Greenhouse Pioneer: Cassia Kidron – founder of Root Camp

This week we’re featuring Cassia Kidron as our Eco Hero. She’s the founder of Root Camp, which aims to create “a new generation of thoughtful cooks and consumers in a way that’s lasting and fun,” in the words of the woman herself.

This week we’re featuring Cassia Kidron as our Eco Hero. She’s the founder of Root Camp, which aims to create “a new generation of thoughtful cooks and consumers in a way that’s lasting and fun,” in the words of the woman herself.

“Root Camp was created out of a feeling of panic when I realised my teenage son had no idea how to cook,” Cassia explains on the Root Camp website. Started in 2010, Root Camp is a residential cookery school for teenagers and young adults. Pupils experience fieldwork on the Riverford organic farm and are taught by Sylvain Jamois, freelance chef, Riverford Organics Cook, and previously Head Chef at Moro in London. Root Camp also runs After-School Supper Club for 10-14 year olds in London and camping trips in Wales. Keep an eye on their website for more projects!

What inspires you?

Projects that change lives and integrate communities in dynamic and direct way. Abreu’s El Sistema in Venezuela, for example, which set up instrumental learning programmes for deprived kids, creating 125 youth orchestras and rescuing 100s of thousands of kids from poverty and dysfunction by offering an alternative society – one that is about harmony, mutual compassion and unity, and one that expresses ‘sublime feelings”

What makes you angry?

The idea that one’s life has more value than the other.

If you were Prime Minister, what would be the frst thing you’d change?

I’d make instrument-learning free and ban cold-calling.

Can individuals really make a difference?

It takes one voice to fll an auditorium and move a crowd.

What is your personal mission?

To create thoughtful cooks and consumers by making the preparation and eating of food a vital, social and creative experience.

What’s more urgent: changing things from the inside or starting a revolution on the outside?

Surely fundamental change happens at the point where they connect.

What is the best meal you’ve had in your life? Cooked by whom? Eaten with whom?

I was travelling through the eastern Balkans with my three children. On my birthday we took a boat to a sleepy Croatian island. After singing to the acoustics of a deserted and peeling church, we walked through a feld of aniseed to a plain and silent house. Our skipper knocked on the door. It was siesta time; eventually a sleep-ruff‚ed man appeared before, followed by his wife. They offered us home-made walnut aperitif and laid the table with house-cured prosciutto and fresh goat’s cheese and tomatoes from their vines red onions from the garden. The scene had a poetic quality: the intimacy of eating with strangers; the simplicity and depth of each taste and the full-bodied wine; it really felt like everything we ate was kissed by sun and earth.

Can you describe a typical work day?

There is no typical day. Last night I was teaching a bunch a teenagers how to make Indian dahls and salads. This morning I am dealing with the administration and funding of growing a social enterprise. On other days, I might have a meeting with a potential sponsor; or be talking to a school/cook/venue about possible collaboration for projects; or drawing up menus for courses; or I may in the felds on one of our residential camps.

How do you defne success?

Pursuing ones passions without creating personal discord

What’s the best advice anyone’s ever given you?

It’s not so much about the choices, but the decision.

What’s your favourite book or flm of late?

The Separation by Asghar Farhadi.

What would you most like to happen to protect the planet?

That people understand the consequences of their choices.