Those who use street kitchens and food banks deserve more than our sympathy
Recently my attention was drawn to a homeless man in Manchester who describes himself as the Jay Rayner of the streets. He was interviewed as part of Matt White’s brilliant Manchester food podcast Fodder, in an episode raising awareness of those sleeping rough in the city, and how they are fed. White found the man – he calls himself Rachel, a reaction to being bullied as a kid for looking like a girl – in the queue at Not Just Soup. It’s a street kitchen for the homeless which gets the city’s restaurants to cook up full meals for those with nowhere else to go. These dishes are not merely the oft-talked-up wonders contrived from leftovers and scraps; they’re the good stuff. Rachel gives a five out of 10 if the food is properly cooked, rising to six or seven if it is nutritionally balanced, to an eight or above if it’s exceptional. And he will give these scores direct to the cooks’ faces. Harsh.
My first thought: this is a bit weird. My job as a restaurant critic is surely a function of excess? Food reviews are only relevant when there’s little else in life to worry about. If you’ve got nowhere to sleep and are dependent on handouts, reviews are irrelevant. Rachel put me right on that one. Not Just Soup was, he said, “the calmest and least violent soup kitchen in the city”. Why was that, White asked. “People feel dignified by this. I think people come here and feel like somebody gives a damn, that somebody has made an effort to cook for them.”
Related: Massimo Bottura and his global movement to feed the hungry
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