Tooting Foodival 2009

Last Sunday saw the second annual Tooting Foodival, arranged by Transition Town Tooting.  TTT aims to

“…bring together the people of Tooting and surrounding communities to develop a plan to transition to a life beyond our dependency on oil.”

Practically, this means lowering the collective carbon footprint of the town by encouraging greener modes of transport, food growing groups and re-skilling workshops.  There are even rumours that Tooting may get its own currency before too long.  I have been deeply envious of the ‘Brixton pound’ and it would be great to see T£ as it will be known enabling residents to keep trade flowing through Tooting’s local businesses.

The Foodival kicked off with a ‘Food walk’ which I was unfortunately unable to attend, followed by a Food Fete in Fircroft school.  Here there was free food cooked from home-grown Tooting fruit and veg, an urban beekeeper (very distressed about vandals who have been throwing bricks and logs at her hives), and the great Tooting pudding competition, which featured some amazing looking puds which sadly weren’t on offer to the punters, although perhaps they were dished up after the judging.

Kids were getting involved making creatures out of locally grown vegetables, and Ting Ting Tooting were there fixing bikes and promoting cycling in the area.

It was a beautiful September afternoon, and everybody seemed to be having a great time.  It reminded me that I had meant to go to some of the TTT meetings, so fingers crossed I will get to one before too long.

It might seem impossible that an area as urban as Tooting can possibly embrace low carbon ideas, but the TTT movement is growing all the time, and steps have already been made in the right direction.  If it can be done in Tooting, it can be done anywhere!