Monday 4th May 2026
Blog Page 784

Trump to visit Oxford

Eve Webster
-
14
Trump to visit Oxford

Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Oxfordshire during his upcoming tour of Britain, according to national reports.

His three-day visit to the UK is “likely” to include a meal at Winston Churchill’s birthplace, Blenheim Palace, on the 12th of July.

Trump’s advisers are expected to visit the UK within the next few weeks to finalise the itinerary of the controversial trip.

The visit will be the first the president has made to the UK since his election of to office in November 2016. The tour will not be afforded the full ceremony of an official state visit.

Due to the large anti-Trump protest scheduled to take place in London during the visit, the president’s time in the capital will be limited.

53,000 people are expected to attend the protest against the visit.

According to reports, 10,000 police officers will be relied upon to protect the president from any protests or potential terror attacks. 40 police cars and motorbike outriders will also be available for whenever Trump travels by road.

A warm reception cannot be guaranteed in Oxfordshire either. Protesters quickly began to campaign against Trump’s visit to the county, soon after its likelihood was reported.

Oxford West and Abingdon MP, Layla Moran, has pledged to relocate her anti-Trump protest from central London to Blenheim Palace in response to the the rumours.

Trisha Greenhalgh, a leading academic in medicine at the University of Oxford, informed her 36,000 Twitter followers of the proposed date of the visit, telling them “Pink hats are needed folks” before offering one of said hats to MP Layla Moran.

The reference to “pink hats” in Greenhalgh’s tweet alludes to the “Pussyhats”, a symbol of anti-Trumpism and feminist solidarity. These hats were originally worn by protesters in the Women’s Marches held in January of last year, partly in response to Trump’s election.

Following his meal at Blenheim Palace, the president to due to visit Theresa May at her Buckinghamshire country retreat, The Chequers, and then to travel to meet the Queen at Windsor Palace.

On the final day of the president’s “best of British” tour, Trump is also scheduled to visit his Turnberry golf course in Scotland.

Following a police meeting and crime panel held last Friday, Anthony Stansfeld, Thames Valley police and crime commissioner, stated that he had not yet received detailed information regarding Trump’s visit.  

Stansfeld also explained that more information regarding the Presidential visit would soon be shared with the public.

 

Circus life is no life for animals

Fin Kavanagh
-
3
Circus life is no life for animals

This week University Parks hosts Gifford’s Circus, one of the few major circuses still touring the United Kingdom. This once loved form of travelling entertainment has been in steep decline since the 1960s, which some claim is down to the disappearance of arguably its most quintessential performers: animals.

While this circus boasts of “gypsy violinists, tight rope walkers, trapeze artists and opera singers”, further down the billboard are some less talkative members of the company, including the horses, dogs and chickens.

The Gifford’s website goes to great lengths to emphasise their commitment to the welfare of their performing animals, with an entire subsection devoted to explaining their ethical treatment of the acts that travel with the circus and perform across the country. Spanning the length of the page, there’s a banner reading: “A life without horses is no life for the circus”. However, a more accurate slogan might read: “A life in the circus is no life for a horse”.

For as long as there have been circuses, animals have performed at them. The West became enthralled with the lion tamers that travelled with Gibson & Co in 1871 and, since then, we have fallen for the training and exhibition of exotic animals. Even in Oxford, the curiosity surrounding wider circus and carnival culture remains apparent to this day, with St. John’s College’s Cirque Nouveau Commemoration Ball achieving great success last year. Circuses have always been associated with dynamism, charisma, and spectacle, and central to this image has been the use of exotic animals.

In 2008, however, our consciences caught up with us. A study by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature, and Food Quality revealed 71% of all performing circus animals exhibited medical problems. Among these it was exotic animals that received the poorest treatment, with lions spending an average of 98% of their working lives indoors and tigers having an average enclosure space of 5m². For those less interested in animal welfare, the 123 lion attacks at circuses since 1990 might suggest that these shows are not exactly ethical in regard to their audiences either.

