Hand luggage or hamper?

Food / travel feature written for foodtripper.com, November 09: www.foodtripper.com/Articles/Article/Articles/338/Handluggageorhamper.aspx

Cat Davies looks into the rules on food imports to the UK and finds plenty of scope for bringing back Christmas treats.

If you live to eat, love to travel, and do not enjoy buying souvenirs for the sake of shopping, then it’s likely that your suitcase will have contained the odd piece of cheese and a few bottles of balsamic for our friends in the north. On my last conference trip to Salamanca, I marvelled at the sympathetic design of my presentation poster-tube and a rather weighty chorizo. Mea culpa. I knew that I was on shaky ground, but have rarely given my store-cupboard imports more thought than a token naughty shrug and protestations of doing it for love. At the top of the delights of holidaying abroad are the culinary discoveries devoured whilst on the road. Travelling tales are built around the creaminess of the yogurt or the piquancy of the spice, and images of delicate sushi or steaming street food punctuate the steady stream of sunsets presented to loved ones when the travellers return. Stories and photographs engage us to a point, but who wants to indulge vicariously? If the saucisson was so divine, sister, then let me at it.

The Department for Farming and Rural Affairs recently relaunched its Don’t Bring me Back campaign, which warns British tourists of the agricultural risks and penalties involved in bringing home food products from outside the EU. The campaign has been triggered by significant hauls for the harvest table - 85 tonnes of illegal animal products were seized by customs officers last year - and general confusion over what can and can’t be brought in. Posters at the luggage carousel featuring smudgy animals masked by a Big Red X, coupled with the current suspicion inherent in using airports means that we are walking through the green aisle with the zealous stride of a crack fiend, when in many cases we’re doing nothing wrong at all.

The guidelines for most Eurojetters are simple. You can bring back personal consignments pretty much scot-free, i.e. ‘a reasonable amount of any food on sale in any EU country’, extending to some additional European territories such as Andorra, Canary Islands, Channel Islands, Isle of Man, Liechtenstein, Norway, San Marino and Switzerland. So that covers your verdant Italian olive oil and mama’s meaty protein-rich food parcel to see you through the bleak Brit-winter. If those bulging cases look to contain food for commercial purposes – or surprisingly, potatoes, even for personal use - then you may be subject to checks by the health authorities at the point of import. Just as all mothers worth their salt told their daughters never to eat anything bigger than their own head, it’s probably wise not to pack anything you couldn’t comfortably consume at a raucous dinner party between friends.

So with your conscience clean and your Euros exchanged for continental treasures, can we spend on? Well yes, with a note of caution and a nod to current affairs. It is worth checking the government guidelines when planning a trip. The regular rules may fluctuate in times of high security, e.g. egg products in times of avian flu. If you have ever had your painstakingly-sourced liquid sunshine taken away, or even a decidedly solid coarse paté confiscated due to the 100ml rule you’ll know how frustrating it can be. It’s fine if it was purchased and hermetically-sealed at the airport, or secreted inside your checked-in luggage, however.

It’s only once we travel outside of the Eurozone that things start to get foggier. That ‘reasonable amount’ now precludes any food containing products of animal origin, and those pesky potatoes (including crisps) continue to be outright forbidden.

The best advice is to check Defra’s handy searchable Import Rules. Looking at this fool’s guide to food imports at http://dontbringmeback.direct.gov.uk/index.html, I found welcome news. From America, for example, we can harvest bagels and cookies, but not cheese; from Australia, Vegemite but not powdered milk. No great sacrifices there then. Regulated amounts of maple syrup and salmon are fine from Canada to the UK as long as we promise not to risk the outlawed caribou meat, and powdered spices and mangoes are all I’m interested in from India. Having suffered a burst curry lunch box last week from home to work, I’ll pass on a repeat episode with a 60 litre backpack. Manuka honey from New Zealand, olives from Turkey and salsa from Mexico all get the green flag. What delicious joy. And concerning creatures of the deep, I can only dream of being in the position of bringing more than a spoonful of caviar, but anything over 125g requires a license due to its link to protected species. Defra also spells out restrictions on large quantities of oysters and snail meat, but with all due respect, who would waste a source of fresh quivering oysters on a long and rarefied journey when they can instead be devoured overlooking their serene natural habitat, where the sun shines on the righteous.

