One third of the food we produce globally goes to waste. ONE THIRD! This is the reason why for 7 years, SFYN and Slow Food communities across the world have spread the message of World Disco Soup Day: saving food from being wasted from markets, restaurants and more, cooking in a convivial way and celebrating this special day together. But World Disco Soup Day is more than that! It means dancing, meeting people, sharing cultures, creating memories and contents, educating others, and being part of a community.
The Final numbers:
This year on April 29th, more than 100 disco soups took place on the day, in 43 countries! With a total of 1 ‘300 volunteers (wow!), and thousands of visitors who stopped by and enjoyed some of the prepared food. But most importantly, 10 ‘000 Kgs of saved food and a little short of 24′ 000 meals were served! We did it! And Disco Soup it’s not just a day, it’s a lifestyle! Let’s save more food, produce less waste and have a smaller impact on our planet!!
Every year, it’s difficult for us to predict which World Disco Soup Day’s crazy stories from around the world we’ll get! Here are some of the highlights of this year: a big thank you to all the communities who shared their special moments with us!
Helping earthquake refugees in Turkey
Every year, Slow Food Adana and SFYN Adana are able to create special events to do good and create cool memories. After the tragic events which affected Turkey in February, Slow Food Adana, which also had to face the consequences of the earthquake, was able to organise a Disco Soup and share the food with the earthquake victims of their city Some of them were still living in temporary tents in the park, while visitors were coming to the farmers market. They prepared a yummy local soup called ‘Lepe’ made with local karakilcik bulgur rice, green onion roots, peppers, tomatoes, onions, pepper paste and may herbs, with İpek 18, who also played her ukulele and sang songs for them during the livestream on the Slow Food Youth Network channels. All the ingredients came from the farmer’s market.
They chose bulgur since it’s an ancient grain, originally from the Adana area, and needing very little water. Seasonal rains are enough for it to grow! It originally comes from mountain farmers and it’s a very traditional dish, almost not consumed anymore in modern Turkey society. As they say, this soup reminded them of their grandparents’ meals. HERE you can find the recipe that the community kindly shared with us!
In case you’re looking for more anti-waste recipes, we remind you of our Disco Soup Cookbook, an unique book where you can find recipes written from the network all over the world and discover how differently food is saved in other countries. More about it here!
Disco soup in a refugee camp in Congo DR
On the occasion of World Disco Soup Day, young people from SFYN Congo supported by Cultures of Resistance, organised their Disco Soup together with children displaced by war in the Kanyaruchina campsite, eastern Congo DR. They shared with us a powerful video of children dancing in unison, having fun, showing their dance skills and playing instruments. More than 700 joined the celebration without counting all the volunteers and the organisations involved in it.
Here is the link to the touching video.
800 plates of traditional flour porridge were served during the day, mainly to children, all victims of the war in East DCR, coming from the Rutshuru and Nyiragongo territories. As the volunteers stated: ‘’one of these meals could save a life’’. You can find more info on SFYN RDC’s Facebook page.
Kenya parade through the city
After gathering unwanted food from local gardens and markets, SFYN Kenya marched in the streets of Nakuru along Kenyatta Avenue, in the town centre, to create awareness and stop food losses in the region. They held banners and signs: in the livestream they did on Instagram we saw people from Nakuru being pleasantly curious seeing our people down the street ‘’who are we?’’ -‘’Slow Food!’’ they chanted. ‘’what do we want?’’ – ‘’Save our food, save our planet’’ was the answer.
They shared their message with the help of a radio station too, who documented the parade and spread SFYN kenya’s beliefs.
After the parade, they discussed together on the role of youth in the fight against food waste and then started chopping, cooking, eating and dancing, having fun like every Disco Soup should be.
Anti waste doesn’t stop creativity!
We always see very delicious food being served at Disco Soups. In fact, even if originally legumes and veggies were used to make a big soup to share, the rescued food can be 100% used to prepare any other dish that fits the ingredients that are available and the local food culture. But this year.. participants really outdid themselves! Awesome gastronomic creations were served all around the world: restaurant – alike plates could be seen on social media down the hashtag #WorldDiscoSoupDay.
Some examples are:
- SFYN Bra and Pollenzo’’s carrot hummus with roasted carrots and caramelised onions, grape leaves stuffed with rice, wood oven cooked pizzas, pasta salads, fresh falafels, salads and more.
- SFYN Rovigo preparing a fresh and sweet sangria with rescued fruit!
- Slow Food Peru in Lima and Tambopata creating a full menu for the event from appetisers to dessert! They saved 120 kg of food all by themselves and shared the plates with everyone at their market.
- Sfyn Uganda plating tender fish dishes with sauces, pees and veggies like pros!
- Sfyn Nepal serving banana fritters to children in school as a dessert, after holding a lesson to educate them on food waste.
- SFYN Tokyo preparing super cute and colourful kelp stock soups with almost expired bagels for everyone.
- SFYN Cochabamba, Bolivia, who comes to the same market in Cochabamba to sell their local products almost weekly, shared with us so many delicious things: a marvellous carrot cake made with carrot peels and yoghourt frosting , quiches, banana bread made with banana peels, vegetarian bruschettas with local honey from Melipona stingless bees, cherry tomatoes confiture and peaches crumble with Melipona honey for dessert! (Some of these recipes are available on their instagram page as well.) As you can see, they focused a lot on Melipona honey, which is important for their native ecosystem. By going live with them, we also learnt a lot about this kind of bees: they are stingless, native to the forest, and produce a more liquidy honey. The pollen can be used as well since it’s edible.
→ Why did they choose to promote it for their World Disco Soup Day? Because people from that area tend to prefer buying cheaper imported honey coming from China. Despite having this special, unique indigenous honey around the corner, most people don’t know how important it is to support the local ecosystem and indigenous culture and economy. Other than being delicious too!
SFYN in schools in Nepal
SFYN Nepal, one of our youngest communities which started last march, hosted a beautiful event in the Mount Radiant English Boarding School in Kathmandu, Nepal. They organised an educational day for 50 children of the school, serving up carrot pudding and broccoli stem and leek soup (from our Disco Soup Cookbook!). They even made some beautiful banana fritters for desserts! They made the students aware of the food waste problem that affects our society, and taught them about Slow Food and SFYN’s work.
Spring semester celebration at Case Western Reserve University, Ohio!
Slow Food on Campus movement collaborated with local entities (Bon Appétit Management Company and Food Recovery Network) to host an event at Case Western Reserve University.. Courses such as ‘The Slow Food Movement’ and ‘Slow Food in Latin America’ are taught at CWRU: so World Disco Soup Day has been a cool addition to the courses’ final projects! An abundant assortment of food that would have been discarded was shared and used to prepare tortillas españolas. Slow Food On Campus also provided a hands-on demonstration of making fresh gazpacho.
That is all from the stories we have selected for you today! But please remember that World Disco Soup Day can be everyday: it’s always a good occasion to rescue food and spend time together to raise awareness. See you all on our social media to read more stories from around the world!
