The first Edible Wales workshop was held in the Glyn Coch Community Centre, Pontypridd, on 5 November 2014. The aim of the project is to promote the production and healthy consumption of Welsh food within a frame of locality and cultural heritage. Participants included art students from South Wales University, members of the Rhondda Cynon Taf community and a local brewery, Grey Trees - who kindly donated bottles of rather delicious beer at the end of the session. The 3-month project's goal is simple: to design a logo, free to use under a Creative Commons license, that links food and drink to locality. A little like the well-known "red tractor" logo quality mark. Any producer will be able to use the logo to help promote their edible wares. We started the project in Rhondda Cynon Taf since, unlike Caerphilly with its cheese, or Pembrokeshire with its "earlies" (potatoes), the public might struggle to put a food type alongside the region's name. We hope that will change, once local producers - and there are lots of those - start to adopt the logo that comes out of the Edible Wales project.
The workshop was ably led by Aron Evans of A&O Studios and Nancy Evans (no relation) of Artis Community, and began by asking participants to gather words and phrases associated with the area. Wenglish featured strongly, including such classics as "Where to is it?" and "What it is, is ...". I was there with fellow Aberystwyth University lecturers, Sophie Bennett and Rob Bowen, both from the School of Management and Business, to document and supplement the session.
Next week, we'll be bringing video equipment to interview participants - watch this space. Also follow us on Twitter @EdibleWales.