What could you create with humble vegetables like eggplant, radishes, beetroot, capsicum and spinach?
Leading aid agency Oxfam Australia is throwing out this challenge to food lovers around Australia, to draw attention to its Stop Hunger appeal. Selected recipes will be featured in an online recipe book, alongside those of some of Australia’s leading chefs and food writers.
In Sri Lanka, vegetables such as these combined with training in home gardening techniques are not only helping to prevent hunger in areas still recovering from the Boxing Day tsunami, they are also creating opportunities for people to earn an income by selling excess vegies at local markets.
Indrani Nallathambi lost everything in the tsunami. With the support of one of Oxfam’s home gardening programs, she has slowly begun to rebuild her life.
“After the tsunami, food, clothes and even drinking water were a problem for us … We could not even buy the basics. But now I have money, I can buy clothes and other things. And I can use what I grow in my home garden for cooking,” Indrani says.
“Now we eat fresh vegetables without any chemical fertiliser. We give the fresh vegetables to our village people, and our living conditions have improved.”
Recipes featuring any combination of vegetables should be submitted to recipe@oxfam.org.au with a photo of the dish by 4 June. Chefs, home cooks and aspiring foodies alike are all encouraged to enter. More information about Oxfam Australia’s Stop Hunger appeal can be found at www.oxfam.org.au/stophunger.
Comments are closed.