Culture Night gets ready to feed the 5,000 in Belfast’s biggest lunch

One of the world’s biggest pots of curry has started bubbling in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter as Culture Night prepares to feed 5,000 people.

The festivities kick off with a free curry feast for all on Friday afternoon.

Belfast Harbour and the Belfast Food Network are setting the biggest dinner table ever along Donegall Street, transforming it into a unique, outdoor dining venue to help “Feed the 5000” with a completely environmentally sustainable curry.

This will be prepared by Buddhist specialist food chef ‘Para’, and made from local surplus produce donated from by local farmers using compostable plates and cutlery.

Kerry Melville, coordinator of Belfast Food Network, said the city’s biggest free lunch has been organised to highlight the issue of food waste.

“All the food has been donated from 15 local farms, its surplus and would have gone back into the earth,” she told UTV.

“The food is 100% edible that’s why it’s disgusting that food perfectly suitable for human consumption is not picked up by supermarkets because it doesn’t meet their standards.

“So the idea is to flag up that food waste is a huge issue. It’s getting worse and worse and we’re asking people to support their local producers, order from them directly and use all the food that they buy.”

On Thursday a team of volunteers helped to chop a tonne of the locally produced vegetables to be cooked on site.

“Peter ‘Para’ O’Grady who runs Food For All UK, he has shown up in a van with a team of people and one of the world’s biggest pots and has just got cracking,” Kerry continued.

“The table will be at Donegall Street at St Anne's Cathedral in the afternoon and we will be serving from 1pm until 6pm, we will keep serving food until it runs out.”

She added: “There is a very serious message behind this, a third of the world’s entire food supply could be saved by reducing waste, that’s enough to feed three billion people.

“We are throwing away so much food it doesn’t make any sense, we need to start looking at our food differently and thinking about where it is coming from.”

Up to 80,000 people are expected to take to the city streets for Culture Night Belfast.

The biggest cultural celebration in the city’s calendar will see over 250 free family friendly events taking place during the day and on into the evening.