Rewilding the Kitchen

Aish Baladi, Egyptian flatbread, otherwise translated as The Life of my Country (my Land) enunciates the legacy and lexicon of an Egyptian identity and diet in all its spectrums and nuances, encompassing all of Egypt, from ancient to modern, while being the signifier for political and social unrest and change.

The Life of my Country (my Land) invites the viewer to break off bread and dip it into black tea. By dipping the bread a gesture is imposed onto the viewer by kneeling and waiting for the bread to soak up the tea, demanding the holder to kneel and wait before tasting sweetness. Aish Baladi coupled with black tea is the most fundamental and simple pairing in the Egyptian diet for nourishment and satiation, requiring basic commodities like bread and water.

The Life of my Country (my Land) invokes the history of Aish Baladi in Egypt, from its birth through the Emmer crop, to the 1977 Bread Riots, and until today as a point of departure to consider acts of labour and care. The Egyptian flatbread presented is a labour of love made by the hands of Andrew and his mother. As such, break bread and eat, break a mouth

full of bread.

Egyptifying Petit Fours

Andrew Riad created an atmosphere in the kitchen which became a cross between a Coptic church and his mother’s kitchen. Participants created Petit Fours, an Egyptian cookie with a colonial legacy. By allowing participants to sculpt, shape and colour these cookies freely, the act of decolonisation and resistance began. Kevin Jones furthered this by prompting participants to think about resistance and decolonisation whilst personifying chosen foods in their writing.

What the Food | Tea Party

Participating in Alserkal Avenue’s What The Food, Farah Nasrawi, kōl, Luchie Suguitan, Bhavika Bhatia, Richi Bhatia, Andrew Riad and Nahla Tabbaa (with Moza Almatrooshi, Salma Serry and Namliyeh) elaborated on Andrew’s previous workshop, Egyptifying Petit Fours. The tea-party was curated to activate a site for collective reflections and informal discussions around an imagined tea party in an attempt to decolonise the ‘tea party’ as we know it. The tablescape was an imagined menu of drinks and snacks absent of ever being colonised.

His choice of baked goods paid homage to Le Chantilly Restaurant from Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt supported by home-baked Egyptian pastries from the Riad family and LaReen Sweets in Al Barsha, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Le Chantilly is not only a Swiss restaurant and bakery, rather, an ubiquitous anchor at the heart of the Heliopolis district in Cairo. The bakery opened its doors in the early 1950s under the name, Homemade Cack owned by Mr. Bully, the secretary of the last king of Egypt, King Farouk. Following his death, the Swiss restaurant took over in the mid 70s. The Swiss Egyptian Restaurants Corporation was founded in 1976 and boasts restaurants across Egypt (Le Château, Le Chalet, Le Chesa, and Le Chantilly). Their objective is to “merge the charm of Cairo with the coziness and cuisine of the Swiss Alps for an unforgettable experience”.

Andrew Riad, within the culinary realm, turns to food as an artistic and poetic medium to [re]imagine and resurrect. He is also Kahk you’d serve to break fast with on Eid day: Coptic, sweet, and close to crumble.

Andrew is a Coptic Nubian Egyptian artist and poet exploring the intersection of poetry, research, and law. His projects are research-based and -driven, but they also mythologize life in an attempt to configure an opportunity for play and imagination. For him, language is the experience of sound and ritual, symbol, and gesture. As such, it is a site of resurrection and imagination.

Riad is a graduate of New York University Abu Dhabi (May, 2022) with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Literature and Creative Writing and Legal Studies. He is currently a recipient of the Salama Bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Emerging Artists Fellowship and a recent alumnus of SAMT Alternative School. His work has been shown in Alserkal Avenue (Dubai), Bayt Al Mamzar (Dubai), New York University Abu Dhabi, as well as published internationally in Mizna Arab Art Journal Summer Issue 23.1, including other regional and international titles.

@andrewriad

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The Life of my Country(my Land)

Egyptifying Petit Fours

What the Food | Tea Party

About Andrew Riad

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The Life of my Country(my Land)

Egyptifying Petit Fours

What the Food | Tea Party

About Andrew Riad

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