Sunday, March 16, 2008
Friday food preparation: An unglamorous but important job
Come see what we’re cooking up: Rice, potato salad, fried eggs, pickled vegetables, and a tureen of hot soup!
This is the meal we hand out every Saturday at Ueno Park through the 2HJ Saturday Soup Kitchen—give or take a few minor variations depending on what’s on hand week to week. Sounds pretty appetizing, doesn’t it?
We serve over 400 hot meals every Saturday, which adds up to a lot of cooking. Since it all has to be ready by lunchtime on Saturday, we have to start our preparations on the day before that. That’s where the “Friday volunteer gang” comes in.
Every Friday morning at nine o’clock, volunteers begin to gather outside the 2HJ office. Two long tables and several large gas cookers are set up on the sidewalk, the volunteers grab knives and cutting boards, and the cookout begins. First, they cut the fresh vegetables for salads and soup.
Next, they light up the gas cookers, boil some water, and throw in the frozen mixed vegetables and komatsuna (Japanese mustard spinach), along with any meats, eggs and potatoes that we might have that day.
All the cooking is done outdoors. It can get chilly in the winter months, but the mood is always relaxed and cheerful. When passers-by ask what we are doing and what all the vegetables are for, that gives us a chance to tell them a little about 2HJ and the soup kitchen.
All sorts of people come and volunteer their time: housewives, university students, parents with their kids, foreigners of all kinds, and business people on leave or between jobs. Their reasons for volunteering and how often they can come varies as widely as age and religious beliefs, but at the long tables everyone works as one. Each individual task is simple which means that we can all enjoy each other’s conversation and company without slowing the prep work.
“Some people are born on this Earth with a purpose from up above—people like Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Jakucho Setouchi. If this is true, then Charles (2HJ Executive Director) might have a destiny like that too. That thought was what inspired me to start volunteering at 2HJ,” explains Elsa Mission, who has been volunteering her time and preparing food every Friday for almost a year. “Some countries on Earth have an abundance of food, and others are in desperate need. I believe that sharing love with other people is what makes life meaningful.”
Almost all of the food used in the Hot Meal Program is received as donations. 2HJ only purchases minimal condiments and seasonings.
When food that was destined for disposal is donated to 2HJ instead, most of the food is distributed as-is to agencies like orphanages, women’s shelters, and elderly homes, who provide it to those in need. Elsa and the other Friday cookout volunteers also prepare a portion of the donated food for the Saturday Soup Kitchen, where it becomes part of a meal served directly to people in need of nutrition and sustenance.
Stepping out of a society where meals go to waste and into another in which unwanted food is redistributed to those in need. When companies and individuals take the time to reexamine what it means to “be a member of society,” exciting new things are possible. Won’t you join us, and help us make them happen?
Writer/Photographer: Yukari Yoshida
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