Defra’s database not only stipulates the yeas and the nays of food imports, it also explains the reasons for the regulations and the penalties for ignoring them. So do inform yourself about the risks of cross-contamination that rural communities are so vulnerable to, and especially when visiting foreign countries such as Australia and New Zealand which successfully protect their precious biodiversity by clear laws and practices. But as long as your amuse-bouches brought back to the UK don’t reach commercial proportions, pack in that saffron and Jamaican salt-cod, safe in your socks till it’s time for fish stew. And if you fancy s’more, you can probably get hold of it in a town not far away – a pleasure and privilege of multicultural Britain.

Summary:

From EU countries and certain other European territories, you can bring back to the UK most foods on sale, as long as they are for personal consumption.

From most non-EU countries back to the UK, personal imports of meat and dairy products are banned, with restrictions also applying to other food products, such as potatoes, fish, shellfish, eggs and egg products, honey and certain fruits and vegetables.

For further information, see: www.food.gov.uk/foodindustry/imports/imports_advice/personal_imp/ www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/food/personal-import/topics/faq.htm http://importdetails.defra.gov.uk/Default.aspx?Location=None&Module=IDDSearch

Nasal cycling

Cognitive Science feature written for BlueSci magazine Easter 09: www.bluesci.org/images/stories/Issue_15.pdf

Nasal cycling - not an Olympic sport new for 2012, but the alternating dominance of each nostril. This is a physical phenomenon present in 85% of mammals – and that probably includes you. As we go about our business, one nostril is more open, allowing more air to flow through it than its resting partner. A few hours later, the open nostril rests and the other flares and takes control. Try it. Put a finger under your nose and you will feel a stronger, warmer sensation on one side. Remember to do it again later and you may well find the opposite.

Unsurprisingly, researchers have not been monitoring nasal cycling by sitting around with their fingers under each others’ noses. It has been studied in a number of ways: hot-wire anemometers (ouch) should perhaps remain unpacked; the Zwaardemaker method relies on a calibrated cold mirror and condensation, and a more recent technique involves participants exhaling onto a piece of glass with red dye and then observing the resultant ink bloom. The wonky love hearts which are left behind reveal a striking manifestation of our nasal asymmetry.

This alternating vasodilation and vasoconstriction of the nostrils was first documented by Kayser, a German rhinologist in 1895 and developed by Heetderks in 1927. It has since been embraced by yoga enthusiasts in the meditative practice of Pranayama. Research into nasal cycling was taken up with gusto by David Shannahoff-Khalsa at the University of California in the early 1990s leading to a number of publications, and has more recently been investigated in relation to handedness, autism and early language impairment.

So why this alternation? Looking elsewhere in the body may help explain. It has been suggested that brain lateralisation takes place to make maximum use of neural tissue, avoiding duplication of function. However, nostrils need not multitask, and do not wear out unless they have been regular conduits to substances other than air. The intriguing claim is that the nasal cycle is linked to the rhythm of alternating brain hemispheric activity, and governed by the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Using neural imaging techniques, positive correlations have been found between hemispheric activity and dominance in the opposite nostril. Surprisingly, the nose is called upon as an integral part of cognition!

We even do better in certain kinds of test when forced to breathe through the optimal nostril. Shannahoff-Khalsa and Susan Jella investigated performance in cognitive tests by forcing their undergraduates to breathe through either the left or the right nostril (crocodile-clips, anyone?). When taking the right-brain based spatial tasks, the students did significantly better during left-nostril breathing, whilst on the verbal tasks which are more closely associated with the left hemisphere, they scored higher during right nostril breathing but not significantly so (the asymmetry in significance in this case may be due to multiple brain regions mediating the skills required in the specific types of task).

Although we lag behind dolphins who have nailed the ability to let one half of their brains rest while the other keeps lookout for predators and takes charge of breathing, the evidence from nasal cycling research suggests that there may be some propensity for one side of the human brain to be more active whilst the other takes a back seat, regardless of the task at hand. Half-sleeping has been noted in other species too – we’ve all seen the ‘one-legged’ flamingo, with ducks, geese, storks and herons also making like Maasai tribesmen from time to time. Various theories abound, including the idea that these birds are resting one hemisphere at a time; the resting leg corresponding to the contralateral sleeping hemisphere. The other side supports the body and maintains a degree of alertness when the bird is in a vulnerable state. Evolutionarily, the theory is persuasive.

Although this private life of the nose initially sounds pretty weird, lateralisation of the body is widely observed. Whenever we pick up a pen, put the phone to our ear, cross our legs, interlace our fingers or tilt our heads to be kissed we are demonstrating the body’s inherent lopsidedness. Left- and right-brained tendencies are commonly cited to illustrate our strengths and weaknesses, and lateralisation of the brain is now a major topic within the cognitive sciences; there is even a cross-disciplinary international journal focused exclusively on lateralisation in human and non-human species.

