Eating a Fish Head, Learning About Seeds and Having a Spiritual Re-centering at The Oxford Food Symposium
I’ve been experiencing moments in my career that I find disheartening. It could be the common mid-life crisis. Now that my career is as old as a senior millennial (31 years and counting), I continue to have many, been there, done that moments. But I think it’s more than that.
The generation gap that separates seasoned marketers, entrepreneurs, authors, makers, etc. from the “Instagram influencer” widens each year. I do enjoy the democratization of the sharing economy and the access it provides to learning about food culture. But my personal experience within the social media “documentation” of food exploring, aka my late night Instagram feed check before bed, often leaves me asking the question, “Who cares?”
It’s post after post of Ramen shots and well-garnished cocktails discovered in Iceland or some dive bar in Queens.
I find it soul crushing that experts who take years and years to hone a craft sometimes struggle to pay their bills because they haven’t mastered the art of content strategy and social media. Now, I realize the irony here. Some of my own expertise focuses on helping clients navigate the challenge of becoming a leader and building out a platform and certainly our work involves content strategy. Yes, I am the kettle calling the pot black. But….
I found an antidote to my social media depression:
An invitation to attend the Oxford Food Symposium by its Director, Ursula Heinzelmann, (one of the greats!) which led to an incredibly healing three days being in scholarship with 230 experts and enthusiasts. It was a full-on immersion into knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Context, history, questions, stories and community took center place. Complex subjects and histories were explored through rigorous research. I was honored to be learning and sharing ideas with this group.
I didn’t realize that I was having a deep spiritual re-centering until about a month after the conference.
The Oxford Food Symposium is the longest running food conference in the world and it’s designed to create an all-inclusive academic sharing of ideas around an annual theme. This year’s theme was SEEDS.
During the conference I felt open and happy in a way I haven’t for years. There was a purity within the exchanges. We were free from business, sales, marketing and brands. We were a tribe where everyone at the table was a Shaman.
The most remarkable moment was eating my first whole fish head. London-based Ukranian Chef Olia Hercules prepared a highly fragranced broth (mostly dill, millet and garlic lyok) and served the humble head as the main star. My dining companions were Elizabeth Hoover, Manning Asst Professor of American Studies of Brown University and Sean Sherman, CEO and Founder of The Sioux Chef and they approached the fish heads with a fluency that was inspiring.
Elizabeth became my fish head-eating mentor. She taught me to tackle the eye as the first bite since it’s the most coveted piece. I had to force myself to pick it out of socket and place it into my mouth. The first sensation was the eye-ball casing. It was like accidentally getting a piece of saran wrap in your mouth. Then I tasted the gelatinous material of the eye and finally spit out the hard white center which isn’t edible.
Next to me I watched Elizabeth as she consumed her fish head like it was the taste of young love. There was speed, slurping and gusto and then pop there was a super tiny pile of bones on her side plate. Every ounce was devoured.
The extraordinary meals and kinship at the table were memorable but the real treat was absorbing the 20 minute talks on a wide variety of topics related to seeds. (Each symposiast gets access to the full academic papers prior to the Symposium). Highlights for me were learning about the Svalbalt Global Seed Vault, the history of buckwheat in Brittany and the tradition of coriander in beer. Shameless client plug here – I also loved David Asher’s presentation on natural cheese making.
There was true beauty in the slowing down, in the old-fashioned exploration of a subject, a question, original research and the sharing of the findings. Now that I realize there is a place for me to “worship” and have fellowship such as the Oxford Symposium, I have lightened up a bit about my prejudice against the endless sea of photos and visuals celebrating food. The most powerful impact of the Symposium on me has been a reawakening of my own youthful energy and joy for what got me into this whole thing in the beginning, my love of food.