its a credit crunch parcel!
might be better to look at than eat!

Tesco plc is a British-based international grocery and general merchandising retail chain. It has the largest British retailer by both global sales and domestic market share with profits exceeding £2 billion. Orange jelly cost 1p more than red jelly.

In 2008, Tesco became the world’s fourth largest retailer, the first movement among the top five since 2003. Originally specialising in food and drink, it has diversified into areas such as clothing, consumer electronics, consumer financial services, retailing and renting DVDs, CDs, music downloads, Internet service, consumer telecoms, consumer health insurance, consumer dental plans and software.

Dozens of people gathered Saturday evening in a Galata restaurant to learn to make falafel with a twist: The chef was projected large and wizard-like over their heads via the Internet live from Berlin.
Julie Upmeyer and her “Virtual Chef” initiative held their borderless feast at Güney Restaurant, one of 40 venues that hosted events this weekend as part of this year’s art festival Visibility Project in Istanbul’s Galata neighborhood.

Upmeyer said she was amazed by the way cooking brought people together. “Chefs from the Güney kitchen worked side-by-side with Virtual Chef guests to fry falafel balls, while Galata locals were speaking live with our chef in Berlin in Turkish, English and German.”

Hoping to open people’s eyes to the “unseen,” the one-day fest combined everything from art exhibits in teahouses to oddball performances on sidewalks. In this respect, Virtual Chef’s connection to a chef in Germany, who had sourced his ingredients in exchange for providing a service, certainly suited the vision of the festival.

The story behind the dish

The project began when chef Karl Heinz Jeron sent the group a list of ingredients to collect for the meal. As they searched for the ingredients, the participants met people and explored places and shops new to them. While watching each other via a live media stream on Internet TV, Jeron shared with them the story behind his version of the falafel.

His project “Will Work For Food” explores the labor and barter economy. During the project, he provided small robotic vehicles that traded their manpower for food. The vehicles can draw and whistle. In exchange for a bit of food, people borrowed the vehicles to serve their needs. He received lentils, flour, arugula salad, garlic, lemon and some spices and herbs.

That’s when a falafel recipe came to Jeron’s mind. He customized the recipe, replacing the chickpeas with lentils and adding flour to make the dough a bit more solid. After practicing for some time, he agreed to join Virtual Chef and share the fruits of his barter.

A native of Detroit, Michigan, Upmeyer said food was universal and commonplace, though ultimately quite personal. “Eating is the closest connection our body has to the outside world.”

Julie Upmeyer caravansarai.info@gmail.com or julie@active-ingredient.net

Recipe: ‘Will Work For Food’ Falafels

Falafels:

1 cup lentils, cooked (cooking time depends on which lentils you use)

1 tablespoon flour (maybe more) Make one dumpling. Fry it. If it falls apart, use more flour)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup finely minced onion

2 tablespoon finely minced parsley or rocket salad (I used rocket salad, but if you cant get it take parsley)

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

2 cloves garlic

freshly ground pepper

1 tablespoon lemon juice

a pinch (or more) of cayenne pepper

oil for frying (i.e. canola, sunflower, avocado),

no olive oil, it cant stand high temperatures!!!

Chutney:

1 cup plain yogurt

1 tablespoon minced mint

1 clove garlic

1 tablespoon lemon juice

salt

Drain lentils and put into a good processor or blender. Add the baking soda and salt. Blend until you have the texture of coarse breadcrumbs or fine bulgur wheat. You should NOT have a paste.

Empty lentils into a bowl. Add onion, parsley, cumin, coriander, garlic, black pepper, lemon juice, and cayenne. Mix gently with a fork. Do not pat down. This mixture should be loose and crumbly.

Put 2 inches of oil in a wok or other utensil for deep frying and set to a heat on a medium-low flame. You need a temperature of 350 to 375 degrees Farenheit. While the oil heats, form the first batch of patties. Using a very light touch, form patties that are about 2 1/4 inches in diameter, about 3/4 inch thick in the center and less so at the edges. Do not pat down or try to be too neat. Put as many patties into the hot oil as the utensil will hold in a single layer. Fry about 4 minutes or until the patties a reddish brown on both sides. Turn at least once during the frying process. When the patties are done, remove them with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel.

© 2005 Dogan Daily News Inc. www.turkishdailynews.com.tr

I will cook one of my Will Work For Food favourites. The cooking will be transmitted from Berlin to Istanbul via Skype.

