This story is a collaboration between Concordia College’s journalism division and CBC Montreal.
In her vibrant orange kitchen tucked behind a grocery retailer, chef Gordana Zafirovic creates wholesome meals out of surplus meals. Each week, she transforms items sourced from meals banks into about 400 nutritious meals for the neighbourhood.
Her greatest problem? Improvising with restricted, generally unhealthy, elements.
“Each single particular person ought to have the precise to entry wholesome meals,” she says, her fingers busy making ready chickpea curry. She strikes effectively, chopping greens destined for the inventory pot boiling on the range. The aromatic mix of spices wafts by means of the air, the mild hum of the fan whirring overhead.
Zafirovic heads the zero-waste initiative at Carrefour Solidaire, a neighborhood group combating meals insecurity in south-central Montreal.
The pandemic has exacerbated meals insecurity. Moisson Montréal reported a 42 per cent increase in food distribution in 2020-2021, to satisfy the rising demand. And with inflation at a 30-year high, costs could push extra individuals into precarity. Meals financial institution purchasers say contemporary, nutritious meals is missing, with these in want anticipated to take no matter donated items they’ll get.
Failing large-scale authorities intervention, the answer is available in bits and items — by teams working to present individuals extra diverse, wholesome choices close to the place they stay. They’re repurposing meals that might in any other case go to waste, and organising neighborhood kitchens.
Meals banks fall quick
Meals banks are certainly one of, if not the main resource for accessible meals. They’re a necessary service — however the system is not good.
In accordance with common director Richard Daneau, about half of Moisson Montréal’s meals donations are contemporary — meat, dairy, fruit and veggies. The remainder of the products at Montreal’s largest meals financial institution are non-perishable, issues like canned beans, dried pasta and cereals. This statistic has improved in recent times, because the outfit prioritized sourcing contemporary produce.
Verdun resident Timm Sima has relied virtually fully on meals banks for the previous six years, with practically all his earnings used to pay his hire. From his expertise, the range falls quick.
“Even should you do theoretically have elements to make up a meal, it is all the time the identical elements,” says Sima.
Système Alimentaire Montréalais works to make sure wholesome and reasonably priced meals for all. Challenge supervisor Erika Salem acknowledges that whereas meals banks are undoubtedly a useful resource, there’s a restrict to what they’ll present.
“More often than not, it does not reply to their precise wants,” says Salem.
Constructing solidarity by means of cooking
Neighborhood kitchens present a spot to discover ways to cook dinner well-balanced meals with restricted elements. Since 2007, Sylvie Paquin has been working at Carrefour d’Entraide Lachine, a neighborhood group involved with meals safety. She organizes weekly cooking classes with three to eight members, every taking 10 servings house.
Members study new recipes and uncover elements they would not use in any other case. Earlier than the pandemic, Paquin held after-school cooking lessons with college students between eight and 12 years outdated, providing an area to organize meals and eat collectively. The chef launched them to wholesome alternate options to their favorite meals.
“As soon as, they requested for ‘junk meals.’ I made them oven-cooked carrots, turnips and parsnip sticks.… They could not imagine it, they actually favored it,” she says.
Having visited a neighborhood kitchen, Catherine Vaudeville sees its advantages.
“This was an actual life-saver when it was actually dangerous,” says Vaudeville, who visits a meals financial institution each week. “I do not need to cook dinner tonight — oh there it’s, already executed!”
Inspiring wholesome creativity
Given the unpredictable provide of meals banks, purchasers are left to seek out sources to complement their weight-reduction plan and study to make good use of what they’ve.
Seeing this lack of persistently contemporary, wholesome items, meals financial institution customers then should be ingenious. Sima typically turns to a Fb group to commerce his undesirable objects with dumpster divers, who sometimes rating brisker meals.
Le Pirate Vert, in any other case often known as Raïs Zaidi, bridges the hole between meals banks and neighborhood wants. What began as dumpster diving has expanded to a full-fledged redistribution service. Zaidi visits a number of meals banks all through Montreal to gather contemporary produce and leftover items that he then transports again to Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.
“Every place has completely different meals on supply, so as soon as it’s introduced collectively, you’ve gotten all of it,” says Zaidi.
From there, residents can select the meals they not solely want but in addition need to eat.
WATCH | Gordana Zafirovic hopes to encourage house cooks:
From lifeless canned items to a surplus of rutabagas, every week chef Gordana Zafirovic transforms meals financial institution donations into about 400 servings of nutritious and scrumptious meals. Video by Aashka Patel, Oona Barrett and Véronique Morin. 1:18
Again on the Carrefour Solidaire kitchen, Zafirovic is hoping to supply some inspiration for these cooking at house. Her meals incorporate a wide selection of spices and elements to create tasty meals — like Shepherd’s pie topped with mashed turnips as an alternative of potatoes — exhibiting simply how versatile meals could be.
“It is very uncommon that we comply with a recipe. It is all the time improvisation,” says Zafirovic.
“You all the time should provide you with completely different approaches, completely different concepts, to switch the elements you do not have.”
