Arts Catalyst introduced us to Fran Gallardo,a phd candidate at Queen Mary’s researching the Thames Estuary and it’s connection to food, language and industry. We talked about smuggling research into a publication through the form of a recipe book through extensive use of footnotes.
Fran’s research is fascinating, and he makes it ingestible, combining foraging with vaping, or shrimping with global logistics and slave labour. Talking dirty is a book of We conceived of the research as a recipe book, to make it an active thing, the format is based on theLadybird book series, a dicactic series that instructs, collects and informs. In making the book several walks along the estuary were made, mudlarking as a method of researching the contemporary industrial waste, the Pantone colour of the ever present mud, (the least used pantone reference! according to one source) and contact was made with typographer Robert Green who has been redrawing the Doves type – notoriously bequeathed to the Thames by Cobden Sanderson and fished out by police divers on Robert’s instruction. So we got quite muddy but ate well.
The outcome is a recipe book it is closer to Heston than Delia, as such one might not be expected to make the recipes (Mud Cola, Slave Shrimp) but the invitation is there as is the critical suggestion that we are aware of what we consume and the relationship we have to what we eat and how we dispose of our waste. The book is published by Arts Catalyst and supported by the Wellcome Trust

From the Arts Catalyst Website:

Talking Dirty: Tongue First! Recipes from the Mouth of the Thames is an ecopolitical recipe book by artist Fran Gallardo and Claudia Lastra, commissioned by Arts Catalyst. The recipes were researched, tested and compiled by Gallardo in collaboration with people on the Essex coast of the Thames Estuary. Through a “tongue first” approach, the book explores the tastes, ingredients, and changing ecology and sociopolitics of estuary.The book contains instructions for sourcing ingredients along the Thames Estuary, testing them for pollutants and cooking with them: Grey Mullet and Hair Soy Sauce to Inhaling Fogs and Airs of the Thames Estuary, Vertical Commons Salad (including arsenic) with Blackberry Vinegar and The Invasive Flood (Semi-Invasive Species Soup).

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/25237