Explore ancient food preservation and learn how salt, sun and time shaped resilience, continuity and sustenance across civilisations.

This hands-on workshop explores food preservation as both design and ancient technology. Drawing on traditions from West Asia and North Africa, participants will learn how fermentation, drying and salting with only salt, sun and time created systems of resilience and continuity. The focus is on Kishk, a mix of salted yoghurt and cracked wheat dried in the sun for two weeks, alongside a demo of Maleh (salted fish), once both sustenance and currency in the Gulf. Each participant will make their own Kishk artefact while discovering how these methods shaped civilisations and why they remain vital today.

About Bethany Kehdy

Bethany is a self-taught chef and author from Lebanon. She launched Dirty Kitchen Secrets, wrote two cookbooks and founded Food Blogger Connect, Europe’s first food blogging conference, as well as Taste Lebanon, a culinary tourism company. She has trained with Michelin-starred chefs and specialises in Levantine cuisine with a focus on food, heritage and storytelling.