Psychologists and linguists have studied brain regions and lesions in relation to language ability since the 19th century. Such research is widely respected, and what it has in common across the sub-disciplines is the top-down nature of brain governing body. So does our modest air-warming appendage really have the capacity to influence brain function? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Not necessarily, considering that the ANS and the hypothalamus are ultimately in charge here. It appears that nostril dominance originates from the brain itself, and then in turn affects cortical activity. The evidence suggests that the ANS starts the race, the nostrils cycle and the brain follows behind.

So if the story of nasal cycling is true, how should we best harness it? Plug our left nostril during that work presentation? Stick a finger in the right side during the driving test? Market an airflow detection kit for task/ brain-optimisation? As it seems that achieving ambinasality is beyond us, perhaps we’ve just got to embrace the times when we’re down with a cold, for that is when we are truly cerebrally balanced.

References
Kayser, R. (1895) Die exakte Messung der Luftdurchgängigkeit der Nase. Arch. Laryng. Rhinol. (Berl.) 8, 101-120
Shannahoff-Khalsa, D. (1993) The ultradian rhythm of alternating cerebral hemispheric activity. Int. J. Neurosci. 70, 285-298
Jella S.A, Shannahoff-Khalsa D.S. (1993) The effects of unilateral forced nostril breathing on cognitive performance. Int J Neurosci. 73, 61-8

Turtle power

The sands of Ras-al Jinz on the north-eastern tip of Oman are pregnant with thousands of little turtles. Nightly in late summer, a hundred huge mums-to-be appear from of the Arabian Sea to lay their eggs on the long stretches of coast.

We are camping on the cliffs which overlook and protect the sands below. Through the dusk the beach looks like a minefield, riddled with giant craters connected by the day-old juggernaut tracks of these prehistoric creatures, and overlaid with the criss-crossing footprints of agile desert foxes looking for an eggy feast.

At about ten o’clock we see a mountainous shell coming a-humping out of the breaking waves. Sadly, she is discouraged by our torch, so heaves herself into reverse, which makes me feel pretty awful. We switch off and decide to resume Turtlewatch at dawn.

At five, we see two beaky beasts hoisting their exhausted bulk out of their sand-holes and disappearing back into the sea, like mysterious boulders. Childbirth’s got to be a tough job no matter which species you are, but these green turtles weighing in at around 150kg leave their natural watery habitat, climb twenty metres uphill, then dig deep hollows. Mother-to-be then lays a clutch of a hundred eggs inside, deftly covers the nest with sand, and then huffs and puffs and pulls her massiveness out of the hole. And there’s more. We gape as she then sets about making an ingenious postnatal decoy to divert predators away from the eggs, which should lie in secrecy for two months. Using her paddle-like flippers, she strenuously creates a second, bigger pit to outfox the hungry scavengers. Satisfied, she turns around, entrusting her babies to this very same beach from which she was born, and returns to the sea.

As light creeps upwards from the horizon and the smile of an Islamic moon fades, an army of titchy turtles start their race for the sea. It’s inspirational, sitting on the sand, seeing these miniatures emerge from all around, scaling their first mountain just to get out of bed. It’s the toughest journey I’ve ever witnessed – up and down and in and out of the surf, but the baby turtles accept their mission with true and comic enthusiasm. We free a few prisoners from fishing nets and plonk them safely near the shore. Stunningly, their path is lit by electric blue phosphorescence.

I wonder about their lives ahead. What sub-marine chases lie in store? Would they return to this spot to lay their own eggs? Their start in life is fragile, at the mercy of crabs and gulls, and mismatched flippers, or even being run down by their battleship aunts. This part of Oman gets 20,000 adult turtles coming to nest each year, though only two or three hatchlings out of each 10,000 make it to the juggernaut-league themselves. If they get that far, they’re in for the long haul with a lifespan of over a century, full of the secrets of the deep.

On losing it

I travel rather a lot. The Lonely Planet tells me to leave only footprints, and I try. But however many bags with however many pockets I strap to myself, I leave a wealth of articles in my wake. Gadgets, sandwiches, bachelors, spatulas, medicines, names and numbers, photographed faces, souvenir palaces, gemstones, hotpants and pamphlets, they tumble behind me in a possession procession. I am the anti-klepto bride.

What does it mean to lose a possession? Inconvenience, regret, frustration? Yes, probably, and almost certainly. A restored faith in good people? Definitely. Time spent up to your armpits down the back of the sofa, retracing steps and beckoning déjà vus, cancelling virtual details, finding replacements, and marvelling at the superior skills of the right-time, right-place, right-action stranger.

