DARK BLUEPRINTS by

ANCESTRAL FERMENTATION RECIPE CARD: ARI'S SINGAPOREAN PICKLED GREEN CHILIES (ARI JAMES)

taoleigh — 2023-10-10 22:10:03 UTC

This is a love letter to condiments. Growing up in Singapore, the array of spicy, salty, sweet, and sour condiments were staples in hawker culture. Just as every stall and cook has their own recipe for sambal, chili sauce, or soy sauce-vinegar mix, among many others, so do home chefs. My grandmother’s bright orange chili sauce made with kumquats and her fried ikan bilis and sambal are recipes I hold dear, and try to follow in the spirit of. I once asked her for a green chili recipe, but she only looked at me incredulously and said she’d never had to make them because they were so easy to find in Singapore. “Just go downstairs and get some,” she said to me in Cantonese. Unfortunately, that’s not always an option. This pickled green chili is an adaptation of recipes I scoured for at the height of the pandemic, when I was half a world away from Singapore. In many ways, this is my small recipe for a curative condiment, made to battle homesickness.

Needed:

- Sanitized glass container (pour boiling water into the container before packing with chillies)

- Green chillies (Any sort depending on your preferred spice level. Jalapeños can be used, for example. My personal favorite is bird's eye chilis)

- Vinegar (rice wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, or white vinegar will do)

- sugar (white or cane) or honey

- Salt

Recipe:

- First, wash and dry your chillies before slicing them to your preferred thickness. Feel free to deseed if you want to lower the spice level. Fill the sanitized jar with your chillies, leaving 1-2 inches from the top.

- Second, pour roughly enough vinegar to cover the chillies into a non-reactive saucepot. Add about 1 tablespoon of sugar and a pinch of salt, bring it to a boil, and let them dissolve into the solution.

- After the solution is fully mixed, pour it over the chillies in the jar. Let it cool and then place it in the fridge.

- The pickled chillies should be ready to eat in about an hour!

ANCESTRAL FERMENTATION RECIPE CARD: JAMAICAN 🇯🇲 PAO CAI (泡菜) BY TAO LEIGH GOFFE

taoleigh — 2023-10-10 22:10:12 UTC

Time
1 Week

Ingredients

Garlic

Ginger

Sichuan peppercorns
Scotch bonnet peppers

Thyme

Allspice

Chopped Vegetables

Water

Salt

Method
Wash hands with soap. In a sanitized glass container (pour boiling water into the container before packing with ingredients).

Sun-dry chopped vegetables (mustard greens, Toisan cauliflower, bok choy (popchow), green beans, carrots, cucumbers.

Add salt and seasonings / aromatics to the bottom of the jar.

Add vegetables, pack tightly in the jar.

Fill water to the top. You can add a fermentation weight or piece of cabbage to keep vegetables submerged.

Taste after one day to measure salt level, add water or salt if needed.

Pao cai (pickles) will be ready in one week. Refrigerate to stop fermentation when you have reached desired flavor.

ANCESTRAL FERMENTATION RECIPE CARD: MÓNICA'S MEXICAN NOPALES CRUDOS PARA DESAYUNAR (MONICA RAMIREZ BERNAL)

taoleigh — 2023-10-10 22:12:08 UTC

My grandfather was born in Tijuana, northern México. He was a disciplined yet caring man. He exercised everyday and was mindful with his nourishment, always trying to find the perfect balance in everything he did. He was skeptic when it came to medicine and believed there was a plant or natural root that could cure you better than any medicine was capable of. He was a notably healthy man, even in his old age. Everyday for breakfast he had nopales crudos con queso fresco . As a kid I remember opening his fridge to find an enormous container with the wonderful nopales. As an adult they became one of my favorite things to have in the morning. Nopales are more likely to be eaten once previously boiled, to make them softer, but I like to have them crudos, since they retain their crispy and earthy flavor.

Ingredients

Nopales (sin espinas)

White onion

Tomato

Cilantro

Queso fresco

Olive oil

Orégano

Pepper

Salt

Method

First, cut the nopales in small pieces and let them soak in water with salt for 30 minutes. This is crucial to remove some of the “baba” (nopales produce an abundant bitter saliva) and soften then.

After 30 minutes drain the water and the nopales saliva.

Mix the dried nopales with the sliced tomato, cilantro and onion.

Add plenty of olive oil and then some pepper and oregano.

Finally, you can add some queso fresco to add extra flavor.

Let them sit for a while to allow the flavors to incorporate.

CARMEN LOBUE - FILM DIRECTOR

taoleigh — 2023-10-10 22:15:16 UTC

ROUNDTABLE 2 - ANCESTRAL FERMENTATION AS PRESERVATION ACT - 3:35-4:00

taoleigh — 2023-10-10 22:16:57 UTC

https://www.kitchenmarronage.com/

The test kitchen of Afro-Asia Group (est. 2019), Kitchen Marronage (est. 2021) is an intellectual community for those interested in what Prof. Goffe describes as the “gastropoetics of Afro-Asia after the plantation.” Directed by Dr. Tao Leigh Goffe, Kitchen Marronage focuses on plantation foodways. In partnership with the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) in New York, collaborators will explore the kitchen as a site of resistance and cross-racial co-production. Cooking demonstrations, co-sponsored with cultural heritage museums, and other recorded events will form an open-access video archive. Kitchen Marronage is generously sponsored with financial support from the Mellon Foundation.

