Gatherings and Camps

Veggies provides catering support, advice and facilities for indoor gatherings, often hosted at the Sumac Centre and other social centres, or at summer camps, such as those held by Peace News, Earth First, the Animal Rights Coalition and Climate Camps.

This advice may also be helpful for the community cooks at the ‘People’s Kitchen help each Saturday at the Sumac Centre.

Details of Camps and Gatherings at which Veggies is providing catering support can be found on our events diary.

We have benefited greatly from the Neighbourhood briefing prepared for the 2007 Camp for Climate Action, which is also available as an checklist to print (rtf file), which includes

Tasks, responsibilities and facilities for running a Camp Neighbourhood
Kitchen infrastructure and set up
Preparation, cooking, serving and eating utensils
Food Hygiene Guidelines (including display version)

Additional advice (and some the same) can be found in Lou and Shannon’s Kitchen Skillshare (txt file), which we’ll convert for inclusion here in due course.

Further Info:

Finding suppliers
Tips and quantities
Recipies for 100′s! (from Anarchist Teapot Guide)
Wholefoods -see- Lembas Catalogue
Guide to running a national gathering (Camp for Climate Action)

Veggies documents to simplify gathering catering

Basic quantities, simple recipes, account sheet & equipment list:
Open Office or word document.

Stock chart to calculate quantiites of vegetables & wholefoods to order:
Open Office Spreadsheet . Excell Spreadsheet

A Typical Gathering Menu and recipes

Friday Lunch: A selection of Pasties (from Screaming Carrot), mashed spuds, salad.
Friday Dinner: Vegetable Stew, Garlic Bread, Salad

Saturday Lunch: Veggies Burger, Potato Salad
Saturday Dinner: Tagine, Cous Cous and salad

Sun lunch: Pasta and Tomato
Sun Dinner: Chickpea Curry & Rice.

Mon Lunch: French Onion Soup (new recipe soon)
Mon Dinner: Tabbouleh and Hummus

Tues: Leek and Potato Soup; Red Beet Coleslaw

In addition to main meals, Veggies gathering catering includes breakfast with Essential deluxe muesli, Dove’s Farm gluten free cornflakes, peanut butter, fruit spreads, yeast extract, wholemeal bread, sunflower spread; and teas, coffees and juice throughout the day.

Finding Suppliers

Where possible we source local and wholesome ingredients, organic where available. See http://www.veggies.org.uk/sales/organic.htm.

There are websites that can help locate them:

Bakeries

http://www.city-visitor.com/nottingham/bakers.html
Replace the town name required – the listing radiates from the selected town, by similar postcodes).

Note that, whilst bakers might not use animal ingredients in their bread, they may bake in the same ovens as, for example, sausage rolls or meat pies, with possible risk of cross-contamination by crumbs or steam.

Our local craft baker in Nottingham is Watermill Bakery: 0115 924 3705, although whilst they are refurbishing we are using Hunts Bakery: 0115 987 1217

Vegetables

Although not organic, L&M on Berridge Road, Forest Fields, Nottingham (0115 942 0008) are our regular supplier of quality fresh vegetables and at 0.2 miles couldn’t be much more local.

Ecoworks veg boxes are grown by local people in Nottingham, the majority of it on their gardens in St. Anns.

Eden Farms organic vegetable home delivery service to Nottingham, Lincoln, Loughborough and Leicester.

In the North, Goosemoor Organics near Wetherby, North Yorkshire, provided great service and a wide range of seasonal veg for the 2006 Climate Camp and the 2011 AR Spring Gathering in Bradford.

For the East of England & London try Norfolk based Eostre Organics Ltd, 01953 456294 (who supplied the July’08 Climate Caravan).

Best of all, to avoid animal products like blood, bonemeal or manure on your food check the Vegan Organic Network list of Stockfree Organic Certified Growers, including Berkshire, Lancashire, N.Yorks, Cheshire & Flintshire (Wales).

Other organic suppliers:

Big Barn is a searchable website or organic and local foods.

http://www.farmaround.co.uk/. Vegetarian Box Scheme suppliers in London & North of England.
http://www.riverford.co.uk/. Also sells meat.
http://www.abelandcole.co.uk. Also sells meat & dairy.

Wholefoods

We source all our organic wholefoods from based in Sheffield: http://www.lembas.co.uk; 0114 258 6056 / 0845 458 1585

In the West Country we use Essential Trading, and oop North, Suma Wholefoods.

Gas

Search for calor gas suppliers via Calor Gas website.

LPG kit: propane gas fittings, burners, hose etc, and very importantly the correct crimp clips for gas hose (jubilee clips are NOT advised as they can pinch the pipe and cause gas leaks…)

BES, based in Birmingham, deliver nationwide and do some plumbing supplies: http://www.bes.co.uk; Ph: 0800 80 10 90

Tips & Quantities

From the Anarchist Teapot Guide to Mass Catering (1.2mb pdf file) which is a fantastic guide on how to cook for loads of people, with tips, guides for how much for each person, and recipes.

Muesli: 50g per person per day

Soymilk: 0,2l per person per day

Bread: a bit less than 200g per person per day, 20 large (800g) loaves will feed just under 200 people at one meal

Sugar: ca 1kg per 100 people per day for teas and coffees

Margerine: ca. 1kg per 100 people per day for breakfast/bread with lunch

Grains: 60-100g per person per meal

Couscous/bulgur: 5kg will do 60-80 people per meal

Pasta: 125g per person per meal

Dried beans: 80-100g per person per meal

Main dish: up to 0,4l per person per meal

Veg in a main meal: 250g per person per meal (so, if it’s mainly potatoes and

carrots – say 150g potatoes plus 100g carrots per person)

Tomato puree: 35x 200g double concentrate tubes for a sauce for 200 – or, large size catering tins (usually 900g) – 4x for a sauce for 100. A bit less if you’re using chopped tomatoes too.

Lettuce: 1 iceberg for 10 portions of green salad, a bit less for other lettuces

Cabbage: 50g per person per portion of cabbage salad or cabbage side dish

Cucumber: 1 cucumber will make a salad for 6-8 people

Vegan sausages: 10kg sosmix will make ca 400 sausages (not huge ones)

Bouillion/stock: about one large tin (900g) for a soup for 200/250

Dressing: 1 litre vinaigrette dressing for a salad for 100 people (more if a potato/bean salad)

Fruit: if budget allows or we’ve been asked to, we’ll have fruit with lunch or dinner, usually asking people to just take one piece. Apples often come in 18kg boxes (100-150 pieces), Bananas also 18kg (average – 120 pieces), oranges 15kg (average – 65 pieces)