Guest Author - Lauren Evans

Cooking in the Danger Zone

The second series of Cooking in the Danger Zone follows Stefan Gates, a food writer, as he travels the globe taking a look at the political and socio-economic factors that dictate the eating habits of people in some of the poorest and most dangerous countries in the world. The latest episode, in which Stefan visits Cameroon and Ethiopia, was an eye-opening affair.

It is refreshing to see a documentary following ordinary people living ordinary lives in these countries, as so many of the films we see about Ethiopia are designed by fundraisers to attract western aid. It is perhaps surprising, familiar as we are with images of the 1984 famine in Ethiopia, to find out that Ethiopia has recently celebrated the new millennium (they follow the Julian calendar, and therefore are 7 years behind most of the world) and considers itself to be on the verge of a more successful era. There are still many people receiving food aid, and many people living a hand-to-mouth existence, but overall the population is looking forward to the future, and it’s people want Ethiopia to be painted in a more positive light, even if this sometimes means rounding up the capital’s malnourished street children and dumping them in forests where foreign journalists cannot find them for comment.

In Cameroon, where hunting and selling “bush meat” such as gorilla and chimpanzee is illegal, Cameroonians give another side of the story, and it becomes clear that they cannot take the ban too seriously, as bush meat is part of the staple diet of those living in villages who do not have any other reliable source of protein. Indeed, the enforcers of the ban admit that it is near enough impossible and even slightly unfair to prosecute those people in villages who trap animals for subsistence, and that they are forced to concentrate on those commission hunters who trap and kill as many animals as possible for sale in the big cities, where protein sources such as chicken and fish are readily available.

Stefan Gates doesn’t patronise, and asks direct and relevant questions which evoke truly honest (and often incriminating) answers from people – this documentary makes you question just how ethical you can be when you can’t pop into Tesco for some organic beef burgers!

This World: Miss Gulag

Last week, BBC Two’s This World season gave us an amazing treat – Miss Gulag - a Russian film about UF-91/9, the Siberian women’s prison where they hold an annual beauty contest for the inmates. The pageant is a chance for the inmates to apply themselves to creating costumes and putting on a beauty pageant production, and by contributing to it, they can earn the possibility of early parole. The film follows three women, Tatiana, Natasha, and Yulia along their journeys. Tatiana is coming to the end of a sentence for a serious assault on a petrol station owner, and is hoping for a parole hearing. Natasha has been released from UF-91/9 after serving 8 years for armed assault, and is finding it hard to adjust to life on the outside, as she is not able to obtain ID papers without a job, but can’t get a work permit without her ID papers. The film paints a fairly bleak picture of life for women in Siberia, most of the women’s stories talk about the high numbers of young people turning to drugs in the region, so it is not surprising that the level of violent crime is so high. Natasha is homesick for the order and routine of the prison, and you are left wondering whether she will deliberately break the rules to get sent back there.

Miss Gulag really manages to show the humanity behind it’s subjects, it’s very funny at times, but also incredibly sad. The pageant costumes, often designed around themes such as “Greek Goddesses” or “Fantasy” are hilariously bad, and the tattooed beauty queens storming down the catwalk like they’re on their way to an exercise-yard brawl, then striking a 1986 catalogue pose at the end, are truly a sight to see. The filmmakers draw the line at poking fun, and the result is a humorous, yet sensitive look at life in a Siberian prison.