Tag Archives: multi-cultural

If you are feeling peckish in Peckham …

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GENERALLY, I AM NOT A FAN of food courts. Many of them in England are merely a collection of branches of well-known fast-food chains (such as KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Subway, and Burger King). A notable exception to this is a food court in Trinity Market in Hull, which visited in April 2025. On 9 May 2025, we visited Peckham in south London, having just viewed an exhibition in nearby Camberwell.

While strolling along Peckham’s busy Rye Lane, we came across the entrance to Rye Lane Market. After entering it and walking along an arcade lined with shops, we arrived in a large, covered area filled with food stalls: a food court. Unlike many other food courts, the food outlets were not branches of well-known chains. Instead, there were stalls catering to the multi-ethnic local population. We sat down at a table that was surrounded by stalls serving Mexican, Carribean, Colombian, and other many cuisines. We ordered the set lunch offered by a small Peruvian kitchen. As first courses, we ate cold boiled potatoes dressed in a red pepper flavoured mayonnaise and a delicately flavoured beef soup. These were followed by a fried rice dish containing chicken, pork, and smoked sausages, and another consisting of a whole fish beautifully fried, served with lentils, rice, and a salad containing onions, lime juice, coriander, and tomatoes. Freshly prepared and reasonably priced, everything was delicious.

There were more stalls serving food from other countries, mostly Latin American and African. One stall offered a range of vegetarian Indian dishes, including a snack, dabeli, that is popular in Kachchh (once an independent state, and now part of Gujarat). The lady working there told us that she is from Rajkot in Gujarat. When we mentioned to her that we have always thought that dabeli is a dish from Kachchh, she said it was Gujarati, but added that:

“It does not matter because the people of Kachchh are our brothers”.

Our first visit to Rye Lane Market’s food court has whet our appetites for further visits. There are so many enticing dishes on offer that I feel sure that we will venture across the Thames more often to sample the fare offered in that food court.

A joyous façade on the Tate Gallery

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HERE IS SOMETHING WORTH seeing if you can. It is on display at the Tate Britain until the 31st of January 2021 and you need not enter the gallery building to see it. Originally created to celebrate Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Light, in late 2020, this is a wonderfully joyous celebration of both Indian and British culture in light and colour.

The artist Chila Kumari Singh Burman was born in Bootle, near Liverpool, daughter of Punjabi Hindu parents. She graduated at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1982 after having also studied at Southport College of Art and Leeds Polytechnic.

Burman has temporarily transformed the main (Thames facing) entrance of the Tate Britain, its staircase and pillared portico into a pleasing and often humorous riot of colour that makes many references to her upbringing and India’s culture and mythology. To do this, she has made use of coloured lights, neon tubing lights, coloured photographs, and decorative printed coloured paper. The Tate’s website (https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/chila-kumari-singh-burman) describes Burman’s installation, “Remembering a Brave New World” as follows:

“This magnificent installation, remembering a brave new world, combines Hindu mythology, Bollywood imagery, colonial history and personal memories. Inspired by the artist’s childhood visits to the Blackpool illuminations and her family’s ice-cream van, Burman covers the façade of Tate Britain with vinyl, bling and lights. She changes the figure of Britannia, a symbol of British imperialism, into Kali, the Hindu goddess of liberation and power. The many illuminated deities, shapes and words are joined by Lakshmibai, the Rani (queen) of Jhansi. Lakshmibai was a fierce female warrior in India’s resistance to British colonial rule in the 19th century.”

This description provides a fair summary of what is to be seen. It does not mention the entertainingly decorated autorickshaw (three-wheeler) that was on display in the vestibule of the gallery when we visited. The doorways are also worth examining because they are lined with images taken from the Amar Chitra Katha’s comic books that are published in India to teach Indian children about both Hindu mythology and Indian history. Our daughter, whose background, is both Indian and European, used to enjoy reading these.  Despite what the Tate has written, the artwork does not come across as polemical or anti-British, at least not to me. On the contrary, the artist appears to be enjoying her joint cultural heritage: both British and Indian. My wife said of the installation:

“If this is multi-culturalism, let’s have more and more of it!”

However, words are quite insufficient to describe the visual impact of this wonderful spectacle. It has to be seen to be believed and enjoyed. We saw it during daylight when it can be enjoyed in fine detail, but I imagine that seeing it after dark would also be quite magical.