18 Oct 2008 9pm GMT

Dumplings:
1 cup lentils, cooked (cooking time depends on which lentils you use)
1 table spoon flour (maybe more. Make one dumpling, fry it. If it falls apart, use more flour)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup finely minced onion
2 tablespoon finely minced parsley or rocket salad (I used rocket salad, but if you cant get it take parsley)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
2 cloves garlic
Freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice
a pinch (or more) of cayenne pepper
oil for frying (i.e. canola, sunflower, avocado),
no olive oil, it cant stand high temratures!!!

Chutney:
1 cup plain yoghurt
1 tablespoon minced mint
1 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon lemon juice
salt

Drain the lentils and put them into the container of a good processor or blender. Add the baking soda and salt. Turn the machine on and blend until you have the texture of coarse bread crumbs or fine bulgur wheat. You should NOT have a paste.

Empty the lentils into a bowl. Add the onion, parsley, cumin, coriander, garlic, black pepper, lemon juice, and cayenne. Mix gently with a fork. Do not pat down. This mixture should be loose and crumbly.

Put 2 inches of oil in a wok or other utensil for deep frying and set to a heat on a medium-low flame. You need a temperature of 350 to 375 degrees F. While the oil heats, form the first batch of patties. Using a very light touch, form patties that are about 2 1/4 inches in diameter, about 3/4 inch thick in the center and less so at the edges. Do not pat down or try to be too neat. The patties should just about hold together. Put as many patties into the hot oil as the utensil will hold in a single layer. Fry about 4 minutes or until the patties a reddish brown on both sides. Turn at least once during the frying process. When the patties are done, remove them with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel. do all of the patties this way.

Bring a can of food to barter with the robots from September 27 - November 22, 2008,
Barter starts at 7 PM at the opening
All proceeds to be donated to Newark food banks

Will Work for Food is a project by KH Jeron about labour and barter economy.

Small robotic vehicles trade their manpower for food. The vehicles can draw and whistle popular songs.

Interactions with the robots throughout Europe have taken various forms: small offerings of packaged sweets, regional specialties, homemade foods, and even full dinners.  In Newark, Gallery Aferro and KH Jeron will have the robots perform in the gallery as a food drive to question the collective responsibility of a city’s residents towards each other.

According to Jeron, Will Work for Food deals with “a re-assessment of labour: its disjunction from covering the cost-of-living of the individual.They give an occasion and a space for social interaction and discussion.”

Outside Over There
Fourth Annual In the Country of Last Things exhibition
Curated by Emma Wilcox
September 27 - November 22, 2008
Opening Reception September 27, 7-10 PM

Artists:
Keliy Anderson-Staley, Mireille Astore, Martin John Callanan, Karlos Carcamo, Margarida Correia, Susan E. Evans, Judith Hoffman, KH Jeron, Tamara Kostianovsky, Charles Huntley Nelson Anne Percoco,
Dorothy Schultz, Jeff Sims, Peter Tuomey Jr, Tammy Jo Wilson

“I sent you a piece of traditional Norwegian brown cheese. Made of goat milk, and quite sweet. The colour is red/brown because it is boiled quite a lot and because it is boiled in an iron kettle. This is one of our main food-sources for iron! We use to eat it with bread and butter. Or we put it in a souce with game meat. It is probably a bit “different” from what you have tasted before, but I am sure it is possible to use it in many different areas. Norwegian kitchen is mostly about survival. It was develloped before we found the oil. We have not really any cultivated dishes. So the culture for exploring our resources in the kitchen is not here. I guess it is up to you to find out how you want to use it.

Usually I keep a piece of this cheese for 4-6 weeks. In the fridge. I dont know what summer heat may have done with it, but I think that if it taste eatable (but “different”) it is good. Hope everything is ok.”

Harriet and Peter from Norten Comander Productions have sent:
Bohemian Oblaten with Chocolate Cream made from the original Karlsbad recipe. These thin chocolate wafers are slightly sweetened and have a delicious chocolate cream filling. Each wafer is approximately 7 inches round.

2006er Weißburgunder Pillnitzer Königlicher Weinberg - o.G. Winzergenossenschaft Meissen- Sachsen [Saxonia], 2006

Delicious local honey

Organic sheep chees from Schuberts Milchschafhof

and Dresdner Russisch Brot by Dr. Quendt

„Was ist das WERT“ Festspielhaus Hellerau
Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 56 • D-01109 Dresden
The Wert/Value perfomance reenacts Karl Marx’s contribution (VALUE, PRICE AND PROFIT) to a discussion on trade union activity that took place at a meeting of the General Council of the International Working Men’s Association in April, 1865.

