How some food businesses in Sheffield coped and adapted during the March-May COVID lockdown

Posted on September 22, 2020 by geofoodie

In the spring and summer of 2020 I interviewed some of Sheffield’s local food businesses to see how they coped in lockdown. What I found was agility and inventiveness and collaboration, but also care for the food that is provided, for the people who eat that food, and for the local place. What is clear from these interviews, when taken together, is that in emergency situations we need a local supply chain with people working in the food sector that are embedded in the community if we are going to strengthen and build resilience.

In this post I share the video interviews with Our Cow Molly, a local dairy producer, Food Works a social enterprise that works with surplus food, and Regather Coop.

Interview with Ed at Our Cow Molly

You can find all three video interviews on the University of Sheffield Institute for Sustainable Food here.

Food Justice: Opportunities to get involved, Opportunities to Learn

Posted on October 22, 2014 by geofoodie

I’ve been quite busy over the course of the last few months trying to make practical some of the issues that underpin many of the motives behind GeoFoodie. Some of these activities have been quite ambitious while others have brought me into contact with a number of like minded people or have enabled me to learn ever more about the issues that are embedded in a concern for Food Justice. In this post I define what I think of as food justice and highlight some of those activities I’ve been involved in over the past year or so. Continue reading →

Buying (and cooking) Local Food

Posted on June 15, 2014 by geofoodie

I love cookbooks and have a fairly deep collection. Some I have cooked with extensively, some I have yet to cook from. I have read every one–cover to cover. Reading cookbooks is a sensory experience for me. I enjoy the feeling of the pages and the anticipation of what will appear next as one moves through the volume. I love to imagine the tastes within the recipe, to anticipate combining new foods and to consider the mouthfeel–whether soft and creamy or crunchy–of the first bite or to imagine the smell that will fill the house as the food cooks. It is a happy place for me. I bought a new cookbook today that promises to provide these sensory experiences, but also a bit more, a bit extra. Continue reading →

Finding the beginning or where does our food come from?

Posted on January 4, 2014 by geofoodie

I once conducted a research project that examined the consumption practices of middle-class households in the UK. I was interested in the knowledges they had about what foods to buy and how their own understandings of local fit into this. As part of that project I went to visit the wholesale market in Bradford, which is where most of the fruit and vegetables one finds in the various corner shops within the region are sourced. It was both an interesting and illuminating trip at the time, and has informed my reflections on where our food begins its life as food any number of times since then. What, in particular, it has caused me to consider is not only the socio-cultural relations that inform the origins of our food, but also the contexual usefulness (or uselessness) of the idea of local when we think about whether or not our food is local. Continue reading →

Link

This is a link to: From Farm to Fork with recipes

The entry is brief and highlights a recent purchase of half a lamb that had been two days before walking in a field. Yesterday, it was butchered into food and today became a meal. It was yummy. Continue reading →