Food: salted Ringa dipped in fish oil, Aish Baladi bread, spring onion
Dietary/ allergy information: contains fish

The work incorporates a traditional recipe made using Ringa (in the form of a salted fish); prepared a day after Easter to welcome spring by Copts. The oily fillet kept inside fish oil is stuffed within Aish Baladi Bread (Egyptian Bread) and consumed with spring onion – without any added spices. The recipe, indigenous to Coptic Christians was served as bite size sandwiches in oyster shells. The image used as a tablescape was made in Machua Patti, a fish market in Kolkata that showcases a large chopped fish native to Indian fresh waters. I am interested in looking at the transition of an animal that gets transformed into food through human hierarchy and how recipes create cross-cultural knowledge and become markers of tradition.

Ringa and Fish Archives, was made in collaboration with Andrew Riad in response to Egyptifying Petit Fours and Preserving Coptic Traditions as part of What The Food at Alserkal Avenue, Dubai.

Appearance: What The Food by Alserkal Avenue, Alserkal Arts Foundation, Dubai, UAE, 2023