tom shields Food in the community
Topic for today is the importance of having lunch with neighbours. It's when good neighbours become good friends, as they say in Australia.
I am not sure if there will be much on the way of chucking prawns on the barbecue but I am looking forward to the Woodlands Big Lunch tomorrow. It's part of a UK-wide concept to encourage communities to get together concept.
Everybody brings a dish or three (suitably labelled for elf and safety reasons) and everybody shares. There are no cash transactions.
The action takes place outdoors in the Millennium Park and the Woodlands Community Garden and in the cafe of the Albany Centre of this bijou nouveau inner-city quartier of Glasgow.
I remember enjoying a street party in Brock Road, Househillwood, 60 years ago. It was before I became anti-royalist and realised I shouldn't be celebrating coronations. I also recall the Brock Road weans were regularly bused down to Saltcoats to eat sandy sandwiches and drink ginger.
In later life I am again being treated to dinner with everyone in the neighbourhood. This is during the annual festival of the Poblenou barrio of Barcelona.
Streets are closed off. Tables are set up and laden with far too much food and wine. Barcelona toon cooncil builds a stage and there is dancing until 4am. Other events include stuffing children with chocolate and a show that should be called Poblenou's Got Talent. There is also a lot of bingo played.
Obviously, Barcelona residents have the advantage of good weather, a tradition of culinary communality, and a local authority which will not be concerned that people are partying till nearly dawn.
In Scotland such activities are likely to conducted indoors when wet. But this should be no stumbling to communities coming together and getting their hands on food. And it need not be just one day a year.
There now follows a small plug for the Broken Biscuits Cookery Club of which I am a member. Instead of sitting at home watching Saturday Kitchen, mums and dads and children as young as five gather at the Albany Centre in Woodlands. Under the guidance of brilliant proper chefs, the children have been up to their elbows in flour and getting up close to raw veg as they made smoothies, fresh pasta, Spanish bridies, and Vietnamese rice paper rolls.
Tomorrow at the Woodlands Big Lunch it's make your own pakora under the aegis of Monir, chef-patron of Mother India.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article