Q: What can you do with 9 tonnes of Pumpkins? A: Make curry, of course!
This and other questions were on the menu when we sat around the table to chat about sustainable food and how Bristol is going for Gold as a Sustainable Food City with our guests Jane Stevenson – chair of the Bristol Food Network, Sara Venn – head of Incredible Edible Bristol, Jennifer Best – co-Director of award winning Bristol restaurant Poco (winner of most sustainable restaurant of the year 2018), Heather Mack from the sustainable food campaigning organisation Feedback’s and public health expert Dr Angela Raffle from the University of Bristol.
We talk food love and reconnecting with our sense of the seasons – and of course Pumpkins! See below for a mouth-watering recipe.
LINKS:
Bristol Food Network
Sustainable Food Cities (to find a city near you which is a member of the SFC network)
Feedback sustainable food campaign
With thanks to Heather Mack, here is a yummy Pumpkin Curry recipe for using up all those pumpkins!! :
(Dependent on the size of the pumpkin – serves roughly 4).
Our guests:
Jennifer Best is co-owner of Poco, a British seasonal tapas restaurant in the heart of Stokes Croft. Poco’s mission is to be a part of a positive change in the food system and to contribute to a more sustainable future. Ethical sourcing, strict waste management, and staff training and welfare are amongst the company’s forward-thinking policies that made Poco the Sustainable Restaurant Association’s ‘UK’s Sustainable Restaurant of the Year’ in 2016 and 2018.
Jennifer is also on the Advisory Board for Catalyse Change CIC, an organisation that supports girls and young women to become change-makers and leaders in the Green Economy.
Sara Venn runs Incredible Edible Bristol which is part of the worldwide Incredible Edible movement, bringing communities together and supporting a kinder and more connected city using food and growing as a trojan horse to do this. We work with communities, listening to their ideas and supporting them to come into fruition, gently teaching the rabidly disappearing skills of good horticulture and growing as we go, as well as offering other support as the communities need them. Within that we also run a few garden in the city centre from our central team, bringing food to approx 20 city centre spaces, and gently supporting the idea of edible landscapes
Jane Stevenson is Chair of Bristol Food Network, a Community Interest Company which supports, informs and connects individuals, community projects, organisations and businesses who share a vision to transform Bristol into a sustainable food city.
Dr Angela Raffle qualified in medicine in 1980 and became a national and international figure in the world of health screening programmes. in 2008 she joined Transition Bristol volunteers, leading her into Bristol’s food movement, helping with the ‘Who Feeds Bristol’ report, Bristol Food Policy Council and The Community Farm CSA in the Chew Valley, where she is chair of the management committee. She is a big fan of the Transition Movement and the philosophy of ‘start with your self’.
Heather Mack is interested in all aspects of food waste, and sustainable food in Bristol, starting off with FoodCycle she spent a lot of time redistributing and cooking with food that would have gone to waste. She’s now helping the Bristol Food Network plan the community engagement activities to reduce food waste as part of our bid to be a Gold Sustainable Food City. She also works for Feedback, a sustainable food campaigning organisation, running the Gleaning network for the West of England, they rescue fruit and veg that would have been wasted on farmers fields.