Homemade

Homemade is part of a National Lottery Heritage Funded project which uses heritage as a tool to help foster integration and greater understanding of Bristol between its new and existing inhabitants. The project is also aimed at developing opportunity, experience and skills for employment for clients of the migrant support and integration organisation, ACH. This exhibition celebrates Homemade and the relationships we have built through the project.

Food is everywhere: in our café, in our shows, our surroundings, our heritage, and in the heritage of everyone who calls this city home. It connects Bristol Old Vic to the city, the country, and the rest of the world. Over the last two years, it has been connecting us to a community of women who have gathered at the theatre to collaborate, learn and share.

Nestled in the Theatre’s Pit Corridor, the exhibition features items from our partners at Bristol Archives as well as objects and stories from the group. How has Bristol’s food scene become the delicious melting pot that it is? What can this building tell us about it? What are the different foods, smells and sounds that have strong associations for us? How, when talking about this, can we find ourselves connected to people with entirely different life experiences and frames of reference?

The exhibition also includes a Listening Station where visitors can get a taste of the stories and spaces that inspired our connections.

The exhibition is fully accessible to all visitors and audience members, and open for anyone to explore throughout the day.

We are Mukhalal Marinade: housewives, mothers and daughters, hardworking women who are friends, and friends who cook.

Mukhalal Marinade is a brand of pickling spices inspired by our cultural heritage, as well as our time spent together sharing tea and cake, learning about plants that grow in Bristol City Centre, growing our own food on King Street, and playing around with flavours in the Bristol Old Vic kitchen.

The Recipes

Follow one of these recipes to make your own jar of Mukhalal Marinade, or use them to inspire your own recipe design.

Before making your pickle you must sterilize your jar

1. Wash the jars and their lids with hot soapy water and rinse well

2. Place the lids in boiling wate

3. Preheat your oven to 200-275 degrees Fahrenheit

4. Place the jars on a baking rack

5. Bake the jars for 10-20 minutes.

6. Remove the jars from the oven and let them cool completely.

Once jars come out of the over, only touch the insides with sterilized equipment. You can sterilize equipment in boiling water or the microwave.

Most of these recipes use raw ingredients unless otherwise stated. Always boil the water/ vinegar solution first with your spice mix.

Homemade was curated by Harriet Welsh with graphics and design by Ellie Cassidy and sound design by Sophia Oriogun-Williams. It is part of a series of temporary exhibitions which share experiences and learning from our National Lottery Heritage Fund Project, Unscripted: a Performative History of Bristol, Bristolians and Bristol Theatre.

All our heritage work is made possible thanks to National Lottery players.