While baking fortune cookies and reading chapter VI (Value and Labour) of “Value, Price and Profit”, one of my vehicles is drawing and whistling the Internationale. The cookies are filled with snippets of the drawings.

VI. Value and Labour (Economic Manuscripts: VALUE, PRICE AND PROFIT)
Citizens, I have now arrived at a point where I must enter upon the real development of the question. I cannot promise to do this in a very satisfactory way, because to do so I should be obliged to go over the whole field of political economy. I can, as the French would say, but “effleurer la question,” touch upon the main points. The first question we have to put is: What is the value of a commodity? How is it determined?

At first sight it would seem that the value of a commodity is a thing quite relative, and not to be settled without considering one commodity in its relations to all other commodities. In fact, in speaking of the value, the value in exchange of a commodity, we mean the proportional quantities in which it exchanges with all other commodities. But then arises the question: How are the proportions in which commodities exchange with each other regulated? We know from experience that these proportions vary infinitely. Taking one single commodity, wheat, for instance, we shall find that a quarter of wheat exchanges in almost countless variations of proportion with different commodities. Yet, its value remaining always the same, whether expressed in silk, gold, or any other commodity, it must be something distinct from, and independent of, these different rates of exchange with different articles. It must be possible to express, in a very different form, these various equations with various commodities.

Besides, if I say a quarter of wheat exchanges with iron in a certain proportion, or the value of a quarter of wheat is expressed in a certain amount of iron, I say that the value of wheat and its equivalent in iron are equal to some third thing, which is neither wheat nor iron, because I suppose them to express the same magnitude in two different shapes. Either of them, the wheat or the iron, must, therefore, independently of the other, be reducible to this third thing which is their common measure.

To elucidate this point I shall recur to a very simple geometrical illustration. In comparing the areas of triangles of all possible forms and magnitudes, or comparing triangles with rectangles, or any other rectilinear figure, how do we proceed? We reduce the area of any triangle whatever to an expression quite different from its visible form. Having found from the nature of the triangle that its area is equal to half the product of its base by its height, we can then compare the different values of all sorts of triangles, and of all rectilinear figures whatever, because all of them may be resolved into a certain number of triangles.

The same mode of procedure must obtain with the values of commodities. We must be able to reduce all of them to an expression common to all, and distinguishing them only by the proportions in which they contain that identical measure.

As the exchangeable values of commodities are only social functions of those things, and have nothing at all to do with the natural qualities, we must first ask, What is the common social substance of all commodities? It is labour. To produce a commodity a certain amount of labour must be bestowed upon it, or worked up in it. And I say not only labour, but social labour. A man who produces an article for his own immediate use, to consume it himself, creates a product, but not a commodity. As a self-sustaining producer he has nothing to do with society. But to produce a commodity, a man must not only produce an article satisfying some social want, but his labour itself must form part and parcel of the total sum of labour expended by society. It must be subordinate to the division of labour within society. It is nothing without the other divisions of labour, and on its part is required to integrate them.

If we consider commodities as values, we consider them exclusively under the single aspect of realized, fixed, or, if you like, crystallized social labour. In this respect they can differ only by representing greater or smaller quantities of labour, as, for example, a greater amount of labour may be worked up in a silken handkerchief than in a brick. But how does one measure quantities of labour? By the time the labour lasts, in measuring the labour by the hour, the day, etc. Of course, to apply this measure, all sorts of labour are reduced to average or simple labour as their unit. We arrive, therefore, at this conclusion. A commodity has a value, because it is a crystallization of social labour. The greatness of its value, or its relative value, depends upon the greater or less amount of that social substance contained in it; that is to say, on the relative mass of labour necessary for its production. The relative values of commodities are, therefore, determined by the respective quantities or amounts of labour, worked up, realized, fixed in them. The correlative quantities of commodities which can be produced in the same time of labour are equal. Or the value of one commodity is to the value of another commodity as the quantity of labour fixed in the one is to the quantity of labour fixed in the other.

I suspect that many of you will ask, Does then, indeed, there exist such a vast of any difference whatever, between determining the values of commodities by wages, and determining them by the relative quantities of labour necessary for their production? You must, however, be aware that the reward for labour, and quantity of labour, are quite disparate things. Suppose, for example, equal quantities of labour to be fixed in one quarter of wheat and once ounce of gold. I resort to the example because it was used by Benjamin Franklin in his first Essay published in 1721, and entitled a modest enquiry into the nature and necessity of a paper currency, where he, one of the first, hit upon the true nature of value.

