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The Edible Playground |
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| Edible Playground | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Children in four Dorset schools have had their hands in the soil and forks in the salad as part of the Edible Playground project, a special project run by Screen Bites. It was inspired by The Edible Schoolyard – which is run by the Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Foundation in the United States. The stated aim of the Edible Schoolyard is ‘to bring children into a new relationship with food.’ |   |
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| Early in the summer term 2007, parts of these Dorset schools’ playgrounds were dug up and given over to growing plants donated by project sponsors. Children zealously watered the seedlings over the following weeks and while the plants grew, the young gardeners learned about local and seasonal food with project co-ordinator Nichola Motley and educationalist Helen Day. Children were fascinated to investigate the contents of a broad bean pod and all wanted to try a raw bean. They sniffed things in pots – identifying foods by their smell (strawberries, ‘mmmm’, mackerel ‘yuc!’) and had to guess the vegetable by the feel of it. They had fun and were all keen to taste what they were learning about. All sorts of vegetables were nibbled on and one pupil reported later how the day after the session he had made his mum buy and cook broad beans for him. The pupils of Witchampton First School in East Dorset sowed seeds in pots at the Long Crichel garden with gardener Anni Sax. They took the pots back to school but first they then went over to the Long Crichel bakery to learn about bread baking and fill a fresh roll with leaves from the garden. Anni’s salad leaves also made their way to Beaucroft School where children created individual salad bowls with their own choice of toppings including herbs, toasted seeds, and best of all parmesan shavings. Ian Simpson, proprietor of the White House Hotel brought along some delicious things from his own kitchen (including elderflower vinegar, balsamic syrup and basil oil) to Charmouth School in West Dorset. Pupils had already picked salad leaves and herbs they had grown in their raised beds and Ian showed them how to combine these with what he had brought along. The word ‘salad’ took on a new meaning, everyone grabbed a fork and not a scrap of food was left at the end of the session. Work will start with Thornford School in West Dorset in the autumn and will continue at all the schools into 2008 with more growing cookery workshops and some farm visits. Children who have been involved with the project will also be encouraged to communicate with their American vegetable-growing counterparts who have been part of the Edible Schoolyard programme. |
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| These were all taken at Beaucroft school - we were learning about vegetables. The children explored a broad bean and were delighted by the experience and amazed by cutting into veg. They also enjoyed a smell test - a taste test (in season were the first sour gooseberries and early raspberries). They tasted new things and liked them! The blond curls belong to Anni Sax who runs the Long Critchel walled garden. I am the other adult - project coordinator. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Meanwhile, the other half of the Beaucroft class were planting up the vegetables they had been given by the Castle Garden Group with the help of Anni Sax and Beaucroft teacher Shirley Lewis. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Moving on to Charmouth School in West Dorset (Beaucroft is a special school in Wimborne). First the digging, then the planting/sewing, then the watering and then the picking.... all seeds and herbs donated by the Castle Gardens group. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| And the picking happened on the day that Ian Simpson from the White House Hotel in Charmouth, came in bringing lots of lovely salad dressings (like basil oil and elderflower vinegar) and other salady things and showed the children how to make four different salads - not a morsel was left at the end of the session! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| And finally at Witchampton School (near Wimborne) the children, having spend a morning sewing seeds at the Long Critchel walled garden and making bread in the bakery opposite, learned about veg with the feel quiz, tasting, smelling. Assembly was devoted to produce that day. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Film Commission | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Screen Bites is working with Justin Owen to commission a feature length documentary about local seasonal food and drink from Dorset, celebrating Dorset’s “terroir” – land, climate, farmers, fishermen and producers. We hope the film, Dorset Feast, will have its premiere at the finale of Screen Bites 2007. |  |
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| It will tell the stories of working with the soil, the sea and the climate through the seasons, using sustainable methods – stories of human endeavor, determination and expertise. What is happening today in Dorset, as an example of a national story about local food, can inspire us to question our consumer habits and to think about what we eat, when and where it comes from, and the environmental and economic impact of our choices. Lyme Regis-based film maker Justin grew up on a family farm in Buckinghamshire, worked for many years in London and relocated to West Dorset, enriching his lifelong love of the countryside. He has worked around the world and believes a keen ear is the greatest skill he can bring to an interview. He has recently finished filming Discovering Levels Best, a documentary for Somerset Food Links, as well as filming Screen Bites projects in primary schools and with a group of elderly people, talking about food the way it used to taste. Screen Bites hopes to create a partnership with Screen South West, Arts and Business and local businesses to fund Dorset Feast. Contact Screen Bites at 16 Church Street, Wincanton, Somerset BA9 9AE, email screenbites@thanksgiving.demon.co.uk if you would like to help make Dorset Feast happen. |
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| Slow Food on Film... and more... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Screen Bites has obtained the prize-winning films from this year’s Slow Food on Film festival, held in Bra, Italy. We will be working with the local Dorset Slow Food convivium to show some of these films, including the quirky American documentary The Real Dirt on Farmer John and the short The Age of Reason, a moving film about prejudice, religion and food. Look out for more details of the screening, probably in November 2006 In the coming year, Screen Bites will be talking to the proprietors of some Dorset retirement homes about the possibility of earmarking some of the garden where residents might grow vegetables and fruit both to add interest to their lives and delicious fresh local produce to their diet. One of Dorset’s leading garden centres is already interested in taking part in the project. Now we would like to hear from residents and/or managers of rest and retirement homes where there is enough space to begin planting. There are also plans for a Christmas food and music project at Milborne St Andrew School, where the children will work with Helen Porter and Maria Timperley, both Screen Bites working group members. Screen Bites is hoping to link up with Festive Dorset, a new project which Dorset Art Weeks hopes to launch in 2007. We are also looking at the possibility of holding our 2007 finale at The Exchange in Sturminster Newton – a new community and arts centre for the Blackmore Vale, now taking shape on the old market site in the middle of the town. More healthy eating projects are being planned for 2007/8. |
