On a warm August evening, long tables stretched out beneath the trees outside Victoria Park Cafe. With wafts of hogget shawarma and community collaboration in the air, something truly incredible was taking shape. With the weather on side, Martin the Cheese Lord opened the evening by celebrating the 600 potatoes grown locally – word had spread, and Fromies arrived by the bucketload. This was no ordinary meal: it was Canteen, Frome’s pay-what-you-can community restaurant, going alfresco for the first time.
At the heart of the menu was a potato salad unlike any other. Organised by Kerry from Frome Seed Library, each potato had been grown with care in the gardens, allotments and window boxes of more than a hundred Frome families, schools, care homes and businesses. Sprigs of herbs, too, came from plots across the town. From seed to salad bowl, it was food with a story, and everyone had a hand in telling it.
Canteen’s hosts, the Frome Food Network, firmly believe that nutritious, delicious and seasonal local food should be accessible to all, regardless of means. With support from Green and Healthy Frome this vision is becoming a reality, helping people to reconnect with where food comes from, supporting local producers and suppliers, and showing that eating together nourishes far more than just our bodies. Shared community dining creates intergenerational connection, strengthens resilience, and weaves the fabric of community tighter.
This beautiful patchwork of community collaboration saw chefs work with the Community Fridge to rescue surplus food – some of it transformed into the delicious poached plum pudding and any leftovers redistributed back to the Fridge – ensuring nothing good went to waste. Makers, growers, producers and charitable organisations all added their food, skills and funds, Victoria Park Café lent its home, and dozens of hands helped to serve. By the evening’s end, 222 meals had been shared. Some were paid in full, others subsidised, and a few gifted entirely. With an average spend of £10.83, the generosity of some made it possible for others to eat for less – or for free. Because at Canteen, no one eats alone, and everyone is welcome.
As people sat shoulder to shoulder, laughter rose above the tables. Stories were exchanged, children ran across the grass, and strangers became friends. Eating together like this is a tradition as old as humanity. Around the world, many other cultures believe in the educational, social and nutritional benefits of regular communal eating. They create belonging, dissolve barriers, and remind us that food is never just fuel. It’s connection, resilience, and joy.
That evening in Victoria Park, Frome showed what’s possible when a town comes together: hyper-local food, grown and cooked with care, shared in good company. A taste of what a fairer, healthier, more connected future might look like – served with love, and community spirit aplomb.