Our Scones and Samosas cooking group was one of our longest running groups, it launched in 2014 and ran until lockdown. It brought together women from different faiths and cultures to share recipes, cook and eat together. The group originated out of an English class at a local primary school. The class wanted to learn to make English food and so Scones and Samosas was launched to share different cultural recipes. We tried to link our recipes to events that were special to the group such as pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, biryani for Eid and pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. We discussed why the recipes were special to us and the memories or stories that they represented. The shared conversations and activities led to good friendships forming and many women met up outside of the group, we even celebrated weddings together. The group have taken part in many fundraising evets including selling cakes and samosa at the local COOP and Samosa chaat and a school fayre. Out of the friendships that developed at this group we ran The Prophets Stories course, sharing stories of the prophets that feature in both the Bible and Quran, looking at the similarities and differences in the stories and the difference in meaning. We were able to get to know each better and learn more about each other’s faith and culture, deepening understanding and improving cohesion.
