The Last Grain Race Supper Club: Seeds of Time

About

"Imagine a fantastic voyage from Norway to Istanbul in an old wooden sailing boat built for arctic voyaging. This boat is carrying an ingeniously crafted mini-boat like a chalice containing a mere handful of old wheat and rye seeds found in a museum in St Petersburg in Russia and in the roof beams of a sauna in northern Norway ... we can speak of this voyage as return or a re-tracing of a very ancient route combining human and non-human initiative by which wheat was domesticated from the wild and then slowly made its way through gifts, trade, winds, and sea currents, from the highly cultured Middle East to the barbarians of the north.”

- Michael Taussig for Flatbread Society, Seeds of Time

Developed in collaboration with e5 bakehouse in Hackney and artist Amy Franceschini of the Futurefarmers collective, this special supper club is part of Futurefarmers Flatbread Society Seed Journey project, which moves people, ideas and seeds upon an 1895 sailboat, built by shipwright Colin Archer, from Oslo to Istanbul. Between September 2016 and November 2017 an international crew and a selection of ancient grains (that have been cultivated in Oslo) will return to their “center of origin”, the Fertile Crescent. 

Through what we eat and discuss, this supper club will offer new insights into the contemporary cultures and politics of seed and grains, with invited guests including Mike Ambrose, Senior Scientist in Crop Genetics from the John Innes Centre in Norwich with Andrew Forbes, founder of Brockwell Bake, who will discuss different approaches to seed diversity.

Guests will be hosted in the e5 bakehouse Millhouse and be provided with a three-course meal.