MOCK WILD PICNIC (Egypt) v1.0 used speculative images, videos, maps and recipes to imagine, taste & debate other food futures for the Egyptian desert at the Cairotronica festival in the spring of 2025.
MOCK WILD PICNICS are alternate-reality (AR) food events for imagining hybrid landscapes and cuisines and prototyping other food futures at sites of transition around the world.
MOCK WILD PICNIC (Egypt) imagines a near future where disparate greening projects, historic land use, and agroecological farms blur, generating alternatives and questioning how—and why—wild Western Desert lands are being converted into agricultural land.
MENU
A. Dukka Taste Test
Three variations on the traditional mix
1. Pistacchio, Wild Thyme, Star Anise
2. Peanut, Cumin, Coriander & Sesame
3. Dal, Fenugreek, Nutmeg + Rose Petal
Fermented Barley & Wheat Pancakes
B. New Ecologies
Artificial water ways and new cultivars
Fermented tilapia [feseekh] tartlet,
with Purple Kale
C. Land Sharing Desert Dessert
Birds & Bees & Buffalo
Carob Caramel Cookie
Puffed Sorghum
Christ’s thorn jujube
Mulberry
Buffalo Milk
Honey
MOCK WILD: EGYPT
At the center of a cross-continental bird migration flyway,
At the edge of two bioregions defined by water and heat,
Inside a watershed being transformed by megaprojects,
Near the peri-urban outskirts of a megacity,
Within the wild landscape of the desert,
As a branch of a greening-the-desert project area,
There is a fractal farm of the future:
Catalogued in databases of taste, with ingredients old, new, cultivated & wild,
Preserved and propagated via living seedbanks,
Enhanced at plant breeding labs,
Fed by a water treatment plant and a concrete river,
Thriving within a food forest microclimate,
Harvested from production fields of various shapes and sizes,
Foraged at the edge lands which invite the wild in,
Bounded by circle irrigation plots,
Adapting to engineered landscapes and a changing climate.
CREDITS
Partner & Host: Cairotronica
Researcher: Hala Barakat
Chef: Mona El Sabbahy
Panel Participants: Marwa Benhalim, Hala Barakat, Wesam Masoud
Support: Creative Industries Fund NL / Stimuleringsfonds: Climate Justice
