I have always thought there is a difference between urban and rural poverty – I only know about the rural side.

We lived in a village and we were sometimes broke, rather than always poor.

There were days when bread and eggs were it for an evening meal, my single mother coming in late from her job and the meal up to me and my sister to create. 

There isn’t too much you can do with eggs and bread, but those times taught me how to look in the fridge and make something out of what was there.

And I had been taught by my mother, who loved to cook and my grandmother whose definition of the heart of the home was to have something baking or bubbling.

We didn’t have food waste issues – we couldn’t afford it.

But we did have cooking skills and that made all the difference. If I had been taught to garden as well as I was taught to cook with whatever we could afford, I’d be opening the (currently a lot less than perfect) garden to the public. 

Currently only Steve, our lovely postman sees much of it. I rest my case.

There is a real difference between broke and poor.

If you are broke, it is a temporary situation and the chances are you have some food stocks – and to this day, when I am neither broke or poor, I have a stock of tinned tomatoes on the basis you can always start a meal with a tin of tomatoes.

(Once when I was living in a posh flat overlooking Tower Bridge, my mother came to stay and opened a cupboard to find my tinned tomato stash. Even she, a woman who knew a few things about making ends meet, thought I might have been a bit excessive in my stockpiling.)

If you were rural poor in my youth, you ate a lot of pheasant, apples, runner beans, potatoes.

Pheasants shot by neighbours or friends would be dropped on our step, vegetable gluts were shared around – we weren’t gardeners but looking back, we should have been.

Whilst a roast chicken was a special treat and my mother’s speciality, Viennese Beef, was only for high days and birthdays, pheasant was a regular. 

So, I am now rural and not poor or broke, or just managing, or dealing with loosing may job  but I have held on to my roots, and am now thinking about what to do with stale bread and a pheasant or two.

I have started volunteering at the Free Shop in Petersfield. (You can skip the next bit if you know about it – I have to say I didn’t until recently.

Anyway, we get food from the local supermarkets which is just at its best before date and gluts from gardeners and allotment holders, and people can come in and take what they want/need for free and that means it doesn’t get wasted.)

We get a lot of bread and I have been thinking about what to do with it. 

I made a bread pudding – rather dense and I am not sure that it has received ecstatic reviews but I will re-think the recipe.

This week, I am experimenting with a savoury bread and butter pudding.

Caramelised onions, tomatoes with herbs, bread and butter, eggs, milk, cheese. All layered and baked.

Meanwhile, yesterday, I was on an enjoyable village litter pick up organised by a ‘new’ local, and yes we got stuff out of ditches and hedges – nice rural areas apparently attract people who want to sit in a car, watch the sun go down and throw their empty bottles out of the window.

(Come and sit, chat, watch birds, do other much more exciting things in your car, but can you take your litter home?

Mind you if you did, what would us middle class people have as an excuse to socialise and be outraged at the same time.)

Anyway, I was talking to the man who organised said litter pick and he and his wife are thinking about setting up a project to get the ‘excess’ pheasants to people who needed a helping hand.

Now, I am not sure that the people who come into our Free Food Shop would pick up a pheasant but I bet they would if it was in a pie or a casserole….

So, for that we need a fridge, and I have possibly got to move from hygiene level 2 to 3 – watch this space.

This takes me back to my youth, so I am up for it.

I need to crowd fund a commercial fridge ( £1,000). I need to work it all out but I think it might work.

Anyone know about crowd funding – I’ve never done it before?

And before I forget – urban poverty…

Some years ago, I spent time with the CEO of Lewisham Council. We were talking about nutrition and food.

He told me to think about what it was like to live in a high-rise flat as a single parent, with two young children, to get to the bus stop with them, change buses and get to Tescos with two tetchy kids.

Then you could see that buying in bulk would be cheaper in the long run but you don’t have the money to buy in bulk.

You don’t have the ‘training’ to cook so it is all seriously hard work, and whatever you buy you have to take home on those buses with your kids.

How much easier it is to go to Costcutter and buy a pizza. 

And who could blame that parent.