They say you are what you eat.

Now a pair of Saltaire artists are putting that maxim to the test – by finding out the eating habits of people in the World Heritage Site.

Andy Abbott and Yvonne Carmichael, of Whitlam Street, have begun an art project to map what villagers are eating for tea.

Research for the Food Map will make up part of an exhibition for the Saltaire Arts Trail later this month.

“We are interested in mapping Saltaire in a different way,” said Yvonne, 26. “Most people concentrate on the history of Saltaire.

“But it is also a place where people live and we thought it would be interesting to discover something about the village by finding out what people are eating for tea.”

The couple have pushed questionnaires through the letterboxes of homes asking people about their favourite meals, with the top answers forming the basis of the multimedia exhibition, called Saltaire and Pepper.

In another part of the project, food has been designed and cooked by the artists to reflect the characters behind Saltaire’s street names.

Yvonne said: “For example, Titus Street is named after Sir Titus, which is a Greek name meaning grand and oversized, so we have created a large Greek pasta dish for that street.”

Photographs of food based on street names and analysis of residents’ favourite meals will make up one of the art festival’s Open Houses exhibitions, which sees homes transformed into temporary art galleries.

  • Read the full story in Wednesday's T&A