In fairness to Giffords, none of its acts are exotic or endangered species, but rather farmyard and domesticated animals. Only two UK circuses still have wild animal performances, and the UK Government is set to ban them entirely by 2020. Public opinion has shifted massively in favour of such bans, although non-exotic animal performances like those at Giffords still remain widely popular. Many circuses believe these acts are central to their success and that horses especially are an intrinsic part of traditional British circus culture.

The debate as to whether these animals should still perform appears to be far more complex. Animal trainers will, of course, tell you that their animals love to perform. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), on the other hand, have very different ideas on the issue, and attempt to organise protests at all circuses with performing animals. Moreover, given that Gifford’s has only been touring for eighteen years, the argument that they are passing on traditional talents seems a bit thin.

More widely however, the industry does appear to be moving in the right direction. James Hamid from Shrine Circuses has expressed hope that animal acts will soon altogether be a thing of the past. The Chinese State Circus is one of the most revered circuses in Europe and frequently sells out without the need for any performing animals.

Let’s hope soon both circus and spectator will realise that these acts aren’t necessary for a successful performance. We should be satisfied with what humans can achieve on their own, without needing to train other species to perform for us also.

Oxbridge collude on responses to UUK survey

Libby Cherry
-
0
Oxbridge collude on responses to UUK survey

Oxford and Cambridge universities collaborated on their responses to a 2017 Universities UK (UUK) survey as a way of safeguarding their own financial interests, leaked documents suggest.

The UUK survey of employers was to ascertain universities’ positions regarding changes to the academics’ pension scheme, the Universities’ Superannuation Scheme (USS).

Leaked minutes, reported by Cambridge student newspaper Varsity, revealed that Cambridge’s Finance Committee requested that the university’s Pensions Working Group “formulate a robust response acting as far as possible with Cambridge Colleges and the University of Oxford to ensure consistency to give weight to the responses”.

Such collusions were found to be typical in Oxbridge responses to USS consultations. Minutes from 2014 show that Cambridge senior officials “discussed their responses” to the 2014 USS valuation “with their opposite numbers at the University of Oxford so that these could be co-ordinated.”

Cambridge officials also met with counterparts at LSE and Edinburgh at the time, while those from Oxford also met with the University of Manchester and Imperial College.

In their responses to the September 2017 consultation, both universities suggested that USS take “less risk” in its investments. The USS currently has a ‘last-man-standing scheme’ whereby institutions take on responsibility not only for the pension deficit on behalf of their own staff, but of the entire sector, leaving wealthier institutions liable to compensate when other universities fail to deliver their share.

Oxford’s response to the UUK September survey read “the level of risk being proposed is not appropriate for all institutions and allowing weaker institutions to rely on the strength of other employers”. A meeting between Oxford and Cambridge in 2017 also described Cambridge’s “growing realisation and frustration” that “financially weaker Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) were relying on the balance sheets of stronger HEIs.”

Only 26% of other HEIs registered opposition to the last-man-standing arrangement in contrast to 73% of Oxbridge institutions.

Varsity suggested that Cambridge’s criticism of the current USS system could be used as an incentive to pull out of the scheme altogether, which they described as “a betrayal of the higher education sector.” However, the £2.5bn cost of the withdrawal made such a step currently “unfeasible”.

Such co-ordination of responses also extended to colleges. A leaked email from the chair of the pensions sub-committee, Simon Summers, showed that a “suggested response” to colleges had been disseminated.

As previously reported by Cherwell, such collusion between the central University and colleges had also occurred in Oxford. Hertford and Pembroke were colleges that initially followed the university line in the call for “less risk”. The latter’s response to the survey had immediately noticeable similarities to that of the University.

Alongside seeking to make survey responses uniform, central senior officials also did not consult individual colleges and academics properly on their views. Seven out of the eight colleges that came forward to support the “less risk” line in Cambridge had their responses submitted by bursars without seeking the advice of their respective governing bodies.

Oxford University did not reply to Cherwell’s request for comment.