Well. We suppose, then, that one quarter of wheat and one ounce of gold are equal values or equivalents, because they are crystalizations of equal amounts of average labour, of so many days’ or so many weeks’ labour respectively fixed in them. In thus determining the relative values of gold and corn, do we refer in any way whatever to the wages of the agricultural labourer and the miner? Not a bit. We leave it quite indeterminate how their day’s or their week’s labour was paid, or even whether wages labour was employed at all. If it was, wages may have been very unequal. The labourer whose labour is realized in the quarter of wheat may receive two bushels only, and the labourer employed in mining may receive on-half of the ounce of gold. Or, supposing their wages to be equal, they may deviate in all possible proportions from the values of the commodities produced by them. They may amount to one-fourth, one-fifth, or any other proportional part of the one quarter of corn or the one ounce of gold. Their wages can, of course, not exceed, not be more than the values of the commodities they produced, by they can be less in every possible degree. Their wages will be limited by the values of the products, but the values of their products will not be limited by the wages. And above all, the values, the relative values of corn and gold, for example, will have been settled without any regard whatever to the value of the labour employed, that is to say, to wages. To determine the values of commodities by the relative quantities of labour fixed in them, is, therefore, a thing quite different from the tautological method of determining the values of commodities by the value of labour, or by wages. This point, however, will be further elucidated in the progress of our inquiry.

In calculating the exchangeable value of a commodity we must add to the quantity of labour previously worked up in the raw material of the commodity, and the labour bestowed on the implements, tools, machinery, and buildings, with which such labour is assisted. For example, the value of a certain amount of cotton yarn is the crystallization of the quantity of labour added to the cotton during the spinning process, the quantity of labour previously realized in the cotton itself, the quantity of labour realized in the coal, oil, and other auxiliary substances used, the quantity of labour fixed in the steam-engine, the spindles, the factory building, and so forth Instruments of production properly so-called, such as tools, machinery, buildings, serve again and again for longer or shorter period during repeated processes of production. If they were used up at once, like the raw material, their whole value would at once be transferred to the commodities they assist in producing. But as a spindle, for example, is but gradually used up, an average calculation is made, based upon the average time it lasts, and its average waste or wear and tear during a certain period, say a day. In this way we calculate how much of the value of the spindle is transferred to the yarn daily spin, and how much, therefore, of the total amount of labour realized in a pound of yarn, for example, is due to the quantity of labour previously realized in the spindle. For our present purpose it is not necessary to dwell any longer upon this point.

It might seem that if the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labour bestowed upon its production, the lazier a man, or the clumsier a man, the more valuable his commodity, because the greater the time of labour required for finishing the commodity. This, however, would be a sad mistake. You will recollect that I used the word “social labour,” and many points are involved in this qualification of “social.” In saying that the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labour worked up or crystalized in it, we mean the quantity of labour necessary for its production in a given state of society, under certain social average conditions of production, with a given social average intensity, and average skill of the labour employed. When, in England, the power-loom came to compete with the hand-loom, only half the former time of labour was wanted to convert a given amount of yarn into a yard of cotton or cloth. The poor hand-loom weaver now worked seventeen or eighteen hours daily, instead of the nine or the hours he had worked before. Still the product of twenty hours of his labour represented now only ten social hours of labour, or ten hours of labour socially necessary for the conversion of a certain amount of yarn into textile stuffs. His product of twenty hours had, therefore, no more value than his former product of ten hours.

If then the quantity of socially necessary labour realized in commodities regulates their exchangeable values, every increase in the quantity of labour wanted for the production of a commodity must augment its value, as every diminution must lower it.

If the respective quantities of labour necessary for the production of the respective commodities remained constant, their relative values also would be constant. But such is not the case. The quantity of labour necessary for the production of a commodity changes continuously with the changes in the productive powers of labour, the more produce is finished in a given time of labour; and the smaller the productive powers of labour, the less produce is finished in the same time. If, for example, in the progress of population it should become necessary to cultivate less fertile soils, the same amount of produce would be only attainable by a greater amount of labour spent, and the value of agricultural produce would consequently rise. On the other hand, if, with the modern means of production, a single spinner converts into yarn, during one working day, many thousand times the amount of cotton which he could have spun during the same time with the spinning wheel, it is evident that every single pound of cotton will absorb many thousand times less of spinning labour than it did before, and consequently, the value added by spinning to every single pound of cotton will be a thousand times less than before. The value of yarn will sink accordingly.

Apart from the different natural energies and acquired working abilities of different peoples, the productive powers of labour must principally depend: —

Firstly. Upon the natural conditions of labour, such as fertility of soil, mines, and so forth.

