2018 - The ubiquitous dip
Comments