Somerville all-women panel highlights plight of female refugees

Fin Kavanagh
-
0
Somerville all-women panel highlights plight of female refugees

Somerville College hosted an all-women panel on World Refugee Day this week to discuss the unique issues faced by female refugees living in UK.

The all-women panel discussed issues relating to legal rights, social prejudice, and domestic and sexual violence. It is part of a series of panels aiming to give women a greater platform.

The “Women’s Worlds at a Crossroads” discussion was chaired by Somerville’s Principal Baroness Jan Royall.

Speakers included Catherine Briddick, of Oxford University’s Refugee Studies Centre, as well as Oxford councillor Shaista Aziz.

St. John’s Orchestra performed music at the event, as part of their Displaced Voices Project.

This is the second all-female panel that Somerville has planned to host this term. A panel entitled “Democracy Delivers: Women in Politics” was scheduled for the 25th May to celebrate the centenary of female suffrage and encourage more women to enter politics.

The panel was set to include both Oxford East Labour MP, Anneliese Dodds, and the Liberal Democrat Layla Moran MP, who represents Oxford West and Abingdon. Unforeseen circumstances led to cancellation of the event.

Founded as Somerville Hall in 1879, previous Principal Alice Prochaska has spoken of the college’s ethos to “include the excluded”.

Somerville remains the only Oxford college to have had only female Principals, with this week’s panel marking the end of Royall’s first year as Principal.

Oxford men seal emphatic victory at Lord’s

Cal Flintoff
-
1
Oxford men seal emphatic victory at Lord’s

Oxford University 223-5 (Hughes 132*) beat Cambridge University 222-7 (Chohan 77, Rogers 2-17) by 5 wickets

It wasn’t until what would turn out to be the final over that you started to realise how easy this had become for him; how different the cut strip he was playing on was seemed to be from the one that had sent his team-mates’ off-stumps cartwheeling and limited Cambridge to 222.

Kartik Suresh stood atop his mark like he had done for his previous nine overs. But this time, when he bowled – wherever he bowled – Matty Hughes simply stood and picked it off to wherever in the ground he fancied. Six runs needed for a sixth consecutive Varsity triumph at Lord’s. Yeah, why not: lofted with a nonchalant flick into the stands. The first 112 runs in this magnificently crafted innings had come at the same lick, always run a ball or thereabouts, but the next 20 came in the space of five balls. Cambridge had become emboldened by a sense they were suddenly in the game and then, with a flick of the switch, they weren’t again.

After winning the toss and deciding to put a total on the board, 222 was probably not too far beyond the realms of captain Darshan Chohan’s early expectations. Passing a total Oxford had posted in a format thirty overs shorter just three weeks ago in the 50th over of the innings doesn’t scream confidence, but then 213 was more than enough for Durham to claw the MCCU Championship Match from perennial victors Loughborough on the exact same deck here on Wednesday.

Samuel Turner feathered behind early and Tom Colverd was enticed into a booming drive that ended in the hands of Jamie Gnodde at second slip, but the wickets were blemishes in an otherwise bright start and Chohan visibly took the game by the scruff, racing along at an imperious strike-rate; daring the Oxford attack to provide him with the width that his game feeds on so lavishly. Through 20 overs, 90-2 seemed bountiful.

It was here that a lack of gears became cruelly exposed. Suddenly every drive was hitting the cover fielder, every nurdle into the leg-side cut-off by the scampering midwicket, every attempt at defusing the crushing scoring pressure faulty in some way.

The following 21 overs were bowled exclusively by Oxford’s three-pronged spin attack of Jamie Gnodde, Jack Rogers, and Hughes – this year, unlike last, a premeditated plan – and were exclusively Oxford’s in outcome. Rogers produced a jaffa to rid of Murty: extracting some rare bite from the surface and, in the umpire’s view, some bat too; Ali Dewhurst played all around one from Gnodde lbw, and all the while Chohan’s supreme start was being eaten away as he backpedalled in absence of a telling partnership, eventually swinging across the line in anger for a Frankenstein-sort of 77 – a series of crunching cuts and pulls but served up with a lingering sense that it was not quite what it could’ve been.

