Where were we last weekend?

What were the Real Junk Food Project Brum team doing last saturday? We were catering for the final 2015 SOUNDkitchen SONIC picnic of course! The SONICpicnic is one of Birmingham’s only dedicated showcases for experimental electronic music, and for their last event of the year they decided to book us, one of Birmingham’s only dedicated showcases for experimental waste food, to provide the buffet. An array of delicious salads and dips were concocted by the team, and all displayed in the haunting blue glow of the lights at Vivid Projects, the food was lent the drama it deserves! The event itself showcased some fantastic sonic collages. Artists included Manfredi Clemente, Iris Garrelfs and Justin Wiggan who recovers ‘dead vinyl’ and plays it, improvising around the harsh, primal sounds it creates. Thanks for having us and our blue food SOUNDkitchen! And readers, keep your ears to the ground for their next event in early 2016.

Ben Coverting Food — Co-director Ben coveting foodstuffs

A Grand Day Out Gleaning

This week TRJFP Brum went on an adventure to the countryside! Joining forces with Feedback, we provided a delicious lunch for all of the lovely volunteers, as well as pitching in with the gleaning ourselves.

What is gleaning, I hear you ask?

Gleaning is the age-old practice of harvesting leftover crops. The UK Gleaning Network was founded in 2012 by Feedback, the organisation founded by Tristram Stuart to campaign for an end to food waste. It’s estimated that 30-40% of fruit and vegetables in the UK don’t even leave the farm, mostly due to cosmetic standards imposed by supermarkets. So many crops are left on the tree or ploughed back into the field because it’s just not economically worthwhile for the farmers to harvest them.

12309929_1694401360805000_1220542884444540996_o Tis the season for ripe, juicy apples

It was great to see so many people giving their time to rescue a beautiful crop of Braeburn apples that had been rejected due to being “too green”. A team of about 30 people worked hard, despite the rain and the cold, and managed to pick around 4 tonnes of delicious, crisp apples to be redistributed.

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The experience of eating an apple that you’ve just picked is amazing – the taste is so much richer than any fruit you can buy in the supermarket. Yet so many people have never had this experience, and perhaps wouldn’t even think that there is any difference. We’re so conditioned by supermarket standards to think only about how our fruit and veg look, and until you have that experience of truly fresh produce, how can you realise what you’re missing out on? I think a part of our mission should be to share this with as many people as possible, by growing food in the city, and using and sharing all that we grow.

12309584_1694401454138324_445632761523564782_o (1) Meeting our buddies from Bristol!

We weren’t the only representatives of The Real Junk Food Project out gleaning! We were really glad to have the opportunity to catch up with some lovely folks from The Bristol Skipchen. Part of their team are currently on their way to Lesbos to set up a solidarity café feeding refugees travelling to Europe. Check out this summary and head over to their fundraising page to support them if you’re able to.

So spaghetti doesn’t grow on trees and pasta isn’t made from meat?!

One of the best April fools jokes ever was played by the BBC when they reported on the growing of “spaghetti bushes”, showing bushes covered in spaghetti that was said to be drying in the sun after harvesting. Considering this was 1957, people could be forgiven for being taken in by this. However, it seems that there are still worrying gaps in knowledge about food and its origins.

Just over two years ago the British Nutrition Foundation carried out a survey amongst 27,500 five-to-16-year-olds to find out how much they knew about food and where it comes from. There was some confusion about the source of pasta among younger pupils, with about a third of five-to-eight-year-olds believing that pasta is made from meat (or did they mean wheat!? So, we thought we would do our bit to clarify this.

The aim of The Real Junk Food Project is primarily to use food destined for the bin to feed people on a ‘pay as you feel’ basis. However, we also feel that it is important to help people to help them
selves; to help them use the food and ingredients they have at home in a more sustainable way so that less food is wasted. To this end, two pasta making workshops have been delivered at Ladywood Community and Health Centre over the past few months. The first of these was attended by Ladywood residents with both adults and children alike taking part, the second one in September was attended by adults from further afield to learn more about this lovely Italian carbohydrate.
In line with the aims of the project we used eggs donated by the time Union and pasta flour that was close to its use by date and destined for the bin. So, effectively we made some healthy pasta from waste food. We even used leftover beetroot and herbs to flavour it.
The results were amazing! In addition to taking some tasty food home, the main benefits according to our attendees included the therapy gained from kneading the dough, not to mention the gym membership fees saved (pasta dough is quite stiff, very good for working those biceps). The opportunity to get together with others to share the experience of being creative and learning new skills should not be under estimated either. All this and free aromatherapy from the mix of parsley, chives and tarragon. Look, a tagliatelle tree! We have plans to run more food waste workshops soon, watch this space!