My wallet has remained circulating the Tokyo subway whilst I spent an afternoon above ground amongst sakura, sake, and schoolchildren. I got it back, as full as I’d left it. That’s the Japanese, they say. But then again I’ve left my wallet on a hip-high wall in a Leeds ghetto at pub closing time. I got it back then too.

I once unwittingly dropped a package containing my passport, driving license, chequebook, credit cards, and the directions to the best curry house in all of India. My dad then received a phonecall from a shift-worker letting him know that his daughter’s vital documents were sitting on a mantelpiece in Yorkshire, ready to be picked up. Nothing shifty about strangers in this lucky case.

As a student, I rode in the back of a London cab, pockets bulging with gloves and matches and sweetiess and hankies and headphones displacing my keys onto the car seat next to me. Paid the taximan, tried to get into my flat, found I’d lost my keys, slept on a friend’s floor, the usual drill. The next day, I duly went to the university accommodation office clutching my twenty-five pounds replacement key fee, and joined the queue for the counter. On explaining the relevant episodes of the previous night to the assistant, I felt a tap on my shoulder from the next person waiting in line. A blonde girl wearing chains asked me what my keys looked like. I told her that they were attached to a small plastic strawberry-shaped key-ring. ‘Oh’, she replied blinking, as if she’d just stumbled over a mislaid pair of glasses, ‘here they are’. And pulled out of her pocket my glittering and would-be-expensive roomkeys. ‘I found them in the back of a taxi last night’.

Angels, they lot of them. Thank you.

Things lost happen in chaos. Things found are slower-paced, more reflective and provocative. That wallet, those documents, and those keys were lost to me, but of course found to another. What happened when they discovered objects thrown from another life? An abandoned teddy bear, a woollen glove, a mangled signet ring are all powerful kick-starts for speculation on what on earth led to the loss. Who’d have anticipated the potential trauma a single shoe can cast in the mind of the one who walks by? Shoes should be in pairs! The one left, upturned and saggy, is useless, but then so is the other so smart and shiny, all dressed up and nowhere to go, redundant.

As finders of these things we rarely want to be their keeper, as if value remains unfulfilled until the object reclaims its lonely heart. Empathy of loss might drive us to return to unwilling sender; if you’re a loser, like me, you’re more likely to pursue a reconciliation between things found and their owners. If the object bears no clues as to its proper place, we are most likely to place it back where we found it, hoping that the owner will retrace their steps. If we can find a distinguishing feature on the item that could lead to its other half, our inner detective wipes down its magnifying glass and sets about tracking down the owner, all the while performing complex computations regarding the object’s financial and sentimental value, likelihood of finding the owner, and how well the mission can be accommodated into our schedules. Or perhaps because of deadlines and children and everything else that makes life a full-time job, we stick the book or the locket or whatever the treasure in our pocket to consider when we have more time, and so the lost item remains forever discovered, but never refound, bound for an extended period in hiding. Must return, must return.

Bat for Lashes: Cambridge Corn Exchange, October 4th 2009

Live review written for the Cambridge News 6/10/09: www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_lifestyle_reviews/displayarticle.asp?id=454456

Bat for Lashes returned to Cambridge last night on wave of bells, beauty and some bloomin’ big drums, setting the tone for their show which ricocheted from ballerina elegance to driving tribal beats.

The night was an exercise in extremes, flipping between the male and the female, the gentle and the tough, from simple acoustic sections to heavily synthesised walls of sound. Fitting then that singer Natasha Khan drew from two albums and sang out pitch-perfect between the falsetto and the deep down low. She even made room for Pearl, her alter-ego, who duetted on The Big Sleep via a flickering video played out on a lumbering old TV.

Whilst Bat for Lashes is Natasha Khan’s moniker, the fact that fans refer to BfL as both she and they is testimony to the slick collaboration between Natasha and in her words, her amazing band.

Tracks from both albums were juxtaposed in a way that although there was little new in the way of song arrangements, the jolt from the melodic latticework of Fur and Gold to the 80’s crunch of Two Suns meant that the audience was held rapt. We even had to hold steady against the tsunami-threat that was Sarah Jones’s relentless timpani assault during Siren Song and Two Planets, not that it dislodged the composure of the rest of the band who rotated perfectly between guitars, strings and intriguing medieval instruments.

At the end, Natasha whispered Good Night in the smallest voice. I’m still braced for the inevitable howling ambush to follow.