This reflection centers on the author’s grandmother’s cookbook as a catalyst for interrogating the incomplete memories of growing up in Romania in the 1980s during the ‘golden decade’ of Communism. During these times, oppressive policies restricted people’s access to food and punished those who tried to eat outside the scope of the regime. Yet, through my grandmother’s cooking of dishes such as sauteed stinging nettles, which is the focus of this reflection, my memories of that decade are of delicious, tasty, and nutritious meals, the best she ever ate. The reflection asks difficult questions around pleasure during oppressive times, as well as about the impossibility of recreating such a dish outside of its own history.

This memoir reflects on the roles that milpa has played in my life as a child of the Salvadorian Diaspora and a solidarity activist with Central America. I use my lived experience as a site to explore how milpa, the tradition of maize, beans, and squashes and vegetables, are embedded with ‘sticky memories and emotions’, teaching lessons on family, love, difficulty, trauma, resistance, and resilience, across generations.

The study of cross-cutting characters in Roberto Bolaño's narrative becomes essential when examining the existing critical bibliography on the Chilean author. Many analyses focus on individual characters or specific works, overlooking the cohesive nature of Bolaño's fictional universe. This article aims to present a comprehensive history of the interconnected characters in Bolaño's texts, exploring their evolution and the interplay between the plots of his stories and novels. By examining the complete range of recurring characters, the article uncovers multiple cross-cutting character arcs that span across several of Bolaño's works. While Bolaño's recognition grew after receiving the Rómulo Gallegos Prize in 1998, academic interest in his works further intensified with subsequent publications, including monographs, theses, and critical studies. Notable contributions include works that extensively analyse various aspects of Bolaño's writing but fall short of a comprehensive study of his cross-cutting characters. This article fills that gap by exploring the appearances and transformations of characters such as Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, examining instances of character rewriting, and delving into the portrayal of characters in different works. By offering a holistic and intertextual understanding of Bolaño's narrative, this study contributes to the critical analysis of his literary oeuvre.

This special issue, Sticky Memories: The Emotional Landscape of Food, explores the profound impact of culinary experiences on our emotional and cultural landscapes. It examines how food, beyond its material form, becomes a powerful symbol in our personal and communal narratives. The issue engages with the concept of 'stickiness' in food memories, where culinary experiences not only linger but also shape identity, resist replication, and reflect complex sociopolitical realities. The narratives demonstrate food's role in memory-making, highlighting the intricate intersections of taste, emotion and cultural heritage.

The three language versions of Ian Campbell's poem series about the old jacaranda tree in a university coutryard presented here comprise a poem series in which he first wrote a poem in French in 1989, then an Indonesian language version which was published in the literary pages of an Indonesian newspaper (in Bandung, West Java) in 2004, and finally in English. Campbell regards this whole process as emblematic of his explorations in trilingual poetics, namely what does a 'concept'/poem idea look like if done in three of the languages with which he has some degree of written knowledge or fluency: English, French and Indonesian. This mirrors the three-pronged approach he took in an earlier edition of PORTAL - Vol. 14, No 1, April 2017, where the three language versions he wrote on a single theme were in English, Spanish, and Indonesian.

Sweet Grief is an autobiographical, experimental and fragmented account of the writer’s final months with her father. The narrative is centred around a shared food ritual—eating millefeuille—which becomes almost impossible after her father experiences a stroke. The piece is anchored by the human need to swallow. It draws together food, family, memory, grief, love, a global pandemic and the impact of bureaucratic decision-making. This reflection is multi-layered, like the millefeuille. Her father’s stroke occurred during the COVID pandemic when Western Australia effectively closed its border for 697 days, requiring the author to quarantine, twice. It explores the ‘messy’ emotions around food when a loved one must learn to swallow again and portrays the way in which food plays a ‘sticky’ role in familial relationships.

Memory in Motion illustrates the ways that replicating a now-lost culinary practice achieves stickiness through the affective transfer of ideas and experiences for visitors in history museums. It explores how embodied re-enactment both preserves and creates memories, while instilling senses of social value, currency and meaning in the museum, and in heritage more broadly. The work also considers museums, particularly house museums, recipes, and in this instance—sponge cake—as sites of memory and nostalgia, and their contemporary relevance. By interweaving resonant fragments of the museum’s collection and family (hi)stories with a performative activity embedded in memory and motion, we see the development of stickiness through a relational assemblage framework centred around emotional connections to food in the past and in the present, with a view to the future.with a view to the future.

I looked at my favorite chocolate and offered it. Lifetime hardwork was swallowed by usurpers, seeds have volatile prices, meat is out of question. Lebanese are jobless, but Syrians are subsidised. Water is scarce,and some go to the spring to fill reservoirs if fule there is, and schools need fresh money. Yet, few worry about finding "foi gras", but others sleep early to avoid dinner. Winter freezes us. Torn clothes and worn shoes are burned for warmth. When hunger creeps, luxury becones meaningless.

In our Shadwell food history walk, part of a larger ‘Food Lives’ initiative, we employed counter-mapping techniques to shed light on overlooked post-war migrant cafés, revealing their essential role in facilitating food security and community. These spaces, often central in marginalised individuals’ navigation through urban life, epitomise racialised resistance and survival. Their significance, especially the almost invisible contributions of women and men of colour, stands in contrast to dominant historical narratives. The spatial food heritage of Cable Street emphasises the longstanding influence of racially marginalised migrant communities, countering racism and racial inequalities. Drawing parallels to present-day East End eateries, often criticised yet serving as cultural hubs, the project underscores the enduring ‘sticky emotions’ tied to food, racial dynamics, and colonial legacies.

This article details the author’s journey through her hometown of Kuching, Sarawak, and the multisensorial experience of revisiting familial homes and key culinary heritage sites around the city. The everyday and the mundane are highlighted as key features which hold together the rich mosaic of the culinary traditions and history of Kuching. Kuching has recently been recognised as a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, which acknowledges its unique blend of historical and contemporary culinary practices. This article examines what this means for a city where hawker food culture is the lifeblood of Kuching, but also where a burgeoning gastronomic scene is increasingly drawing attention on the international stage. It argues for a revaluation of the traditional binaries between local food vendors (hawkers) and professional chefs, suggesting that both contribute to the city’s culinary landscape. This approach will help form a comprehensive and inclusive understanding of Kuching as a UNESCO Creative City. It will also guide future efforts to establish sustainable and locally based food supply chains in the city.