With this week’s theme being food poverty, participants in the BSSC Kitchen Challenge got inventive, making the most from donated ingredients and cooking to avoid waste. Food was donated by Bendigo Foodshare and students were expected to find a way to incorporate all ingredients into their dishes.
Unsurprisingly this made for some very innovative ideas: from sweet potato crisps, to hot-cross buns restyled as croutons for a salad. And just to make thing even more interesting, extra ingredients were introduced throughout the challenge to keep students rethinking and sharing ideas as they went along. As Rob Rees pointed out; t, it was very much an exercise in teamwork and leadership.
“Today was all about what it means to be a ‘leader’ and a ‘follower’, and how to deal with the difference in a kitchen environment,” he said. “It’s important for the students to say what they think and to challenge one another.
“From week to week the students are self-reflecting and putting that learning into practice.”“Progress from all as they all took on different roles outside their zones of comfort.”
Cathy Steele from Bendigo Foodshare spoke to students about the work being done locally to ‘rescue’ food and redistribute it to up to 14,000 individuals across the region every week.
“So much food is grown in Australia, yet so many people live in poverty,” she said. “In any given school there are 20 to 30 kids starting the day without breakfast. One in 11 Bendigo families go through times when there’s not enough food. It’s not just homeless people, but families who don’t have enough employment to keep food on the table.”
Bendigo Foodshare is currently running its Million Meals in March campaign and are looking for support.
“There is no state or federal government funding for Bendigo Foodshare,” Cathy said. “We are community owned. There are so many ways people can get involved.”
See the Bendigo Foodshare website for more details: http://bendigofoodshare.org.au/million-meals-in-march/