And so step forward Matty Hughes, the distilled image of what it looks like when, just for once, it does all just fit together right. 132 not out off 109 balls, chasing down 223 with just over ten overs to spare, helmet and bat aloft, basked in sunshine in the middle of the most venerable cricket venue in the country.

First slip stood there in disbelief, his light blue cap positioned so to shield his emotion from play. Hughes was on 95, and he’d just got a whole lot of willow on the delivery from Tom Balderson, diverting it, just as he had done with his very first ball of the innings, through the region of first slip. The other twenty boundaries Hughes hit were impeccable in timing and placement – at one time he sauntered down the pitch after unfurling a one-knee cover drive and watched as cover dived to his right, extra cover to his left, and the sweeper chased aimlessly after the racing ball only to see it ripple the boundary rope anyway – but none will have punctured so deep as the flicker of victory that existed for that moment.

At times – not pushing the first run hard, lacking real zest in the field, throwing to the wrong end, that slip catch – Cambridge only had themselves to blame; for the rest of the duration, they really were reduced to audience of a masterclass.

Wickets continually fell at the other end: a fiery Jan Cross-Zamirski bowled through a rare 10 over opening spell with hitherto absent bounce that continually troubled, picking up Dan Escott and taking home Alex Rackow’s off-stump, whilst Gnodde also succumbed bowled, and Rogers was stumped off a wide delivery from Nick Winder by some tidy work behind. Whilst comparatively Chohan had dropped anchor, Hughes forged on relentlessly, at times doing the scoring of two batsman, and certainly the running: picking up the first three of the day.

Matthew Naylor arrived with the game in the balance at 113-4 after 20 overs. Runs weren’t going to be an issue, wickets on the other hand were now at a premium and Naylor played a key hand hoovering up deliveries from Cambridge’s four frontline bowlers and providing captain Chohan with a serious logistical issue of how to hide away the remaining ten overs. When Tom Colverd appeared as the solution, Naylor drove his first ball for four and the duo ensured he was not allowed to settle into any real rhythm.

With Hughes sitting on 99, Cambridge tightened the screw – and the entire ring-field – to eliminate the easy single. Hughes simply rocked back and slapped Suresh aerially to bring up his milestone. Naylor would be trapped lbw just two deliveries later to temper the celebrations, but they were to continue emphatically upon the return of Suresh, and surely will long into the night…

History faculty U-turns over exam regulations change after student pressure

Greg Ritchie
-
0
History faculty U-turns over exam regulations change after student pressure

The Faculty of History has backed down from changes to exam regulations which would have moved forward thesis deadlines, after students expressed their anger at the attempt to pass the changes in the middle of the exam season.

The faculty wished to change the deadlines for submission of thesis titles and synopses, claiming that the current set-up “does not leave enough time for the FHS [Final Honour School] Board of Examiners to find markers with the appropriate expertise”.

Students overwhelmingly rejected the proposed changes, while also expressing their anger at the faculty for giving them only two days to respond “in a time of immense pressure”. History freshers are currently engaged in prelims and second-years in the middle of a ten-day coursework examination.

An anonymous Oxfess had urged first and second year historians to object to the proposed changes. It said: “What this email is essentially asking you to do, on incredibly (conveniently) short notice, is to consent to having less time to come up with your thesis proposal, and to make it more difficult to change your thesis proposal once you have come up with it.

“It doesn’t benefit any of us to consent to this last-minute and disorganised change, and the only thing that’s good about it is that the history faculty requires our consent in the first place. If they want to institute faculty wide changes they need to give us due notice and give us due time to reply, not simply try and impose them upon us in a time of immense pressure anyway.”

The Faculty of History’s undergraduate officer, Andrea Hopkins, told students in an email: “Many thanks to those of you who responded to the consultation in spite of the awkward timing.  I do apologise for bothering you during your exams, but the deadline for getting exam reg changes gazetted is this Friday, so I had to do it.

“However, there was an overwhelming majority who did not consent to the proposed changes, so we will not be going ahead with them.”

