Fried Egg Cafe Film on Vimeo

Wearing a Sari I arrive with a British Colonial metal trunk, and a few plastic carrier bags. The trunk contained all my mother’s things when she came to this country decades ago. 

I unpack from the trunk, and the plastic bags, all the things for the ‘Fried Egg Café’; portable gas cookers, toaster, plates, cutlery, organic free-range eggs, bread, butter, pens, feedback forms etc...... I set up my portable Café ready to cook ‘Fried Eggs on toast served with Feedback forms’. People request Fried Eggs on Toast to their taste. I hand them their plate of eggs on toast with a feedback form. At the table are condiments – salt, pepper and pens. The feedback forms ask simple questions about cultural identity, and personal memories, associations and expectations of fried eggs. There are no questions with predefined boxes or categories to tick. Questions invite inner reflection, personal stories and self-definition. 

People sit to eat their fried eggs on toast and fill in their feedback forms and maybe talk with their companions at their table about their eggs and their answers to the questions. Some of them may to talk to me.

The Fried Egg Café opens dialogue around - ways in which social and cultural identity manifest through food and other everyday things, cultural interactions, migration, memory and associations.......... 

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Photos and filming: Anna Whitall