This week, for our collaborative ‘architecture of food’ issue with chlorophyll magazine, we have a work of magical realism on inconvenient truths by Margaux Vialleron, as well as a poem by Apoorva Sripathi on the meaning and making of yogurt. Both pieces were published by chlorophyll and can be read in full on their site. Next week’s essay will be published by FFJ.
The Whistleblower
By Margaux Vialleron
On a western island lived a woman who was said to be older than anyone else. She walked on the balls of her feet, and her hair was as long as she was tall, dyed in green. She spoke in lullabies. She was a healer and a sea forager, grilling clams and oysters for her supper, painting their shells, which she crafted into jewellery before selling the wearables at the weekly market. She was a cold fire whom the islanders had nicknamed Mum. She bothered folks with her unkempt appearance and her memory that never forgot; she was notoriously unforgiving, but she was loved. Mum was good fortune.
Until the morning when a strange man landed on the most western shore of the island. His body was lengthy and bony like a broom, and his hair was straight, thick, and rough, the colour of wheatfields in autumn. Locals nicknamed the solitary lad the Feather Man. He was spotted hovering on the edge of the cliffs often, his gait awkward and near gale speed; birds quarrelled above his head. Everyone in town talked about the Feather Man, but few folks had met him in the flesh…
READ THE REST OF THE STORY ON CHLOROPHYLL.
Margaux Vialleron is a French-born, Glasgow-based interdisciplinary writer. They’re the author of the novels Breaststrokes and The Yellow Kitchen, short stories, and the newsletter The Onion Papers, which explores the various aspects of life, from literature to cooking, language, philosophy and seasonal patterns. Find her at @margauxvlln or margauxvialleron.com.
Culture Club
By Apoorva Sripathi
READ THE REST OF THE POEM ON CHLOROPHYLL.
Apoorva Sripathi is a writer, editor, poet, and artist from Chennai, now based in London. Her projects include shelf offering, an archive of food, art, memory, history, and politics and the grounded report, a repository of her writing, art, and everything else. She is the co-founder and editor of CHEESE, the magazine of culture, and her writing has been published in Kinfolk, Vittles, Wellcome Collection, and Feminist Food Journal. She is also the co-founder and co-editor of chlorophyll.
Catch up with the previous pieces from the ‘architecture of food’ issue:
How much of what we believe we're creating is actually something we've learned to preserve and pass down? ✨