Former Etonian old boys, B&P stumbled upon the idea to resurrect Jelly from the abyss of the long forgotten four years ago. Fresh out of university, feeling somewhat bright eyed and bushy tailed, they fancied a fun hobby to do on the summer weekends of 2007; so they attempted to set up a stall in Borough Market. Due to their twenty-something just larking around appearances, the wings of their business adventure were clipped soon before it even had chance to fly. ‘But by doing so, we accidently stumbled across the jelly business. There is nothing that can delight more than the style of a wobbly, quivering jelly’ explains Sam, as I try my hardest to keep a straight face. ‘The family thought it was pretty absurd until we hit the big time by being caricatured in Private Eye’.

Spearheading the renaissance of English Jelly might have seemed like a fun prospect to B&P but their families concerns were more than justifiable. Given that Harry was a trained architect and Sam was a researcher for a global financing marketing company; adding ‘jelly monger’ to the list of their qualifications might be classed as borderline insane to many, but for Sam the philosophy was simple, ‘this is a whole heap more fun.’ It’s as if his life has been leading up to this point for years. ‘I was a researcher for the MP Simon Hughes’, which he describes as ‘grand preparation for the absurd. MPs do a lot for their constituents. One week we even organised an exorcism for someone living in the constituency’.

Absurd being the key word here, the prospect of being able to astonish with food has always been a childhood dream for Sam, which is why the sudden shift in careers seemed plausible to him. He describes a trip to ‘Medieval Times’ on a family holiday to America as his most ‘formative food experience’. His eyes practically glaze over as he describes in explicit detail the way the show intertwined forms and factor making food a spectacle; I let him lose himself for a couple of minutes as it is obvious he is blissfully reminiscing on the magic he felt that day. After a few moments pass, I try and nudge him back into the conversation we just lost by asking what inspires him nowadays. After five minutes of intelligent waffle he finally draws to a conclusion by expounding on ‘casino architecture’. ‘They use every trick in the book to give people a full sensory assault via that fabric of the building…They pipe in extra oxygen to make you feel sharp. We tried this at a meal once with a 70kg oxygen tank instead of coffee but it blasted out so powerfully that all the paintings fell off the wall.’

At this point in the interview I realise no one else could have single-handedly brought back jelly from the culinary wilderness quite like B&P because quite frankly, there is no way anyone could match up to the same level of intelligence when it comes to knowing all things wonderful and wacky. In the space of half an hour Sam has bounced from the topic of Les Dinners de Gala, Salvador Dali’s cookbook. ‘It’s pretty wild’ he drawls ‘Dali shows you how to cross milk fed snails, stuffed peacocks and aphrodisiacs for a seductive dinner’. To Alexis Soyer, who was apparently the Jamie Oliver of the 19^th century? However, I don’t get chance to find out why as he dives head first into the explanation of the Great Exhibition of 1851. ‘Soyer was offered exclusive rights to the catering for the Crystal Palace built in Hyde Park. He refused as influence from the temperance movement meant that alcohol was not allowed to be served with meals. Soyer didn’t think you could have a civilised meal without booze. The contract went to Schweppes and a fortune based on carbonated (non-alcoholic) beverages was founded.’

As I breathe in to ready myself for the next question, Sam launches into a discourse about his grandfather. He was hospitalised for eating too many durian fruit apparently. It tickles Sam that I’m unaware of what this particular fruit is, and to be honest I’m annoyed with myself for not knowing either. I grew up in Africa as a young girl so I have quite an extensive knowledge when it comes to exotic fruit; well at least I thought I did. Anyway, for those of you who are unfamiliar with it as I am, ‘it has a haunting, caramel flavour that’s also a bit like cat sick’. I suggest this might be the reason why it hasn’t caught on in Sainsbury’s yet.  Again this tickles Sam and he quips ‘it’s actually not as bad as eating too much nutmeg. The spice is a psychotropic drug but just has all the bad bits of taking acid and takes 24 hours to wear off’, well I’ll be damned.

It might seem that B&P spend their days playing with jelly moulds and conjuring up the fun tales they read about in books but the reality of it is, like with any job, there is a downside. ‘We have conversations that everyone has, like saying wouldn’t it be cool if… fill in the blank. Harry and I are then geeky enough to spend the next six months turning it into a reality by making sure it fits with food and safety regulations and fine tuning any possible engineering problems.’ When your job involves staging a public event where guests are invited to absorb Hendricks’s gin and tonic through their eyeballs of a boozy mist (every drunkard’s dream), there’s more than just their jobs hanging on the line if something were to go awry. With that in mind, I ask Sam if they’ve encountered any Veruca Salt disasters yet. After a few moments of careful consideration Sam answers ‘no’. Of course this is a good thing but I can’t help but feel secretly disappointed. Judging by the tales of his grandfather I was expecting an anecdote that would have my belly shaking with laughter.

