Quaker researches food and climate conversations
‘When we sit and eat together, we might find different ways of being together that cultivate belonging: food is inherently welcoming.’
The Quaker and Eva Koch Scholar Naomi Richards has researched how ‘meetings for nourishment’.can facilitate conversations on the climate crisis.
The Woodbrooke tutor said that she was inspired to do the project after realising that conversations on the crisis left her feeling ‘despairing and helpless’.
Writing on the Woodbrooke website, Naomi Richards describes how sharing meals facilitated different types of conversations on the climate crisis, designed to galvanise commitment and action.
‘I began my research from the question: How do we centre community and relationship in times of crisis? Given the urgency of this issue, what does it mean to slow down and take time for nourishment?’
‘When we sit and eat together, we might find different ways of being together that cultivate belonging: food is inherently welcoming.’
With menus including sustainable tofu in a British seaweed broth, with pickled black radishes and spring onion, each dish was paired with a question such as: ‘How might we eat to nourish, while caring for the planet?’.
During the research, Naomi hosted different kinds of meals, including planned set menus and the already-established context of the Quaker shared lunch, to guide people through different questions and themes connected to the dishes.
In the shared lunch, she found she could more ‘lightly’ facilitate conversations by placing additional small dishes and questions on different tables.
Both formats had their benefits and challenges, she says. ‘The more curated and hosted meal with a smaller group allowed for a deeper collective experience, whereas using a shared lunch with a much larger group meant that most conversations happened in pairs or small groups rather than with everybody involved.’
She found that people tended to engage more quickly with the questions during the shared lunch. The Woodbrooke tutor has now produced a booklet on hosting ‘meetings for nourishment’, downloadable from the Woodbrooke website.
