We are thrilled to share the deliciousness that resulted from our first pilot Changemaker Residency at the Sustainability Institute.
We welcomed eco-cook and permaculturalist Bia Goll from Sao Paolo in Brazil, storyteller Megan Lindow, and wild food expert Loubie Rusch to turn our campus into a “living laboratory” for culinary discovery and community knowledge sharing and storytelling.
Megan Lindow (left) and Bia Goll (right) in conversation during lunch
What happens when you slow down and embed yourself in a place?
The Sustainability Institute (SI) has been a laboratory for exploring innovative ideas and practices to bring local wild foods into wider cultural and community usage.
The Local Wild Food Hub at the SI has been working towards this aim through a collaborative “know, grow and use” approach. With inclusive, ethical innovation and experimentation, there is potential to revive long lost food traditions, and offer delicious variety and nourishment to people.
Cultivating these food plants where they grow naturally offers numerous benefits: it can help to regenerate the land and restore ecological diversity, while building local food sovereignty and resilience to climate change.
Local wild foods could have transformative impacts in early childhood creches, school gardens and feeding schemes, community kitchens, small-scale farming initiatives and local enterprises.
A residency like this enables our team to look at new ways of thinking about food, and the Green Café was the perfect place to enable the imaginative fusion of ideas to be brought to life. Have you ever tasted creeping foxglove relish? What about Beetroot salad with indigenous veg and peanut butter ?
This collaborative exploration in the kitchen included our team from Nourish. They manage the SI’s school nutrition programme and the Green Café. Collectively we believe that food is a powerful way of connecting people, and deliciousness is what nourishes mind, body and soul.
The original South African- Brazilian fusion of flavours honours the Cape Floristic Region’s unique heritage and combined comfort foods with nutrient-dense indigenous “superfoods,” to create:
- Wild Chakalaka enhanced with the sour punch of spekboom and the lemony saltiness of sea pumpkin.
- Dune Spinach Umfino, a traditional staple reimagined with umami-rich wild greens.
- Wild Foxglove Pesto, a calcium and iron “flavour bomb”.
- Watermelon Relish, a spicy, syrup-reduced fusion masterpiece.
The Power of “What If..?”
This residency also prompted questions that made us ask:
- What if every child’s daily snack was a fresh, organic vegetable harvested directly from their school garden?
- What if every lunch table featured “herb bouquets” like wild rosemary and buchu for everyone to season their own plates?
- What if our local cafes featured recipes named after the very hands that grew the food—like “Vuyo’s wrap” or “Sne’s pancake”?
- What if we reclaimed our connection to the land through monthly “Potjiekos Days” and youth-led “Planet Cleaning” celebrations?
By embracing the uncomfortable place of uncertainty, our residents showed us that imagining what’s possible is exactly what enables change. Dive into the full story and try these incredible recipes here:
Residency overview | Residency recipe booklet
If you are curious about how delicious the indigenous edibles are, come and visit the Green Cafe. We’d love to show you the way we work with food and people. You can also book any of our venues for your events and off-site meetings with a difference.