Sensing my disappointment Sam tells me the tale of ‘The Architectural Punch Bowl’ which proved to be their hairiest event in the business so far. For this event, B&P flooded an entire Mayfair listed building with 4,000 tons of Courvoisier punch. ‘It was pretty epic actually, all we had to do was flip the switch and the punch would flow straight through. Of course, when we went to turn on the switch, it didn’t work, neither did the back up. We ended up having to hand-carry twenty five litre cans of punch into the bowl. It was an exciting race against time, but we managed to get it done, so we can laugh about it now…just!’ For reasons like this, B&P always consider the implications of what can go wrong before they mull over how they can make it happen.

Despite being only in their twenties, their thought provoking ideas blended with cutting edge technology makes B&P’s business one of a kind. It also explains why Heston Blumenthal, Stella McCartney and Blur’s Alex James are included among their legion of fans. Having already conquered the jelly business in record breaking time, B&P seem to have ants in their pants once again and have set themselves the task of rebranding the cocktail industry. Therefore, they will be launching ‘Cocktails with Bompas & Parr’ in September which is another mind boggling adventure into booze tackling buckfast, alcohol in space, street drinking children and neolithic booze. ‘We wrote it as Harry and I were bored by how much most cocktail books mystify the craft and aren’t actually that helpful if you want to drink well and swiftly’.

Model: Lara Bowell

Photograghy: Sophia Hannam

Styling: Jessica Moorhouse & Olivia Loeke Keelor

Hair: April Burton

Make-up: Emma Baker

Photography: Attila Zsargo

Model: Faytel

Makeup: Rosiecheek

As hard as it is to believe, I have found few things in life more satisfying than collecting warm eggs, fresh from the nest, nor more exciting than when your hen lays her first. With this mindset, it’s safe to say that both my heart, and stomach, is in the country. Summers meant gluts of courgettes and salad leaves, picking blackberries in the surrounding undergrowth until my fingers stained burgundy, and my father shouting blue murder when the kids kicked his runner beans over at the allotment. I thrived as a child on fresh air and exercise, assembled in Hunter wellies and Barbour jackets, despite living just on the outskirts of the M25 and having never been hunting, shooting or fishing. But none of that seemed to matter when summer dishes could be assembled from little more than home laid eggs and home grown produce.

This relationship with food seemed second nature, but I never truly understood its attraction or ability to turn city dwellers misty eyed with delirium, until I moved to London myself.

The growing fascination with consuming and supporting local produce has accumulated in the coining of the term locavore, defined by the Oxford dictionary as a person whose diet consists only or principally of locally grown or produced food. Whilst this was once as easy as home baked chicken pie, sustaining the stomach of a locavore is nigh on impossible in regions of London riddled with establishments obsessed with Kentucky frying. Short of roasting up a rat kebab or escargot a la Abbey Road, I’m stumped as to what the wilds of the Camden district could offer in the way of tasty treats. Experts have indicated that the Thames is heaving with edible salmon and trout, which, whilst reassuring given that Nuclear waste is currently contaminating canned fish of Japanese origin, still doesn’t float my boat. My outdoor space is strictly limited to a North facing window box, where I initially envisioned a bountiful herb garden, until I reasoned I’d rather eat shrinkwrapped Thyme and Rosemary that hadn’t been peppered with the fumes of the No. 31 bus route.

I’m not alone in craving apples that have less of an impressive passport than I, or eggs that have been laid fewer than ten metres from the pan in which they’re scrambled. The promise of local produce has proven so enticing to gourmet diners that one in five restaurants have resorted to lying about the provenance of their ingredients to pull in the punters, according to recent research by the Local Government Regulation.

So what’s a bumpkin to do when removed from its natural habitat and roaming the concrete jungle? The first port of call for any budding locavore in the confines of London has to be the farmers’ market. Forget yoghurt fanciers and tree huggers, your local farmers’ market is likely to be thriving with yummy mummys and urban foodies, who take great delight in buying spuds speckled with dirt and count Emmerdale as their closest encounter with the countryside. London hosts some of the most spectacular farmers’ markets in the country, so it’s no surprise that there is an online site devoted to providing information on them, from opening times to locations; www.lfm.org.uk. “As certified famers’ markets increase in number around London, people can shop more readily at places where there is produce which is assured as being produced locally,” affirms Arthur Betts, a representative from the London Farmers’ Market website.

Betts is a great advocator for the benefits of buying food locally, and convinces me that it is possible to be a London locavore. “Much of the food at farmers’ markets will have been picked the day before,” he explains, “Produce has travelled less of a distance, and you can build up positive relationships directly between the customer and the producer of food.”

Sceptics of the origin of supposedly local produce can trust markets certified with farming body FARMA, who ensure that the little piggies going to market aren’t too far away from the little piggies that stayed at home. It also provides the best resource for information on fantastic farm shops, and pick-your-own farms if you fancy getting your green fingers busy.

With Betts’ advice fresh in mind, I trot off to Borough Market, which has got to be one of the most famous in London. Taking guidance from Borough Market veterans, I pitched up at 9.30am on a Saturday to avoid the crowds, though Thursdays and Fridays can also provide a more relaxed time to browse.

