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10 April 2012

Sundays start slowly in Dalston. The local hipsters have been up late. If not partying, they've been customising their latest vintage clothing finds, writing short films to release as virals or debating radical politics.

So it's gone 4pm when a crowd begins to gather around chopping boards and crates of onions and potatoes at Passing Clouds on Richmond Road, a newish venue that wants to offer all things to all-comers, be that a funk night, drum workshop, gin-soaked ragtime and swing afternoon, golden oldie film screening or, in this case, a tasty home-cooked Sunday feast.

The venue describes itself as a "collective of artists and musicians" but now a band of foodies are staging a weekly takeover dubbed "the People's Kitchen". You can eat a leek and courgette tortilla, oozing runny eggs and fresh greens, curled up in one of the worn velvet and leather armchairs in front of a film, or grab a spot at the bar with a bowl of spicy aubergine pasta. Latecomers pile up plates of bread and cheese before settling in for the evening's jam session, a weekly event performed by some of Passing Clouds' regulars.

The food is all waste collected from Spitalfields Market and local businesses that would otherwise have been thrown away, and some of the people who have turned up to help out have experience in professional kitchens, so the food and environmental boxes are ticked. But, best of all, this Sunday lunch is completely free.

Ah, the elusive free lunch. Now more than ever, in these straitened times, you would think it impossible to get something for nothing, let alone a good feed. Even when the phrase "free lunch" originated, in late 19th-century US saloon bars, it was understood that you bought a drink before loading your plate. "There's no such thing as a free lunch" soon became a political catchphrase. The concept has since been immortalised by economist Milton Friedman's 1975 book, which took the phrase as its title.

At the People's Kitchen, though, the opposite is true. While the organiser Steve Wilson asks for donations — and emphasises he needs every penny to buy kitchen equipment to add to the basics he's starting out with (he'd like your kitchen cast-offs, too) — there are no reminders to cough up and no atmosphere of obligation. Instead, volunteers are falling over themselves to help out.

Dane Clarke, 42, an entrepreneur and jazz aficionado, lives locally and keeps chickens. When he heard about the event, he thought it might benefit from some of his eggs, and he's appointed himself head of the pasta sauce pot. Saul Eisenberg, 31, and Giuliana Majo, 29, a musician and dancer couple who live around the corner, are busy chopping and peeling. Ilva Kalnverza, a 28-year-old graphic designer, has come all the way from Chingford with her friends Giovanni Souza, 29, and Marina Barbati, 21. Gossipy Gibraltarian Tony "El Googler", is manning the tortilla pan.

"It's great to be able to come here and cook with other people instead of cooking alone at home, as I usually would on a Sunday," says Barbati. "And while it's nice to be using food that would have been wasted, it's even nicer to cook with and meet other people."

The People's Kitchen is already showing potential to develop into a low-key singles' night. Wilson suspects one pair who met last week are already an item, and have returned together today.

Over in Haringey, another new venture is making similar use of waste food but playing to a very different audience. The Station House Community Café, run by the food charity FoodCycle, opens for lunch on Fridays. For £4 you can get a three-course meal with coffee. On the menu are roast vegetable and feta parcels, leek, feta and sweet potato cakes, parsnip and red cabbage stew, banana cake and apple and cinnamon compôte.

There are plenty of existing schemes that target specific disadvantaged groups with free food but the FoodCycle café, like the People's Kitchen, offers cheap, nutritious food to anyone who wants it. It's an alternative to ready-meals and fast food but will it steal custom from the nearby Nando's?

Unsurprisingly, the "squeezed middle" got early wind of the plan. Organiser Jessica Veltman apologises that the place seems crowded out with Stroud Green's ethics-conscious middle classes and their children.

"We're here for the cheap, home-cooked food," says Kate Bines, a 42-year-old marketing manager who's eating with her partner Dom, brother Peter and two small children. "It's great value and there's a nice vibe to the place. Plus, someone else clears up the mess. In fact, I'd be happy to pay a lot more."

"If it were open in the evening around the kids' teatime," says Peter, "I imagine we'd come once a week."

"It's difficult to find nutritious cheap food for the kids every day," says Vicky Meek, a journalist here with Olivia, three, and Louise, four. "But here it's a bargain. They even ate the sprouts!"

Clearly the food isn't free, but I challenge you to find a coffee and cake combo in London cheaper than the £1.75 charged here.

Blagging free grub might sound like a good wheeze but Gillian Livingstone, who works for environmental group Transition Crouch End, takes a different perspective. "It absolutely shouldn't be free," she says. "Food — even waste food — has a value, and shouldn't be undervalued. It is still incredibly cheap."

She's right, of course: picky supermarkets might have rejected the misshapen bananas but they deserve better than ending up in landfill alongside the 400,000 tonnes of decent, edible food that supermarkets chuck out each year.

Much more unusual is finding this sort of waste being sold in a shop. The People's Supermarket on Lamb's Conduit Street opened in the summer and has recently added its own People's Kitchen — no relation to Passing Clouds' Sunday cook-off — to the shop. The supermarket was founded by Acorn House chef and sustainability champion Arthur Potts-Dawson and former M&S executive Kate Bull, to challenge the glut of supermarkets offering convenience food in the area.

As well as creating jobs and fostering a community atmosphere, the shop offers a 10 per cent discount to members, who do a monthly four-hour shift in return. The food counter offers ready-meals with a difference: the lasagnes, curries, quiches, salads and soups are freshly prepared by top chefs with no additives or flavouring.

Another day, another waste-food initiative — and this one comes without a price tag. Alice Planel runs the Dinner Exchange, one of the growing number of pop-up restaurants in London, but here the meal comes with a message. Once a month, Planel collects waste food from Langridge Organics and prepares a three-course vegan meal.

I join the 24 guests gathered round a long table in her Willesden sitting room for houmus, wonderful bread and a main course of cauliflower stew and polenta with prunes, with chocolate and courgette cake for dessert. While she wants to raise awareness about food waste, Planel is preaching to the converted — I doubt anyone here has Domino's on speed-dial.

Donations, though, are expected, and Planel gives the £110 — she says she usually pulls in double this amount — to food charities. You could easily get away with eating and running but the friendly atmosphere and intelligent and diverse chat are worth paying for in themselves.

It's the extras you pay for at all these events. The food is free, but you can't expect live music, a film night, interesting dinner companions and service with a smile without contributing at least a few pennies. Still, as well as a full stomach, you'll leave with the fuzzy glow bestowed by doing a good deed, as valuable as any meal ticket.

passingclouds.org
facebook.com/pages/Haringey/Station-House-Community-Cafe
thepeoplessupermarket.org
http://thedinnerexchange.zzl.org
foodcycle.org.uk

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