Summary: <a href="https://www.refugeevoicesscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/kuche-logo.jpg"></a><br> <br> Hello and welcome to the Refugee Voices Scotland podcast. This episode features Küche, a social start-up which creates socially engaged one-off food-led events and community dinners that discuss the anthropology of food.<br> <br> Feeling hungry already? I spoke to Deborah May, founder of Küche. Stay tuned for details of how you can take part in Küche events at the end of the podcast.<br> <br> Here's the transcript<br> -0-<br> K: I am here with Deborah May from Küche. Hi Deborah, how are you? <br> <br> D: Good pronunciation.<br> <br> K: The pronunciation was right? Alright, Küche, Küche, Küche!<br> <br> K: Deborah, tell me a bit about Küche. <br> <br> D: So Küche started up in 2016. We started with an event called <a href="http://www.kueche.co.uk/syrian-supper-club">Syrian Supper Club</a>. We are a multicultural food-lead enterprise. So we work in collaboration with multicultural cooks. And we've got a collective of 16 cooks and cuisines and we do a programme of events. So every month we host an event and the idea is that each event works with a different chef and looks at a particular cuisine, but also by working with that cuisine we try to bring in some kind of conversation, a different topic. It might be political or it might have an activist stance or it might be historical. <br> <br> So, an example might be: we did an event called an <a href="http://www.kueche.co.uk/an-anti-colonial-menu">anti-colonial menu</a>, which looked at food and its links to the transatlantic slave trade. We had the speaker Marenka (Thompson-Odlum) from the Caribbean so she was great. So yeah, it's just I guess using food as a tool to start conversations. And I think with a kind of globalisation and a diversifying population in Glasgow it is just a really useful way to think about our links internationally. And although other countries and people can seem far away, we just want to bring them closer. And food’s always a nice sharing space and we try and create a nice environment for hospitality and a safe space for everyone. <br> <br> We also do some catering. So we've got a nice beautiful group of four women particularly from Algeria, Syria, Morocco and Nigeria and we do quite a bit of catering for that. But we’re growing so we're always up for trying out new things and working with different art forms and starting new conversations.<br> <br> K: And we’ll put full contact details in our show-notes but it’s kueche.co.uk?<br> <br> D: Yes. So it’s <a href="http://www.kueche.co.uk">www.kueche.co.uk</a><br> <br> K: Deborah what's on your mind? <br> <br> D: That’s a nice question. There’s a lot of boring things on my mind. <br> <br> It's so exciting starting something like Küche and meeting all these brilliant people who are intrinsic to what we do. And I guess sometimes what's on my mind is lots of little things like paying invoices. And I've got GDPR on my mind just now as well and yeah, lots of little tasks, but then also thinking about future events. That's something I that I would like to would like to be on my mind more. Curating that and thinking about new conversations to start up.<br> <br> K: In general are your events in Scotland?<br> <br> D: Yes, all our events are in Glasgow although it’s something I've always wanted to keep open, to work across Scotland. I've always wanted Küche to go on residencies. <br> <br> I think a big part of the way we are is like this idea of being quite nomadic and working across the city. That’s why we do pop-up events and I like the idea of having a full geographical reach. So I would be really interested in maybe working in different areas, particularly maybe in rural areas. So if you know anyone who wants to have Küche do a residency in a local area or in a venue.<br> <br>
