Dali's Garden
BY Rosie Dalton

Taste is such a mysterious thing. The delicate dance of sweet and sour flavours on the tongue. Acidity, umami, or salinity. When in balance, these flavours can be transportive. When tied to particular memories, they can be loaded up with nostalgia. And the place that they take us to so often resides deep within the heart—where our most treasured secrets lie tucked away for safekeeping. 

Like the butter cake that my grandmother made for us each birthday. The one that I made for my son’s first birthday too—sunshine baked in with the batter. 

Like that very first mango of the season, which recalls summer holidays of my childhood. All piled into the car, with sand between our toes and sweetness dripping down our elbows, from that tropical golden orb. 

It seems to me that our tastebuds help us archive our memories, filing them away to be unlocked at a later date. They help Mother Nature store her memories as well, encoding the minerality of the soil into that particular champagne vintage, or transmuting the sunshine into that perfect first mango. 

‘Eat bread and understand comfort,’ writes Mary Oliver. ‘Drink water, and understand delight. Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets are opening their bodies for the hummingbirds who are drinking the sweetness, who are thrillingly gluttonous... Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.’

What can be gained from a return to the simple art of sharing moments together—a meal, a morning, or a creative exchange? Real life moments, savoured offline.

As children we learn to experience the world through our palate. Throughout our lives, we gather together to break bread, share stories, and pass wisdom down from generation to generation. We swap recipes as we swap memories and we come to learn the secrets of our ancestors.

What do you taste when you sip a glass of wine, crunch into an apple, or drink the rainwater? Which of Mother Nature’s secrets dance upon your tongue in that moment? And which of your own secrets come bubbling to the surface? 

For Chapter Six we welcome you behind the scenes of JANE Issue Twelve, which is dedicated to the art of coming together. We break bread with George Wood-Weber and explore the alchemical magic of recycling fine metals with Prada’s Eternal Gold. 

Dive deep into our curation of community resources, as we share prompts for tapping into Ancestral Wisdom and Further Reading for delving deeper still—a chance to embrace the mystery.

This month we invite you to taste the heart. And savour the secrets that lie within. 

Rosie Dalton