Eating out with strangers: Rise in community meals

Our reporter Sophie Mei Lan Malin went for a family meal with strangers.

Transcript

00:00In a busy household you'd hopefully think that in the kitchen it's always busy with family meals

00:06and instead it's busy with different people eating lots of different things at different

00:11times in different places. But tonight I'm off to one big family meal aren't we? Yes,

00:17a big community meal at Portobello. Not only does it save time, money because not only is it

00:22expensive to buy food, also it saves waste, but it's also expensive to put on your electricity

00:29if you've got the gadgets as well to actually cook anything at home. So we'll be finding out

00:34why this new boom of community meals is getting so popular amongst people everywhere.

00:42It's time for me to try it out and see if it really does help.

00:46Making a vegan curry, so it's a vegetable curry using spices, onions, garlic, ginger,

00:57lots of vegetables and then we use coconut milk instead of anything dairy and then that just means

01:03that we can serve it to everybody. We're also, the children have been making flatbreads which

01:10we've actually done them just with yogurt and self-raising flour which is really easy

01:15and then for the vegans we've just done some sourdough. My hands are getting clean.

01:24So we just thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to just bring the community

01:29together and Portobello is such a diverse community so we thought we could kind of reflect

01:34the community in the food that we cook and make. So we're doing a meal once a month and we're just

01:43looking at different types of food. We've had like Polish food, English food, we're doing like the

01:49curry today and it's just open to suggestions really. We did an Easter meal and so we've just

01:57every month we've done something a little bit different but yeah we really wanted to reflect

02:01the community that people live in and it's lovely because people can get to know each other.

02:08We can respect each other's kind of heritage and differences and embrace those differences

02:14and just talk and learn and Ellie's been amazing because Ellie is a kind of a trained facilitator

02:21on doing cooking on budget courses so she's just taught us things in ways in which we can

02:28save money, ways in which we can cook better, healthier, more nutritious meals so the fact that

02:36we can sit down with our neighbours and talk to each other as well as learn how to cook better,

02:41eat better and feel better. How much money do you think you save by doing community meals?

02:49I think anything that you're cooking, where you're cooking it in bulk is always going to be

02:54cheaper because you're using whole packets of things, you're taking advantage of you know

03:01buying things sort of economically but what we try to do at these classes is sort of explain

03:06to people if you're buying an ingredient and they're not finishing it sort of how they can

03:11finish that and how they can use the rest of it and come up with alternatives and it's difficult

03:16when you're cooking one meal for everybody to like it or you know but we just try and sort of

03:22do something that everybody at least is prepared to try. I won't lie I hadn't planned on sitting

03:28down and eating I thought I'd just film but honestly people were so welcoming and it was

03:34just so informal, relaxed, sociable that I just had to try it out especially as it was vegan friend

03:43like. Not only that it was just really heartening to actually sit around the table with lots of

03:49different people who were just happy to eat, chat and just be together. No phones other than me

03:58filming some shots but most of all it was a proper family meal, slow eating, slow food,

04:07just how it should be. Food as a tool for communication and of course to sort dinner

04:15out on cheap. I can't recommend it enough not only can I see it helping combat loneliness,

04:23saving money, helping people to lose weight but most of all it just feels good to be

04:30with people. Sophie May Lamb May Lynn reporting from Portobello in Wakefield not in London.