Glasgow 2014: Playing Games with Your Food

Glasgow is the centre of the sporting world this month, if you ignore that big football thing that’s still going on in Brazil, and luckily there is actually some foodie benefit to the Commonwealth Games turning up in Scotland. That benefit comes not in the form of the usual trauma wrought by major sporting events, like a sudden surfeit of multinational chain restaurants or the announcement of a packet of ham in the shape of ‘Iconic Local Image A.’

Nope, the team behind Culture 2014 and Festival 2014 have got it right, and laid on some actual food events that you might reasonably want to attend. Events such as Africa in Motion’s Film and Food Marathon. Don’t worry though, it isn’t an actual marathon or anything mad like that. Instead it’s an evening set in the opulent surroundings of House for an Art Lover in Bellahouston Park that requires very little in the way of athletic exertion.

It’s a short film triple bill, with the films telling the varied stories of sportspeople from Kenya, South Africa and Tunisia. The three-course meal is crafted to match, with influences from across Africa thrown in. Of all the ways to get involved with sport this month, watching other people do it while having food brought to you in a lavish setting will take some beating. House for an Art Lover, Bellahouston Park. 9 Jul, 7pm, tickets £20.

The Empire Cafe doesn’t go for the extravagant angle, but it might be one of the more engaging elements of the whole Games. Popping up in the Briggait for the first week of the Games, the Cafe is a place to reflect on the somewhat dubious history of the Commonwealth, and Scotland’s relationship with the Caribbean slave trade. Expect music, poetry, art, film and a whole host of events, as well as… y’know, a cafe.

The experimental menu was developed in a series of workshops and recipes use traditional techniques alongside those troublesome ingredients. One thing’s for sure, a trip to the Empire will certainly leave you with plenty to talk about over your afternoon cuppa. The Briggait, 141 Bridgegate. 24 Jul to 1 Aug, various times

For a slightly more upbeat blast from the past, hit up the Merchant City Festival’s Charleston Brunch. Having said that, quite what this 1920s-inspired brunch with dancing folk and cocktails has to do with the Commonwealth Games is completely beyond us. AiM and the Empire Cafe examine the cultural and personal impact of sport on entire continents, while this Merchant City event seems to be an excuse to fling about in a nice frock and do some light to medium drinking at 11 o'clock in the morning. Not that we’re complaining, we just can’t see how it fits in. Wild Cabaret, 18 Candleriggs. 26 Jul, 11am

What we can see the point in is making a giant cake to commemorate the Games, so it’s good news that the option exists. Yes, it’s that food event beloved of world record-hunters and producers of ‘I’m on a journey’-type documentaries – it’s the chance to help make a pointlessly-large foodstuff! In this case it’s a giant Commonwealth cake, although not the kind of Commonwealth cake from the Empire Cafe a few paragraphs ago. Don’t expect any thought-provoking social commentary here – this is all about helping to make a cake, which will be large. Your role, should you choose to accept it or have some time to kill with small relatives who don’t want to sit in the pub with you, is to make all the little decorations and accoutrements that go on the standard ‘Big Event Cake’. We suggest trying to make a marzipan Usain Bolt or a Mo Farah out of icing sugar and those little silver balls, although if anyone asks we told you to make a generic sportsperson whose resemblance to a cake decoration is purely coincidental. Chisholm St, Merchant City. 2 Aug, 12pm.

Of course, no major sporting event would be complete without souvenirs, or ‘tat’ as they’re more commonly known. As it turns out, some of the Glasgow 2014 merch is a) highly foodular and b) not rubbish. That’s down to Panel and their Scotland Can Make It! project, which teamed up designers and artists with producers and manufacturers to come up with some unique souvenirs of the Games. When we say unique, we mean things like Katy West’s art deco jelly mould inspired by a Glasgow restaurant from the 1930s, or Claire Duffy’s gold, silver and bronze Tunnock’s teacakes complete with detachable medals to celebrate your achievement of eating gold, silver and bronze Tunnock’s teacakes. Well, it’s a bit late to try and win a real medal, so it’s the closest any of us are going to get. South Block, Osbourne St. 19 Jul-3 Aug