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| Friends of the Chase Communities at Sixpenny Handley |
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| Justin Owen has filmed at two lunches at the Friends of the Chase Communities Lunch Club at Sixpenny Handley, where Screen Bites worked with the Dorset Food and Health Trust to provide delicious seasonal lunches for the members. The older residents of the Chase shared their memories of farming, life on Cranborne Chase, food preparation and Food the Way it Used to Taste with Nichola Motley and Fanny Charles. They also enjoyed the feature film A Private Function, set during the period of post-war rationing, and Robert Golden’s documentary film Savouring West Dorset. Some of their recollections can be seen on the video on the Screen Bites home page, and more will be seen on the final night of this year’s festival at Herrison Hall, Charlton Down near Dorchester, on 28th October. “There were about 40 elderly people there, collected from the surrounding villages. The film, A Private Function, was a big hit. They were hooked from the opening shots of a wartime newsflash of the reduction of the bacon ration from two slices to one. They watched an hour of the film before lunch and the rest afterwards. The lunch of lamb casserole with roast potatoes and purple sprouting went down well and the blueberry juice was a real talking point. I wore a purple moustache for the rest of the afternoon! “Fanny and I spoke to quite a few of the people after lunch and saw that the film had provoked all sorts of memories. We heard a range of stories from tales of going home after school to peel potatoes in the basement of the family fish and chip shop to the very best way to move a pig.” says Nichola Motley. |
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| William Barnes Primary School Sturminster Newton |
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| Screen Bites has been working with the staff and pupils at William Barnes School since the summer of 2005.
Musician and storyteller Tim Laycock and instrument maker, musician and gardener Nick Crump have led three all-day workshops at the school, in the autumn, spring and summer terms, focussing on locally grown fruits and vegetables in season. All the pupils have been involved in this fun learning project. The Winter Vegetable Day, in March, celebrated root vegetables, onions, cabbages and leeks. “We sang songs and told stories and played games relating to vegetables. Each group then made a large pictorial potato head on the floor, using the vegetables available to create the facial features,” says Nick. Tim sang Old Macdonald had a Veg Patch, and Nick had written a carrot soup song to the tune of Frere Jacques. Screen Bites chairman Robert Golden and Justin Owen have been working with students and their families at William Barnes, making a film about food in the area. Groups have visited Olives et Al, The Green House and Sturminster food shops. Pupils have also interviewed each other, at the same time as learning the latest film-making techniques with the experts. See snippets of their work on our home page, and also at the finale of the 2006 festival on 28th October. The workshops at William Barnes began with a screening of Savouring West Dorset, the most local of Robert Golden’s Savouring Europe series. Inspired by this film, the children have gone on to learn the inside story of how documentaries are made. They also enjoyed a local showing of the Tim Burton film of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last November. |
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| Milborne St Andrew Primary School | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A new series of projects with school children began at Milborne St Andrew Primary School this summer term. Screen Bites working party member Maria Timperley helped the children to devise a menu for a summer garden party, using as much local produce as possible. The following week Maria worked with the children to prepare some of the dishes. Others were made at home. One girl made strawberry jam in her mother’s breadmaker! Parents and friends were invited to the garden party – in brilliant sunshine at the start of the heatwave – and the children also raised money for their chosen charity. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2006 Screen Bites Festival launch at Thornford Primary School |
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| Chef Ian Simpson returned to Thornford School on Monday 11th September 2006 to work with school lunch club cook Jo Tredger and her staff on a Real Bread project, which was followed by a lunch of burgers made from Dorset meat, or locally-grown vegetables. |  |
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| Ian is co-owner and chef of the award winning White House Hotel in Charmouth, Taste of the West Restaurant of the Year. In Screen Bites’ first year he worked with Jo to devise a seasonal lunch for the school lunch club. The pupils watched Robert Golden’s Savouring West Dorset, enjoyed some of the produce provided by farmers featured in the documentary, and even met the collie from the film. Ian was eagerly welcomed back by the hungry pupils (and staff) this year. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Banners with Alex Grant of Toozalii | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alex Grant is the inspiration behind the
beautiful banners that you see around the
halls for Screen Bites 2006. With wife Jan
he runs Toozalii, a community arts partnership
based in Salisbury. Screen Bites commissioned
Alex to work with Philip Green
Memorial School students at Cranborne to
create banners with a food theme. The students have a wide range of physical and mental disabilities, and come to Dorset from across the UK and further afield. This year they worked with television celebrity gardener Chris Beardshaw to create a garden for the Chelsea Flower Show. |
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| Thanks to the support of Chalk and Cheese, Screen Bites was able to fund workshops at the school, during which Alex and the young people created banners using vibrant colours and wafting silks. They have been on display at agricultural shows in Dorset this summer, decorating the Chalk and Cheese marquee. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
