Summary
Brig takes a look at activist groups who are bringing in the revolution - by cooking.
It’s a drizzly Sunday morning on Buchanan Street, and the paving slabs are slick with rain. A tatty plastic table has been set up outside the subway station, a white plastic tablecloth weighed down against the wind. A grey metal pot full of lentil dahl sends a warm, curry-scented steam down the street. Four students spoon stew and line up slices of bread, handing them out to passers-by. In the distance, a busker plays the bagpipes.
“You have to be honest, it really does add something, doesn’t it,” says one of them, nodding down the street at the musician while straightening a pile of paper cups. The group laughs.
“We started the People’s Kitchen as a response to mounting food insecurity in Scotland,” says Owen Maitland, one of the organisers behind the project. “The base model was inspired by the free breakfast programme pioneered by the Black Panthers in San Francisco and Chicago in the 1960s, and the Kitchen-for-All (Küfa) model seen in German cities like Hamburg.”
In 2024, the National Centre for Social Research reported that 14 per cent of adults in Scotland have reported experiencing food insecurity. The Scottish Government also reports that younger people are more likely to experience it, with spiking inflation and soaring cost-of-living driving 25 per cent of UK universities to open campus-based food banks in the last two years. Indeed, many People’s Kitchen visitors have been students themselves.
“We want to politicise food poverty,” Owen continues. “The provision of free food is an example of socialism in action in Scottish communities.”
The People’s Kitchen is not the first of its kind. Direct action group This is Rigged have organised soup nights for years. Food Not Bombs has branches from Glasgow to Coventry doing the same. Food kitchens are becoming a trend among young activists.
Why?
Well, food banks may not be as accessible as one might think. Scotland is actually the only bit of the UK where you don’t need a referral from a doctor, social worker, or Citizen’s Advice to use one. People’s Kitchen patrons have also shared that many options are not available on particular days of the week.
It may even be as simple as community. “PK distances itself from the traditional soup-kitchen model by having the chefs sit and eat the food with the patrons,” Owen explains. “Food is a human right. Sharing the food and sitting with patrons dispels the notion that food needs to be tested. Meal-sharing is a community building exercise. We’re all just having lunch.”
Total Liberation Stirling and This is Rigged campaigner Imogen Robertson echoed this. As local campaigners for animal rights, Total Liberation Stirling distributed boxes of plant-based food staples to University of Stirling students. Almost all those involved in the project had experienced food insecurity.
“It was important but not enough just to advocate for people to not eat animals. It was necessary to show up for them too. I also did similar things with This is Rigged. It’s important to make food into a community oriented thing. From there we can learn to use it as a form of resistance and help each other stay resourced.”
Image Credit: This Is Rigged
Interestingly, these projects have a strong basis in plant based food, even outside animal rights groups. The People’s Kitchen also only serves vegan food, and there’s a very good reason why. Plant based food contains less allergens, and is more likely to comply with religious eating practices like halal and kosher. It’s a fast and efficient way to ensure all attendees get something to eat – beans and pulses bought in bulk are cheap, filling and easy to prepare in large quantities. Loaded as they are with protein and fibre, it also makes them an ideal option for those who may not know when their next meal will be.
This Is Rigged soup nights are also vegan, and feature organised political discussions and have invited a series of guest speakers, covering everything from community outreach, to history, to books. The group has also organised film screenings and game nights.
“It’s working class solidarity, it’s community empowerment, it’s empathy and care for one another,” says Luke, an activist who’s been involved with This is Rigged, Young Friends of the Earth, Global Justice and many more. “It’s a deep part of the world that we want to create.”
Featured Image Credit: SSY Strathclyde
