Food Stories
Animating food through origin, belonging, and nourishment
About this Gathering
Food Stories invites us into a journey of memory, migration, and connection through the everyday foods that have travelled with us for centuries.
Across four weeks we’ll meet squash, onion, potato, and roots — not only as ingredients, but as ancestors and teachers. We’ll taste, cook, and create together while listening for the stories that live inside these foods: their origins, their folklore, their journeys across land and culture, and the memories they stir in us.
Through shared meals, food craft, storytelling, and tea-towel printing, we’ll animate food as a cultural and personal archive; a way of remembering who we are, where we come from, and what we share.
This is not a cooking class. It is a communal practice of giving voice to food, honouring its life stories, and recognising it as kin.
The Nature of Community
This gathering is part of The Nature of Community, a place-rooted creative project founded by poet Hayley Frances as part of her Black Country Fellowship exploring belonging, kinship, ecology, and cultural memory through community-led expression.
Funded by Powered by CAN and co-created with Ekho Collective CIC.
AT
Hawbush Community Gardens,
Brierley Hill, DY5 3NL
WITH
Led by Caz Emeny (Ekho Collective)
Creative cook, maker, and community nurturer.
Support from Hayley Frances
Poetic witness & documentation.
ON
Every Monday in November
4pm - 6pm.
WEEKLY RHYTHMS
-
Week 1
Squash
“It wouldn’t be right to leave out squash this time of year.”
Big, bright, and generous, squash brings us lantern light, hearty soups, and seeds that keep giving. We’ll listen for its autumn voice, teach you squash stories, and share our own stories of cycles and harvests. -
Week 2
Onion
“Every good meal, every good story, begins with an onion.”
Sharp enough to make us cry, sweet enough to carry any dish. We’ll peel back layers of history, folklore, and memory, one skin at a time, and make an Onion Cough Syrup to protect and soothe us if we catch a chesty cold this winter. -
Week 3
Potato
“Potato has travelled further than most of us.”
From underground beginnings to crossing oceans, potato has always been about sustenance and survival. We’ll meet its migrations and tell the tales it stirs in us. -
Week 4
Roots
“Roots keep the ground full of stories.”
Carrots, beets, and root kin hold colour, earth, and memory. We’ll make dyes, print and play, and share what roots us to place, and people.
About Hawbush Gardens
Hawbush Community Gardens,
Brierley Hill, DY5 3NL
Hawbush Gardens is a community-rooted green space in Brierley Hill. Home to Ekho Collective, the gardens are held as a place of regeneration, creative expression, nature connection, and seasonal celebration.
The Village of Hawbush Community Gardens provides wellbeing garden, fir pit and circle, roundhouse, kitchen-garden, compostable loo, willow spiral for crafting, an abundance of community gardens, field and ample green spaces.
ACCESS & LOCATION NOTES:
Held at Hawbush Gardens in outdoor and semi-sheltered spaces
Wheelchair access to key areas and pathways
Blankets, tea, seating, and quiet space provided
Final session includes light meal with gluten-free and vegetarian options
Please let us know any access needs when signing up
WHY JOIN?
Share and hear food stories across generations and cultures
Explore ingredient histories, origin stories, and folklore
Create art with natural dyes from root vegetables
Cook, taste, and celebrate together each week
Contribute to a living community archive of food, lineage, and belonging
WHO THIS IS FOR?
Families, elders, children, and anyone curious about memory, food, and cultural expression. Especially welcoming to those who wish to share recipes, stories, or reconnect with the nature of nourishment.
Children are welcome with a parent or guardian.
We especially invite families and members from the HAWBUSH ESTATE.
Register for Food Stories
Every Monday in November
4 - 6pm
Each week we gather around an ingredient, squash, onion, potato, roots, and let it speak.
There’ll be eating, dyeing and printing, folklore and recipes, little zines, and the stories we carry from our own kitchens and lineages.
Together we’ll remember food not just as nourishment, but as archive, ancestor, and kin.