‘Migrations: all our voices’ – New events series from OCC
The launch – a dinner with Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC and Romy Gill MBE
17th June 2019, Carousel, Marylebone, London
New events series from the Oxford Cultural Collective will celebrate diversity of UK food culture.
To book your tickets for the launch, follow this link.
It is exciting to witness the ongoing revival of Britain’s indigenous food culture, but what makes the country’s food scene truly special is its cultural diversity. In our towns and cities we have an extraordinary array of restaurants serving food from all around the world. Talented food writers and broadcasters fuel our enthusiasm by sharing insights into the history and development of many national cuisines.
This new series from the Oxford Cultural Collective will celebrate the positive role of generations of migrants who have shaped the UK’s rich and diverse culture, which finds expression through food. Crucially, at a time of growing uncertainty for many in minority groups resulting from political and constitutional upheaval, this will be a hard-hitting series that stimulates meaningful reflection and discussion on the place of migrants in society.
Our contributors will be acclaimed chefs, food writers, journalists and broadcasters, whose work has established them as prominent cultural ambassadors.
Migrations: all our voices, will be launched on 17th June 2019 at Carousel, London’s creative hub that is home to an ever-changing line-up of guest chef collaborations, workshops, exhibitions and events. The launch will feature dinner prepared by Romy Gill MBE, Chef Proprietor of Romy’s Kitchen in Thornbury. One of the British restaurant sector’s rising stars, Romy is known for marrying the flavours of West Bengal with high quality British produce.
Our pre-dinner speakers will focus on the value that cultural diversity brings to British society and on the need for us to break down barriers and promote understanding and respect between different communities. The speakers are Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, a powerful advocate for the interests of those in migrant communities, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, one of the UK’s most respected human rights lawyers and Donald Sloan, Chair of the Oxford Cultural Collective.
Full details of all events in the series will be published soon.
We hope you can join us for our launch with Baroness Warsi and Romy Gill. Tickets cost £75 per guest, to include a drinks reception and a glorious Indian banquet with wine. To book your place, follow this link.
The menu
Samosa Chaat
Spicy Crab on Sourdough with Tamarind Chutney
Kerala-style Goat Curry with Jeera Rice and Salad
Pomegranate and Chaat Masala Sorbet with Beetroot Doughnuts
Baroness Helena Kennedy QC
Helena Kennedy QC is one of the UKs most distinguished lawyers. She has practiced at the Bar for over 40 years in the field of criminal law and has conducted many of the leading cases in those years, including the Balcombe Street Siege, the Brighton bombing trial, the Guildford Four Appeal, the European Union Sub-committee on Justice issues. Michael Bettany Espionage case, the bombing of the Israeli embassy, the Jihadist fertiliser bomb plot, and the transatlantic bomb plot. She has championed law reform for women, especially relating to sexual and domestic violence and developed the defence of Battered Women’s syndrome in the British courts.
She has chaired the British Council and the UK Human Genetics Commission. She has been a member of the House of Lords for over 20 years, where she chairs The European Union Sub-committee on Justice issues. She is chair of Justice, the British arm of the International Commission of Jurists. She is the chair of the Booker Prize Foundation. She has stepped down as Principal of Mansfield college, Oxford and become the new Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University. She has recently taken over as the new Director of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute.
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi
A lawyer, a businesswoman, a campaigner and a cabinet minister, Sayeeda Warsi has had many roles, but she is best known for being the first Muslim to serve in a British cabinet. In August 2014 she resigned from Government citing the Government’s “morally indefensible” policy on Gaza.
In 2007 she was elevated to the House of Lords aged 36, making her the youngest peer in Parliament. Later that year she travelled to Sudan and famously helped to secure the release of the British teacher Gillian Gibbons who was on trial for blasphemy.
From 2007 to 2010 she served in the Shadow Cabinet as Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action. In 2010 she was appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron as Minister without Portfolio and Chairman of the Conservative Party. In Government she led the largest ministerial delegation to the Vatican, famously declared that Islamophobia had “passed the dinner table test” and established the Remembering Srebrenica programme.
Sayeeda is Chair of the Baroness Warsi Foundation and a Trustee of the Savayra Foundation. Sayeeda is Pro Vice Chancellor at the University of Bolton, an Advisor to Georgetown University Washington DC and Visiting Professor at St Marys – the oldest Catholic university in the UK.
Baroness Warsi has consistently been voted one of the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the world and in 2018 was voted in a Sky News poll as of the top 50 women to have had a big impact on Britain as we know it today. Baroness Warsi’s first book, The Enemy Within: A Tale of Muslim Britain has been billed as “a vital book at a critical time…a seminal text on British Muslims”
Romy Gill MBE
Romy Gill opened her restaurant, Romy’s Kitchen, in September in Thornbury. She is one of the few female Indian chef/owners on the UK restaurant scene and she was appointed an MBE in the Queen’s 90th birthday honours list in 2016. Her style of Indian cooking is very different from that found at the majority of Indian restaurants in the UK. She avoids the use of unnatural food colourings and is a fan of combining Indian and British cuisines.
Romy contributes regularly to food publications such as Crumbs, Olive, Delicious, Saveur and Food52, and has featured in The Guardian, where she had a residency in April 2016, The Observer, The Telegraph and Evening Standard. In 2017, Romy travelled to India with Suitcase Magazine, where she explored and wrote articles on Ladakh and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and writes regularly for them.
Romy has been a judge for the BBC Radio 4 Food and Farming Awards and has made many media appearances including on Saturday Live, BBC Woman’s Hour, BBC Asian Network and 5Live She has also appeared on Celebrity MasterChef and The Hairy Bikers in their Comfort Food series.
Her first cookbook, Zaika: Vegan Recipes from India, will be published in September 2019.
She is Slow Food UK Chef Alliance member and cooked for England at Terra Madre Salone del Gusto, Turin, Italy in Sep, 2016.
Romy works with Frank Water Charity and Action Against Hunger Charity raising money which supplies clean drinking water in India and provide food and skills to people in Bangladesh, Burma and India.