Daydream

Daydream
about a destination you’ve spent time exploring and
it’s often the delicacies that punctuated your days there that
evoke the most magical memories. Nutty, honeyed baklava in a
Gaziantep pastry shop. Tomatoes infused with sunshine eaten
straight from the paper bag in a south of France marketplace.
Silky, foraged mushrooms fried up in salty butter and piled onto
toast in a cosy Sussex cottage. And it works the other way round,
too: Peckham, for example, is where London-based West Africans go
when craving a taste of home, assured of finding fried plantain
just like mama used to make.

We’ve travelled to all of these places and more in this issue of
SUITCASE, meeting the people intent on preserving rich culinary
heritages the world over.

Pull up a seat and join us in raising a glass to artisan Mexican
distiller Félix Ángeles Arellanes, who determinedly makes
(excellent) mezcal the old-fashioned way in Santa Catarina Minas,
Oaxaca. Devour a feast of Niçoise specialities alongside
British-Indian writer Gurdeep Loyal, who finds surprising parallels
between Gallic and Punjabi cuisine as he grazes his way around the
iconic French city. Savour a visual feast courtesy of photographer
Mark Parren Taylor, who marvels at southeastern Turkey’s famed
pistachio harvest and showcases the colourful coastal communities
of Hong Kong.

Mark Sansom is our maitre d’ on a tasting tour of the ever-more
inventive ways in which restaurants and chefs are creating a
conversation around what appears on the menu in his feature on the
rise of experiential eating. Just, according to Heston Blumenthal,
don’t call it “molecular gastronomy”.

Then, there’s the revitalised Beirut farmers’ market Souk el
Tayeb, which became a lifeline for thousands in the wake of the
Lebanese capital’s 2020 port explosion, going above and beyond its
remit to introduce a younger generation to renowned native produce
and recipes at risk of being forgotten. And don’t miss an
exhilarating odyssey across the salt pans of Croatia’s spectacular
Dalmatian Coast, where prize-winning cheeses, plump olives and
revered cuts of meat all benefit from this ancient and fertile
landscape.

Hungry? Discover these stories and more in the autumn
issue, and find a SUITCASE amuse-bouche here. A smorgasboard of inspiration awaits.