Giant’s Castle Feasting : Edible Offerings by Culinary Artists
No folkloric festival is complete without a feast, and the celebratory reopening of Giant’s Caste Maze was no exception. Incredible culinary artists Poppy Litchfield and Anaïs Serres created labyrinth inspired food and drink to revive our weary pilgrims after their journey out to the newly restored labyrinth.
Anaïs and Poppy serving delights from a lichen-covered rock, close to the labyrinth on Salakee Down.
We were lucky enough to meet Poppy and Anaïs while we were all studying MA Contemporary Art Practice at the Royal College of Art together two years ago. One of the best things about this course was that it attracted artist working across a broad range of fascinating disciplines, which opened our eyes to new ways of art making. Poppy Litchfield is a film-maker and professional chef who’s work is informed by her background in psychology. She often brings cooking and eating into her work, creating and sharing food as an art practice. Anaïs Serres’s artwork is extremely multidisciplinary, creating using writing, performance, music, and installation; with a background in philosophy and literature, Anaïs is concerned with animal stories and liminal spaces, with a particular interest in the sea. We knew from the beginning that we wanted to collaborate with them for this event, as their work and vision would bring so much richness to the day.
The most beautiful mazey morsels made and served by Poppy and Anaïs at the celebration: spiralling gingerbread biscuits and soda-bread loaves flavoured with freshly collected sea-weed.
For this event Poppy and Anaïs created and shared culinary offerings which honoured the uniqueness of the maze site, our newly-created labyrinth law, and the ritualistic pilgrimage we were all embarking on together on that day. This felt like a picnic of sanctified foods - loaves of bread, consecrated wine, communion biscuits, healing tea - but made delicious and sumptuous: the spiritual and etherial rooted in the body and the senses.
Fig leaf wine and snail-shaped soda bread wrapped in muslin cloth on a bed of heather.
Though the food they created invoked ideas of spiritual nourishment and votive offering, it also enhanced the otherworldliness of the event. Giant’s Castle Maze was supposedly created by fairies, and there are countless tales of fairy feasts that appear in wisht places during liminal times, like under the full moon or on the eve of a particular festival day. Enticed by these supernatural beings, mortal humans are persuaded to partake of the magical food and drink, only to find themselves bewitched into a different realm, where time passes strangely and they forget who they are. Beside this labyrinth, on the heathland at Salakee Down and served by beautiful blue-faced sprites - this feast took on a similarly spell-binding flavour, adding to the transcendental spirit of the event.
Spiral and seaweed soda bread loaves.
Anaïs Serres in their squid-inspired robe, serving seaweed snacks.
Something that unites all our art practices is a love of costume and dressing up - creating and embodying absurd, unearthly characters. To present their feast to the gathered participants, Poppy and Anaïs painted their faces blue, and donned magical-looking robes. When the participants were greeted by these blue-faced beings, their slippage into the world of fairies was even easier to achieve.
Poppy Litchfield awaiting pilgrims at the centre of Giant’s Castle Maze.
Gingerbread biscuits with imprinted spirals.
This food and drink also made reference the cycle of the year, reflecting the natural abundance of Scilly in summertime where edible plants flourish. When Poppy and Anaïs arrived on the islands we took them on several foraging walks along the coast paths to gather inspiration and ingredients. The fennel was particularly abundant and they made the flowers into delicious tea, and a trip to Pelistry Bay at low tide provided all the seaweed we needed.
Fennel tea and spiral biscuits.
Participants of the event enjoyed these delicious offerings as they walked the paths of the re-opened labyrinth, which deepened the enjoyment of the event for all. For us, it is important to centre generosity in our art practice, and collaborating with Poppy and Anaïs really made this possible - enhancing the open-hearted and bountiful atmosphere of the day.
A delectable fairy feast - so fitting for the enchanted landscape of Salakee Down.
Poppy Litchfield sits at the centre of Giant’s Castle Maze with her spiralling soda bread and snail-shell biscuits.