Protestors stage Oxford anti-Trump rally

Isabel Morris
-
0
Protestors stage Oxford anti-Trump rally

Protestors gathered at Oxford Town Hall on Thursday to stage a rally against US President Donald Trump and his upcoming visit to the UK.

The ‘Oxford Rally Against Trump’, organised by the Oxford Stand Up To Trump coalition, intended to build interest in the mass protests planned to coincide with Trump’s visit in July.

The rally hosted a diverse range of speakers, all of whom spoke in opposition to Trump’s politics of racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, sexism, war, bigotry and climate change denial.

The speakers further called on Prime Minister Theresa May to cancel his state visit.

Oxford Stand Up To Trump Coalition member, Ian Mckendrick, told Cherwell: “People are angry at the revelations of migrant children and infants being removed from their parents by US border guards and placed in holding cages for days in great distress. This harks back to the days of slavery and the removal of native American children from their families.

“It is clear that Trump is prepared to stoke up racism to justify the human rights abuses being sanctioned by his administration. His attack on EU migrants and refugees, blaming them for violence and crime in Germany, is patently false, with crime in Germany at a 30 year low.

“We are currently seeing record levels of racism and racist attacks and Trump’s words can only help to fan the flames. It comes as no surprise that far right groups have chosen Trump’s visit to march to demand the release of former BNP activist and Islamophobic EDL founder Tommy Robinson.

“Trump’s words are giving confidence for racists to mobilise in growing numbers, and it is vital that anti-racists mobilise to show that Trump’s racist politics are not welcome here, and we will oppose all attempts by the far right to grow on the back of Trump’s visit.”

Mckendrick said the coalition has experienced a “surge of interest” following news of the new US immigration policy which sees migrant children separated from their parents at the Mexican border.

Oxford MP Anneliese Dodds, who was unable to attend, delivered a message of support for the movement standing against Trump and his visit to the UK.

Through a spokesperson, she said: “We have strength in our diversity.”

The description on the event’s page read: “By inviting Trump to visit Theresa May is endorsing Trump’s politics. This should come as no surprise. May has consistently supported austerity Trump’s drive to war, and her government has been exposed as deeply racist.

“Mass protests on July 13th will send a clear message to Trump and May that we are prepared to fight for equal rights for all oppressed groups, for peace, economic justice and environmental sustainability.”

Oxford MP condemns ‘disgraceful’ fake UAE centre

Greg Ritchie
-
0
Oxford MP condemns ‘disgraceful’ fake UAE centre

An Oxford MP has condemned the Dubai government’s promotion of an Oxford University research centre, after Cherwell revealed that it did not, in fact, exist.

Oxford West and Abingdon MP Layla Moran said a press release from Dubai’s media office about the Mohammed bin Rashid Center [sic] for Future Research was ‘disgraceful’, adding that it diminished Oxford’s prestige.

A University spokesperson said it hoped the doctored images and fake press releases would be taken down “as soon as possible”.

At the start of May, the Dubai Government Media Office issued a press release regarding the opening of the “Mohammed bin Rashid Center [sic] for Future Research” at Oxford University.

According to the media release – which was also covered by outlets including The Gulf Today, Zawya, and Gulf News – the centre opened during a ceremony attended by Minister of Cabinet Affairs and the Future, Mohammed Al Gergawi, and the Minister for Artificial Intelligence, Omar bin Sultan Al Olama.

The latter also tweeted the doctored image from his official account.

The fake release also claimed that the ‘ceremony’ was attended by “a number of representatives of Oxford University”. Cherwell understands that these ‘representatives’ were, in fact, a fellow of Magdalen College, Alexy Karenowksa, and an honorary fellow of Trinity College, Roger Michel.

Michel, a Trinity alumnus, who recently became an honorary fellow of the College, already has several links with the United Arab Emirates.

In February, president of Trinity College, Dame Hilary Boulding, attended the World Government summit in Dubai at Michel’s invitation along with two students.

Michel has since endowed a scholarship in honour of Al Gergawi that “will enable Trinity students to attend future summits in Dubai”.

