By Marianne Graff
Published on December 30,2024
I recently talked to Line Madore about a community group she is involved with in the Montreal area of the province of Quebec in Canada that is a sociable, fun and easy way to cut her grocery budget in half and get some tasty home made food.
The group is called Cuisine Collective Accueil – Le Ble de’Or. This is a group that coordinates cooking sessions among small groups of people. They get together every two or three weeks.
They use a community kitchen area, and what is made together is divided up amongst the people who helped cook it, and taken home to eat through the coming week.
There is a facilitator who coordinates everything. The group receives donations of ingredients and receives government subsidies to operate. They are provisioned with staples such as flour, rice, oil and spices.
Sometimes luxurious items are donated to them so that they don’t go to waste, such as chicken, vegetables or chocolate. They also receive canned goods.
It’s almost like a store inside the community kitchen, like a food bank.
Line loves being part of this collective kitchen. She just likes cooking in community and sharing what is made amongst all in the group. It’s a bonus that it saves her so much money.
Line shared that the people who participate in the cooking come from all walks of life. There are students, elderly people, people who live alone, and people who are struggling to feed their families in the group. They come for a variety of reasons: to get some social interaction so they don’t feel so isolated, because they want tasty homemade food,or because want to save money.
Each cooking session is 12 weeks long.
A facilitator coordinates this. A group of about 4 or 5 people come together to decide what to cook. They have five cooking books and they meet to decide what to make in advance of each session. They take 30 minutes to go through the five cook books available, and decide the menu for the upcoming cooking session in two week’s time. They always decide which entrees to make (two vegetarian and one meat meal) and a desert and they give the list to the facilitator. They facilitator is responsible for rounding up all the ingredients needed.
They meet for a few hours on a designated day to do the cooking. It usually only takes two or three hours.
They each bring their own containers, which might be plastic containers or jars. The Facilitator divides up what is made and the participants pack up what has been made and take it home.
The facilitator also announces the total cost and all the participants pay the facilitator the agreed upon amount. It is well organized and operates smoothly. The sam
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It turns out to be a huge cost savings. For example, in the picture you can see that on this day they made red lentil pasta sauce, peach meatballs with sundried tomatoes, pita bread with dried tomatoes, hummus and vegan brownies for a total cost of $3.95 CAD.
Here is another example of what they cooked together. One this day they made red lentil and apple salad teriyaki chicken, cheddar muffins, and kale patties for a grand total of $7.35.
Line commented that she always takes 6 portions and that this enough to feed her and her family for the better part of a week.
The food is paid for through donations of food and money, and the group is subsidized by government funding.
The collective is provisioned with staples such as flour, oil, rice, and spices. Sometimes they receive donations such as chicken, vegetables or chocolate. Sometimes it costs nothing to make the food due to the donations. They freeze ingredients or use canned goods.
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A Better Solution to Food Security
This is such an improvement over the idea of a food bank, which carries stigma and lacks the dignity and social support that this program provides. It would be so much more fun and less shameful to go for a collective cooking group rather than to a soup kitchen or food bank.
What a resourceful idea that brings people together in such a pleasant way, and that meets such a wide variety of important needs with dignity.
It’s also a very eco-friendly solution to problems of waste in our food supply systems. It reduces food waste in a community by providing a way to give leftover food or extra supplies to those that need and want it. In addition, because people bring their own containers, overpackaging of the individual portions is avoided, cutting down on packaging waste that would go to a landfill.
It also helps people learn how to cook, and learn about healthy food and safe food storage and preparation who might now have learned these skills at home or elsewhere. I remember a time when schools had Home Ec ( Home economics), where all students learn life skills such as cooking, but this has been phased out of many schools. Many families with two working parents at home many no longer cook food from scratch, relying on processed and prepared foods and take out or restaurants. Adults who missed out on learning cooking basics can learn how to make easy wholesome meals while having fun. Brilliant.
I applaud the people who thought of this idea, and who are facilitating and making it happen! What a lot of lives this program brightens and nourishes, in all ways.