Welcome from the editor: waiting for Godot

Welcome and thank you for joining me this weekend.

This week has made me think about Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot.
There are many interpretations of the Irish playwright’s famous work, but to me it’s always had the meaning of waiting for something to happen – which never does – instead of taking action. Or perhaps nothing happens exactly because no action is taken.

With the sobering data on childhood obesity in the UK, more needs to be done with regards to kids’ nutrition and yet these much needed changes are simply not happening fast enough. We look at the relationship between children and food in Lessons from the dining hall: the history of free school meals and the changes needed to improve pupils’ food.

Plastic pollution is not a new problem, and yet it’s an issue that’s becoming more gargantuan each day, threatening our planet and our health. We explore the problem in From seaweed to coconut: sustainable packaging solutions fighting the war on plastic.

Apparently the first record of the famous Parmigiano Reggiano hard cheese is from 1254 although it is believed that Benedictine monks created the delicacy 900 years ago. The prized Italian cheese is often faked, with lower quality stuff passed off for the original product. To protect its authenticity, the Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium has implemented blockchain traceability labels for parmesan cheese in a ‘tradition meets technology’ move. Clearly il Consorzio is not waiting for Godot to protect its pride and joy from fraudsters.

Christopher T Simons, Associate Professor in Sensory Science, CFAES Department of Food Science & Technology, The Ohio State University takes us on a journey to the fascinating world of taste perception beyond taste buds in this week’s Table Talk podcast Do labels and packaging really affect what we taste? This is an experiment I’d like to test myself.

Don’t wait around for Godot, he/she may never show up.

“Why it’s very natural, very natural. I myself in your situation, if I had an
appointment with a Godin . . . Godet . . . Godot . . . anyhow, you see who I mean,
I’d wait till it was black night before I gave up. I’d very
much like to sit down, but I don’t quite know how to go about it.”
Pozzo, Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend,

Stef