Roger Michel has not responded to several requests for comment.

Karenowska, a physics tutor at Magdalen, told Cherwell: “I’m quite upset about it actually. What has happened here, as unbelievable as it sounds, is that picture was photoshopped, so the centre doesn’t exist.

“It’s not even a proposal, it’s more of a request for a proposal, so that request is outside of the University. [The Emirati officials] were in town for a visit in connection with something completely separate, and at a lab facility outside Oxford, those photographs were taken, but as bizarre as it sounds, it doesn’t exist. There’s a request for a proposal, but no money whatsoever has been received, and it certainly hasn’t opened, and the University of Oxford was photoshopped onto those photographs. I was in the photographs, but the text was photoshopped on.

“As bizarre as it seems, I don’t think it’s that much of a big deal. Obviously I’m quite upset about it, and the suggestion of a connection with the University is upsetting. But I think that it’s one of those situations where probably the person involved hadn’t appreciated how that would be interpreted.”

Liberal Democrat Layla Moran Moran said: “It’s disgraceful that Dubai is using Oxford University’s good name without prior permission.

“This diminishes the value of the university and its brand. I call on the government of Dubai to decease and I will do whatever I can from within Parliament.”

A University spokesperson said: “This is unfortunately a case of crossed wires in communicating what was a very preliminary set of discussions.

“We hope the news release will be taken down as soon as possible.”

The Dubai Future Foundation said it had been in discussions with the University about setting up such as centre, and that the announcement had been in good faith.

The Dubai Future Foundation said it had been working closely with the Institute for Digital Archaeology on a variety of projects which had led to a research group – Future Design Laboratory – being set up in the physics department.

A spokesperson said: “The Dubai Future Foundation sought to expand this partnership by renaming the lab the Mohammed bin Rashid Center for Future Design, expanding its mandate to include basic scientific research, especially in physics.”

Modern China from a new perspective

Jacob Cheli
-
0
Modern China from a new perspective

BBC Foreign Correspondent Michael Bristow, based in Beijing, was reaching the end of his stay and wanted to write a book about the country in which he had lived and worked for eight years. He was not alone in this; journalists often write memoirs of their time spent in foreign countries, and China was not short of its biographies. He needed a way to make his book memorable. So he set out to write a popular history of modern China told through the stories of the people he met; this history is the book, China in Drag: Travels with a Cross-Dresser.

Having taken Chinese language lessons for some time, he developed a close friendship with his elderly language teacher. “I came to realise through my friendship with him,” he said, speaking over the phone, “that he was really the embodiment of modern China.” His teacher was born shortly after the Communist Party came to power in 1949, was then sent out into the countryside as a child and then, when China opened itself up in the late 1970s, took the opportunity to go to university and become a journalist and later a teacher. “I realised that by telling his story I was telling the story of China”, Michael told me.

He decided to travel around China to various places of significance to his teacher, who agreed to travel with him. On the very first night of their journey, his male teacher came down to dinner in their hotel dressed as a woman.

“It was a complete shock and surprise to me”, Michael said. After five years of friendship, he was blown away. However, he emphasised the importance of this realisation in the direction the book would take. “I could write about Chinese history through the prism of my language teacher, a cross-dresser”, he told me, an insight which would give a unique focus to his book.

“There’s been a lot written about high politics and economics in Chinese history”, he said, “but it is difficult for people in the West to understand China, what it’s like, what its people are like. The book gives people an idea of Chinese character, and although my teacher’s is an unusual character, that gives it an extra dimension about how people react to gender and gender expression.” At its core, Bristow argues, his book is really about “how an individual navigates Chinese history”.

The personal sense of the book’s approach to writing about Chinese history really struck me during my conversation with Michael. Having written about China for five years as a journalist for the BBC, the approach was very different. “The things I wrote about in the book were things I didn’t put in the news”, he told me. “News covers big things going on in a country, like a leadership battle or a big sporting event like the Olympics. A conversation with friends over dinner, that’s not news and it’s going on all over the world, but from those conversations you get much more of a sense of what Chinese people are interested in talking about.”

