A tabla player breakdancing to electro, a band pairing ironwood clapsticks with pop rhythms, a plate of jerk chicken: each shows what happens when people from different cultures share a place. Music and food are two of the easiest ways to see it, because both change as they travel.
How can music bring cultures together?
Talvin Singh was born in London in 1970 and plays the tabla, a pair of hand drums central to Indian classical music. At 16 he travelled to the Punjab region of India to study with a master, and he kept returning to his teacher for a time each winter. Back in Britain he moved between worlds. He worked in Indian classical music, but he also took part in the club scene and in the fusion sound often called the Asian Underground.
His debut album, OK (1998), blended strings, breakbeats and tabla, and it won the Mercury Music Prize in 1999. He has also worked with artists from very different traditions, including Björk, Massive Attack and the jazz saxophonist Courtney Pine. Singh has said he chose the title because “OK” is understood almost everywhere, and that music should not have boundaries.
Yothu Yindi offers a second example. The band has Aboriginal Australian and non-Aboriginal members. Its name comes from an Aboriginal language and means “child and mother”. The band sets Aboriginal songs and performance traditions, which are thousands of years old, beside western instruments and rhythms. Ironwood clapsticks and the didgeridoo sit alongside pop sounds.
In both cases the musicians did not abandon a tradition. They studied it, respected it and then added something of their own.
What does food say about cultural mixing?
Jamaican cooking is one of the clearest edible histories. Jamaica’s cuisine draws on Indigenous Taíno, West African, English, Spanish, Indian, Chinese and other influences. Many dishes are Creole creations, meaning they grew from a fusion of ingredients and techniques from different cultures.
- Bammy. This flat cassava cake descends from the Taíno, the Indigenous people of the Caribbean, who grew and processed cassava. It is often served with fried fish.
- Pepperpot. This soup is traced to Taíno cooking and is made with callaloo, a leafy green, and Scotch bonnet pepper.
- Ackee. This fruit came to Jamaica from West Africa. Ackee and saltfish is widely described as the national dish. Salted fish itself reflects European food-preservation habits.
- Jerk. The word describes meat that is seasoned, smoked and grilled.
Where does jerk come from?
Smithsonian magazine describes jerk as a legacy of African and Taíno cultures meeting in Jamaica. Maroons, people who escaped slavery and settled in the island’s mountainous interior, lived alongside the Indigenous people and shared cooking knowledge. They learned to preserve meat with local spices and leaves, and they used an underground cooking method that helped them avoid discovery. Historical seasoning used bird peppers, pimento and pepper elder. Modern recipes may add Scotch bonnet peppers, scallions, garlic, ginger, thyme and cinnamon. Jamaica’s official culinary authorities say that “authentic jerk” must be smoked over pimento wood.
Indian and Chinese influences arrived later, with workers who came to the island in the nineteenth century. Curry goat is one familiar result.
How can a class explore its own cultural mix?
The same questions can be turned on everyday life. Pupils might try these:
- List what is eaten at home in a week and note which country or tradition each dish comes from. Many will have travelled more than one route.
- Look at the labels in clothes and trainers, and the places where they were made or designed.
- Note the programmes, games, songs and sports enjoyed in a day, and where each began.
- Count the different cultures that appear across all the lists. The total is usually larger than expected.
A follow-up can compare two musicians or two dishes. Pupils ask what each one kept from its original tradition, what it borrowed and who brought the borrowed element. Discussing respect for tradition is a good way in, because it was a theme in both Singh’s and Yothu Yindi’s work.