Enjoy a meal out and help the hungry

Oct 9 2007 by Emma Pinch, Liverpool Daily Post

TWO years ago, Habiba was like millions of other children in her part of the world, all teeth and bony limbs and huge-eyed hopeless stare.

Deprived of food, she had forgotten what it was like to eat.

Four thousand miles north at Fraiche, and the contrast couldn’t be starker. The Wirral restaurant is alive with the expectant chatter of diners, the delicate clink of crockery, and mouthwatering flavours wafting from the kitchen.

But its thanks to restaurants like Fraiche that the Habiba of today is transformed. Now she’s an energetic 10-year-old with a beguiling grin and a safe future.

On the tenth anniversary of the Eat Out, Fight Hunger campaign, where restaurants and customers join forces to feed the starving, Action Against Hunger want many like her to receive the same gift.

During the month it runs, the fine line they have to tread is encouraging giving without puncturing people’s appetite altogether. Ordinarily, it has to be said, a sharp awareness of poverty does not sit well with a slap-up meal, and one of the most unsettling experiences of dining out al-fresco is the appearance, mid- scrape of the dessert bowl, of a beggar.

With brioche crumbs clinging to your shirt it’s difficult to josh about "spare" change, and the image of oneself as wine-dribbling, chop- smacking squire, chucking bones to the poor, can be disconcerting.

But the Action Against Hunger campaign, which coincides with the United Nations World Food Day on October 16, is not about in-your-face guilt-tripping. Tucked away on the menu is the invitation to make a donation or choose a dish that includes a contribution to Action Against Hunger.

It’s a simple idea, but last year they raised £140,000. This year, charity workers hope that diners and chefs – Raymond Blanc and Antonio Carluccio are already on board – will raise more than a quarter of a million.

Sophie Noonan, head of campaigns and fund-raising at Action Against Hunger, came up with the initiative.

"Restaurant owners and chefs who love to cook and those who love good food are concerned by the problem of hunger in the world, and we wanted a campaign with a positive aspect to it," she says. "It’s about enjoying food and doing something good at the same time – bridging the two worlds, the best of food and the most basic of food. It’s very simple and it’s been working fantastically well this year. Everybody can do something, from the smallest café to restaurants."

Liverpool restaurants who have so far signed up to the campaign are Blackburne House, Café and Bar, off Hope Street, The Side Door and the London Carriage Works on Hope Street, Fraiche in Oxton, Wirral, and Il Forno and Sapporo Teppanyaki, on Rodney Street.

At Fraiche, waiting staff are donating their tips to the campaign, which runs to October 31.

A small card on the establishment’s 20 tables alerts customers to the decision by the eight waiting staff to give away their tips, and customers have responded generously.

Head waitress Gemma Parry says owner and chef Mark Wilkinson had his conscience pricked by wasted food at the restaurant.

"We take food for granted. People just throw things away they don’t like, and you can’t help but think there are people who would do anything for some of it. Something like rice is the simplest thing, but a pound can buy enough of it to keep a family alive for five days. You always mean to give money to charity but you never get round to it.

"We did put it to the staff that they give half their tips towards it and keep the other half, but they said ‘no, give it all’".

* GO TO www.restaurantsagainsthunger.org for more information about the campaign.

Helping Habiba >>>