Michael’s fascination with personal stories and peoples’ lives is clear. His book, he says, is filled with things that are “not news-worthy, but valuable for people outside China as an insight into how people live their lives, what their hopes are for themselves and their children.”

He is quick to dismiss any idea that his book is a comprehensive history. “In no way does this book pretend to tell you everything you need to know about China”, he warns. It is written very much from an individual’s perspective – his. “I’m a British person, I grew up in Britain”, he tells me, “it’s a narrow look at China in that respect.”

Personally, I think Bristow’s unashamed bias is the book’s major strength; it is a story of China, seen through his eyes, accompanied by his cross-dressing teacher. Too often we read stories, particularly in the news, which claim to present an authoritative and unbiased account of an event or an issue. This book takes the opposite approach and its sincerity gives it a definite personal touch.

I asked Bristow to leave me with what he wanted people who read his book to know about China. “Foreign journalists do their best to help people understand China”, he told me, “but the Chinese government tries to mask itself. It’s quite a mean, authoritarian regime that robs people of proper legal process. There’s no such thing as an opposition politician, there are no free NGOs, no pressure groups, nothing like that. The Chinese government tries to convince people that it’s Western journalists who talk too much about human rights, but we probably don’t talk enough about it.

“Hopefully through my book you can see China for its good and bad, and particularly the government for its bad.”

Different flavours in the Caribbean

Kir West-Hunter
-
0
Different flavours in the Caribbean

When cooking, there is one fundamental question to ask: do I want to emphasise one flavour, one note, one ingredient or do I want a cacophony of flavours and textures?

Neither answer is right or wrong but having a preference gives a great deal of insight into your heritage and– if you’ll forgive me for my pretentiousness – your cooking identity.

My experience of European food and cooking culture acts as a stark contrast to what I grew up with at home, where the head chef was a bright, bold, and wildly talented Jamaican woman.

Her recipe for Jerk Chicken has no less than 16 different ingredients, and half of this list was purely dedicated to an incredible combination of spices and seasonings.

This may seem excessive and unnecessary to some, but the experience of biting into that crispy, smoky outer layer is unlike any other.

There isn’t just one note for my taste buds to hum along to. Eating Caribbean cooking is like going to see a symphony – there is a huge band of flavours complimenting each other and fighting for your attention.

The question is one of transportation. By having so many flavours, all encompassed in just a thin layer of crispy chicken skin, my palate goes on a journey.

With the squeeze of lime, I’m sipping a mojito on a beach in Montego Bay.

There is a distinct taste of sea salt, as if I’m swimming through the Blue Lagoon.

Smokiness transports me to the burning of last autumn’s crops in Cockpit Country.

And then there’s the spice. A few scotch bonnet peppers, and I might as well be sunbathing in the 35-degree heat of Ocho Rios.

This is not to say that simplicity is a bad thing. But, you must understand that when it came to going to a friend’s house for a humble (but still delightful) roast chicken I was surprised to see only salt, pepper and lemon on the side.

The question is can simplicity ever really outdo the symphony? There are more than a handful of dishes that I can name which I wouldn’t dare to overcomplicate.

A good steak needs only salt, pepper and garlic – the iron tang of a good cut is flavourful enough. When it comes to seafood pasta dishes, you only need lemon, piccolo cherry tomatoes, and a little black pepper to keep it fresh and light. And yes, a roast dinner doesn’t need much more than a killer pairing. You wouldn’t mess with lamb and mint, beef and horseradish, or a delicious chicken paired with a lovely onion gravy.

The truth is that there is beauty in both simplicity and complexity – but a true master has got to be able to manage both.

1...783784785...2,582Page 784 of 2,582

Support Student Journalism

Cherwell is Oxford’s oldest independent newspaper, established in 1920. We are entirely student-run. By supporting us, you will contribute to keeping our paper in print and online. Every donation makes a difference.

Donate

Explore

Follow us

More

Oxford Student Publications Limited © 2025 - All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy

Website by Jamie Ashley