One Planet Community Kitchen - A Low-Carbon Cookbook

A food project initiated by the Transition Norwich Circles. Between 2010 and 2012 the group held kitchen conversations once a month, focusing on carbon-reduction, conviviality and food ethics, and worked on co-creating a cookbook, based on recipes for bring-to-share dishes and a low-carbon store cupboard. 

ORIGINAL AIMS OF THE PROJECT
All the neighbourhood circles have as their central axis a shared meal. People bring a hand-cooked, seasonal low carbon dish from local sources -  allotments, gardens, farm shops - and the meetings start by sharing these dishes and afterwards getting down to the business of discussing how to radically downshift in every aspect of our ordinary lives.

Our cookbook is about these shared dishes, the kind of dishes you can rustle up and take to a gathering anywhere from light summer soups to full-on winter warming fruit puddings. But they also contain elements of all our discussions. They contain our narratives, the stories of our everyday lives, how we found these recipes, how they keep us connected to the planet and our neighbourhood and each other. And they also contain facts about how that food got to our tables, what it took in terms of energy and transport, labour and resources. So underneath the text there will be some hard data: about the ecological and carbon footprint of each dish (see update below).

The book will cover all aspects of carbon reduction and Transition culture. There will be text "boxes" throughout the book that explain exactly what certified organic means, how CSAs function and why we have to look at "virtual water". We plan to cover waste and packaging, milling and baking, all our relationships with agriculture and food production. There will also be local and regional examples of Transition food projects that all of us interact with, from allotments to directories, from community beekeeping to apple share intitiatives.

Pics: Seedlings for the Swaps and a Medicine Jelly by Mark Watson

ARCHIVE OF WRITTEN MATERIAL ABOUT THE PROJECT

The Low Carbon Cookbook team met each month between September 2010 and March 2013, Each session was written up in both the monthly TN bulletin and the blog, This Low Carbon Life, principally in the Transition Themes weeks.

2010
Deconstructing the Dish 1
Deconstructing the Dish 2: Fava
In Praise of the Great Tomato 
First cookup (Mark Watson)
Vegetable kingdon - local market stall 
Strictly Roots Community garden

September Report: Introduction to the Cookbook
October Report: First Meeting
November Report: Meeting Up
December report: Deep Larder

2011
Medicine Soup (Mark Watson)
Wild Greens for the Hungry Gap (Joanna Brannan)
The Art of Lacto-Fermentation (Olivia Heal)
Wild in the Kitchen (Mark Watson)
A Leaf or Two Out of the low Carbon Cookbook (Mark Watson)
Opening up The Nectar (Jo Balfe)
LOVE foods, SOLE, juices (Jo Balfe)
Foraging for Abundance (Charlotte Du Cann)
Bringing to Share - Low Carbon Cookbook (Charlotte Du Cann)
What's in Store for 2012 (Charlotte Du Cann)
Apple time: eaters,cookers and storers (Bee Springwood)
The Spark That Lights the Stove (Charlotte Du Cann)

January report: Out of This World
Febuary report: Radical Roots
March report: Spilling the Beans
April report Wild Salad
May report Low Carbon Larder
June report The Book Part
July report It's All About the Veg
Aug report Introducing Kitchen Conversations
September report Kitchen Conversation 2 (FoodCycle)
October report Gathering the Harvest
November report A is for Apples, Allotments and Abundance
December report B is for Beetroot, Beanfeasts and Bees

2012
January report Kitchen Encounters of the Low Carbon Kind
February report: Falling into the Soup
April/May report C is for Chickweed, Calabrese and Community
June report Ancient and Modern Superfoods
July report Low Carbon Cookbook at Bungay Beehive Day

A Short Story about Sticks (Charlotte Du Cann)
Conquering Alexanders (Mark Watson)
Abundance Project: where are all the fruit and nut trees? (Sarah Gann)
Ask the Fellows Who Grow the Beans (Charlotte Du Cann)
Visiting Erik (Mark Watson)
Peak Beans (Charlotte Du Cann/Josiah Meldrum)
Water, water everywhere and not any drop to drink! (Sophie Chollet)
Happy Mondays at the Community Cafe (Christine Smith)
Low Carbon Cookbook Goes to Italy (Charlotte Du Cann)
Fruta Mi Amor? (Charlotte Du Cann)
Down Mexico Way (Charlotte Du Cann)
Cold Comfort Food (Charlotte Du Cann)
Winemaking - for Medicial Purposes (Mark Watson)
The Foragers (Charlotte Du Cann)
Mr Moyse and the Green Tomatoes (Charlotte Du Cann)

2013
Update from the Resilient Larder (Charlotte Du Cann)


Other Relevant Subjects Covered in This Low Carbon Life 2009-12

Bees (Mark)

Buns (Jon)

Bread and industrial complex (Chris)
Bread and baking at home (Mark, Jane)

Cakes and Celebration (Mark)
Food as medicine (Andy)

Nettle Soup (Charlotte)

Radishes and the Hungry Gap (John)

Garden Share  (Elena)
Breakfast and Oats (Mark)
Veg box (Charlotte)
Growing your own veg (Erik, Jane, John, Jon)

Neighbourhood and Local Fruit (Charlotte)

Carrots and local shops (Jon)

Seedling Swaps (Mark)

Food reference books (Charlotte, Jane)

Medicine Jelly (Mark)
Food preservation (Erik)

Markets and Food Security (Jane)

Low Carbon food rethink (Tully)

Zatar and downshift cuisine (Charlotte)

Transition Food Patters (All bloggers) 23 Aug-3 Sept:
Pig Club (Josiah)
Independent Baker (Jane)
Market Garden (Mark)
CSA (Tully)
Wholefood Coop (Elena)
Neighbourhood Food Growing (John)
Farmer's Markets (Jon)
Foraging (Charlotte)
Neighbourhood Farm Store (Helen)
Veg - Broad Beans (Elena)
FarmShare reports (Elena)