Secondly. Upon the progressive improvement of the social powers of labour, such as are derived from production on a grand scale, concentration of capital and combination of labour, subdivision of labour, machinery, improved methods, appliance of chemical and other natural agencies, shortening of time and space by means of communication and transport, and every other contrivance by which science presses natural agencies into the service of labour, and by which the social or co-operative character of labour is developed. The greater the productive powers of labour, the less labour is bestowed upon a given amount of produce; hence the smaller the value of the produce. The smaller the productive powers of labour, the more labour is bestowed upon the same amount of produce; hence the greater its value. As a general law we may, therefore, set it down that: —

The values of commodities are directly as the times of labour employed in their production, and are inversely as the productive powers of the labour employed.

Having till now only spoken of value, I shall add a few words about price, which is a peculiar from assumed by value.

Price, taken by itself, is nothing but the monetary expression of value. The values of all commodities of the country, for example, are expressed in gold prices, while on the Continent they are mainly expressed in silver prices. The value of gold or silver, like that of all other commodities is regulated by the quantity of labour necessary for getting them. You exchange a certain amount of your national products, in which a certain amount of your national labour is crystallized, for the produce of the gold and silver producing countries, in which a certain quantity of their labour is crystallized. It is in this way, in fact by barter, that you learn to express in gold and silver the values of all commodities, that is the respective quantities of labour bestowed upon them. Looking somewhat closer into the monetary expression of value, or what comes to the same, the conversion of value into price, you will find that it is a process by which you give to the values of all commodities an independent and homogeneous form, or by which you express them as quantities of equal social labour. So far as it is but the monetary expression of value, price has been called natural price by Adam Smith, “prix necessaire” by the French physiocrats. What then is the relation between value and market prices, or between natural prices and market prices? You all know that the market price is the same for all commodities of the same kind, however the conditions of production may differ for the individual producers. The market price expresses only the average amount of social labour necessary, under the average conditions of production, to supply the market with a certain mass of a certain article. It is calculated upon the whole lot of a commodity of a certain description.

So far the market price of a commodity coincides with its value. On the other hand, the oscillations of market prices, rising now over, sinking now under the value or natural price, depend upon the fluctuations of supply and demand. The deviations of market prices from values are continual, but as Adam Smith says:

“The natural price is the central price to which the prices of commodities are continually gravitating. Different accidents may sometimes keep them suspended a good deal above it, and sometimes force them down even somewhat below it. But whatever may be the obstacles which hinder them from settling in this center of repose and continuance, they are constantly tending towards it.”

I cannot now sift this matter. It suffices to say the if supply and demand equilibrate each other, the market prices of commodities will correspond with their natural prices, that is to say with their values, as determined by the respective quantities of labour required for their production. But supply and demand must constantly tend to equilibrate each other, although they do so only by compensating one fluctuation by another, a rise by a fall, and vice versa. If instead of considering only the daily fluctuations you analyze the movement of market prices for longer periods, as Mr. Tooke, for example, has done in his History of Prices, you will find that the fluctuations of market prices, their deviations from values, their ups and downs, paralyze and compensate each other; so that apart from the effect of monopolies and some other modifications I must now pass by, all descriptions of commodities are, on average, sold at their respective values or natural prices. The average periods during which the fluctuations of market prices compensate each other are different for different kinds of commodities, because with one kind it is easier to adapt supply to demand than with the other.

If the, speaking broadly, and embracing somewhat longer periods, all descriptions of commodities sell at their respective values, it is nonsense to suppose that profit, not in individual cases; but that the constant and usual profits of different trades spring from the prices of commodities, or selling them at a price over and above their value. The absurdity of this notion becomes evident if it is generalized. What a man would constantly win as a seller he would constantly lose as a purchaser. It would not do to say that there are men who are buyers without being sellers, or consumers without being producers. What these people pay to the producers, they must first get from them for nothing. If a man first takes your money and afterwards returns that money in buying your commodities, you will never enrich yourselves by selling your commodities too dear to that same man. This sort of transaction might diminish a loss, but would never help in realizing a profit. To explain, therefore, the general nature of profits, you must start from the theorem that, on an average, commodities are sold at their real values, and that profits are derived from selling them at their values, that is, in proportion to the quantity of labour realized in them. If you cannot explain profit upon this supposition, you cannot explain it at all. This seems paradox and contrary to every-day observation. It is also paradox that the earth moves round the sun, and that water consists of two highly inflammable gases. Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by every-day experience, which catches only the delusive appearance of things.