ANA PAULINA LEE

taoleigh — 2023-10-10 22:18:18 UTC

ROUNDTABLE 1 - AFRO/ INDIGENOUS /ASIAN METROPOLITAN SOUNDSCAPES AS PRESERVATION ACT - 2:45-3:30

taoleigh — 2023-10-10 22:18:30 UTC

https://www.digitaljunkanoo.com/

Founded in Fall 2021, Digital Junkanoo is the  collaborative curatorial and design studio of the Dark Laboratory directed by Tao Leigh Goffe. Digital Junkanoo dedicated to the carnival arts and ceremonies of the diaspora. The research and funding of artists is made possible with generous financial support from the Mellon Foundation and the Ruth Foundation for the Arts.

TAO LEIGH GOFFE - DARK BLUEPRINTS CONCEPT

taoleigh — 2023-10-10 22:24:00 UTC

Columbia Architecture and Professor Mpho Matsipa invited the Dark Laboratory and Professor Tao Leigh Goffe to activate an afternoon of multi-sensorial experiences as part of the course “Questions of Architecture, Form and Representation.” Dark Lab responded by expanding on Dark Blueprints as a concept explored in the academic article “Dirge: Black and Indigenous Hemispheric Burial.” Celebrating the duality of Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the context of Black Lives Matter, participants will create new critical blueprints for spatial knowledge that activates the senses of taste and hearing.

The activation will include an opening lecture, a sound bath, workshops on fermentation, and breakout group discussions. Dark Blueprints will conclude with a closing reception of food and music pairings.

TEAM BUILDING 4:00-4:30 (4th & 5TH FLOOR)

taoleigh — 2023-10-10 22:26:27 UTC

Design an Ancestral Recipe Card.*

1. Oysters
2. Clams
3. Theremin
4. Steel pan

*It does not need to relate to the object. Use the objects to engage sensorially to ground yourself and activate senses that don't tend to be engaged.

WRITE A PARAGRAPH EXPLAINING YOUR COLLECTIVE DESIGN PROCESS.

Design a Columbia Campus Party Flyer.

5. Harlem World (far future)
6. DJ Nap (far future)
7. The Royal Masters (deep past)
8. Walton High (deep past)

*Use the archival posters as inspiration. Include pertinent information about location and the structure of the sound. A discotheque? A dancehall?

WRITE A PARAGRAPH EXPLAINING YOUR COLLECTIVE DESIGN PROCESS.

NYC HIP HOP @ 50 DJ SET + TERANGA APPETIZERS (4:30-5:30) 100 LEVEL

taoleigh — 2023-10-10 22:28:18 UTC

DJ SET --> ALL NYC ARTISTS, ONE PER YEAR

TERANGA MENU
Jollof Rice

Black Eyed Pea Salad

Casamance Kale Salad

Kelewele Sweet Plantains

Grilled Chicken Suya

Roasted Moroccan Salmon

SAUCES

Kani

Rof

Moyo

JUICES

Ginger

Bouye

Bissap

Ginger

Dark Blueprints: An Activation

taoleigh — 2023-10-10 23:55:05 UTC

VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE: HAWKER CENTRE - SINGAPORE

taoleigh — 2023-10-11 03:54:04 UTC

Dating to the 19th century, hawker culture in Singapore originated from early migrants selling fast, affordable meals on pavements, in town squares and parks – wherever they could set up their makeshift stalls. Fast-forward a couple of centuries and the Singapore government has sought to bring hawkers under one roof. Hawker centres are open kitchen where customers can watch how their food is being prepared and served.

VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE: MEXICO CITY - TIANGUIS

taoleigh — 2023-10-11 03:56:45 UTC

A tianguis is an open-air market or bazaar that is traditionally held on certain market days in a town or city neighborhood in Mexico and Central America. This bazaar tradition has its roots well into the pre-Hispanic period and continues in many cases essentially unchanged into the present day. The word tianguis comes from tiyānquiztli or tianquiztli in Classical Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec Empire. In rural areas, many traditional types of merchandise are still sold, such as agriculture supplies and products as well as modern, mass-produced goods. In the cities, mass-produced goods are mostly sold, but the organization of tianguis events is mostly the same

VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE - CHINESE SMALL RETAIL GROCERY STORE - CARIBBEAN

taoleigh — 2023-10-11 04:10:13 UTC

Variety stores owned and operated by people of Chinese ancestry in the Caribbean.

Reading List

taoleigh — 2023-10-11 04:37:44 UTC

“The City Born Great,” a short story by N.K. Jemisin

“The Plot of her Undoing” Saidiya Hartman

“Listening Underwater: Silence as Fermentation,” Tao Leigh Goffe

QR CODE - MAP to PADLET

taoleigh — 2023-10-11 14:04:41 UTC