A week ago I participated in a barbecue
competition in Limerick city. Forty-six registered teams represented countries
in what was called the ‘International Barbecue Cook Off’. Each team cooked
samples of their country’s food and gave them out to anyone who stopped by.
Teams also prepared competition entries for the fish, chicken and vegetable
heats. The barbecues were ringed in a double line on one of the old canal paths
in the city with a barricade around so that we couldn’t be mobbed by the
general public; who arrived before the barbecues were lit at midday and kept
coming all through the afternoon.
While I was helping out with food preparation
and other essentials such as getting beers for members of my team I looked
around at some of the other stalls. It was obvious that some people took it
more seriously than others. The group representing Vatican City were spotted in
the supermarket earlier having just come from the nightclub. Kitted out in
somewhat fetishistic religious outfits, they started on the chardonnay and gin
and tonics on arrival at their stall. As for food, I never saw them light the
barbecue or cook anything, and a large pile of raw sausages sat on their table
in the sun throughout the day. They played recordings of Vatican City Radio and
had their photo taken with tourists attending the event. They won the prize for
best dressed stall.
An Irish friend on the Dubai team said they
also had trouble taking it seriously and were handing out hamburger patties
garnished with sand. Then I talked a while with a fellow from work who is from
Poland and was on the Spanish team. As the directions had said ‘dress up’ he
came in a very short dress wearing makeup. His dreadlocks made quite a
contrast. The Irish team on the next stall prepared very elaborate food and
even gave us some samples of the potatoes they had boiled in a pot on their
barbecue. The drummers at the Nigerian stall across from us worked us into a
festive mood.
As the only Australian on the team for
Israel, my Scottish, Israeli and Irish team mates gave me a number of
compliments about the huge bowl of hummus I had made from chick peas, tahini
and garlic. They told me that some people came back to our stall for second
helpings. Even though the hummus was not included in any of the judged events,
I feel proud of the third place our team achieved in the vegetable heat. I
cannot recall ever winning a medal before.
However, the main message of the event for me
was not about winning our place. I learned about myself in my community here in
Ireland. Irish people mixed with people from all around the world who live in
this city. Food was swapped and shared and recipes discussed. Irish people
represented teams from other countries. Many teams like mine were mixed
nationalities, working alongside friends rather than people from our own
country. The organisers had themed the event ‘the world is one country’. I
experienced food the way I often experience music; a way to bring people
together. Our music helps us to name aspects of individual and collective
identity but more importantly to forego these as markers of difference and
share them as means of connections where differences are incorporated rather
than elaborated.
In music therapy we may never manage a song
for the whole world however I believe we will continue to lead the way in
staying open to the musics of the world; exploring, sharing, collaborating and
listening to all the different music we can.
How to cite this page
Edwards, Jane (2007). The World Is One
Country. First published in Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy.