It’s fair to say I made more trips to the cash point than tested “Try Me” tasty morsels for the duration of my Borough Market stay, replenishing my purse at every opportunity. Lulled into a false sense of security through engaging directly with the stallholders, I’d naively assumed that the source of my purchases couldn’t be too far away. Discounting my loose leaf Earl Grey tea and olive punnets as obvious foreign invaders into my otherwise patriotic bag of produce, I analysed the provenance of my other groceries on my return home. The delicious olive focaccia had been baked in Whitechapel, and the free-range eggs had been laid not too far away, in Essex. The worst culprits were two fillet steaks and a slab of duck and pistachio terrine, which had come from famed butcher, the Ginger Pig. Their farms are located over two hundred miles away, in Yorkshire, but I was happy to momentarily part with locavore ideology for the peace of mind that the animals I was eating had experienced an unrivalled quality of life.

Back on the hunt for the most convenient ways to shop well within the nearby vicinity, I stumbled across an abundance of possibilities for even the most stringent of London locavores. Hubbub.co.uk offers an ingenious service in delivering food direct to your door from your neighbouring independents, providing seasonal produce and supporting the community local to you. Bigbarn.co.uk also encourages eating locally, with the ability to search for independent food retailers close by, and an online marketplace to buy local produce with just the click of a button. The choices for comestibles are endless; the only restriction depends on how near, or far, you want your food to have travelled.

But for locavores who like their food so local that it’s practically sitting beneath their nose, they need look no further than brand spanking new cuisine concept, Farm:. Commercial farming in the deepest depths of the city might seem an outlandish idea, but Farm: makes it possible by converting derelict buildings into mini agricultural havens, with vegetable plots aplenty and chickens running amuck on the roof.

“What makes it challenging in the city is that there is a large population of people wanting a huge amount of food,” explains Paul Smyth, founder of Farm:, “The large number of people combined with the small space makes ultra local food hard to come by.” Through support from Hackney council, 20 Dalston Lane has been transformed into a hub of rural activity. “We feel there is a margin for consumers who want to be able to see where their food is being grown… what we are trying to do is bring locality to the forefront of people’s minds.”

20 Dalston Lane is an example of what could happen if locavores were let lose on vacant spaces around the city; food factories in each district, providing fresh fruit and vegetables just a swedes throw away. Smyth’s vision, if rolled out across London, could bring locality back into the food chain. “The next step for people is to grow small amounts of food in their garden, or join a community like Farm:,” concludes Smyth. It really is that simple.

Eating local isn’t just for asparagus fondlers or martyrs of sandals and socks; it can be a slick, smooth urban operation with a little bit of effort and know how. Anyone who is convinced local food tastes no better than that imported from Timbuktu has clearly never had the pleasure of sticking their nose into a paper bag of tomatoes, freshly picked and warmed in the sunshine. There is something truly gratifying about going loco for local, not just in the smug satisfaction of growing your own, but also in supporting the independents in your community. Don’t be a slave to the Tesco trolley; even in the city, you can spark up a conversation with your neighbourhood butcher, devote a patch of your garden to radishes or better yet, buy some chickens. You’ll never look back.

Not a day apart, ever since I can remember I’ve lived a gluten free life. No wheat, no barley, no rye or oats, so that’s a no to bread, pasta, cakes, pies and all things nice.

When I was 18 months old my Mum started to notice my development as a baby wasn’t quite normal, my stomach was bloated, my hair was thin and I wasn’t developing normally as an 18 month girl should do. After numerous tests, doctor’s appointments and everything in between I was finally diagnosed with coeliac disease (a gluten allergy.) There are varying levels of this type of allergy from a bit of a bloated stomach after a slice of cake to severely allergic- like me. I am violently sick after a couple of mouthfuls of the wrong food.

Growing up my family made my experience with an allergy care-free, my parents knowing about the correct diet and food types for me always kept me on the straight and narrow…apart from a few slip ups when we were out at friends houses or restaurants. I was always very happy at home and didn’t notice any difference with my own diet to my siblings as I always had a gluten free substitute, at school I would always take packed lunches which stopped confusion with food. However on rare occasions like Christmas parties at school, issues with gluten started to arise. I have memories as a child of dreading parties’ weeks before, remembering the bombardment of questions and unwanted attention from other children ‘why are you eating special food?’ For an 8 year old painfully shy girl, this type of situation made me extremely uncomfortable, to the extent of making me wish to be ‘normal’ like everyone else. For most of my school life I hated being different to everyone else all due to my gluten free lifestyle.

It has only been in the past 5 years of my life that I have finally embraced and started to love my allergy. With supportive friends and family, changes in my own attitude and better awareness of coeliac disease it has helped me overcome any embarrassment I once ever had.  Recently supermarkets, restaurants and other food stores have dramatically improved product ranges, menu’s and labelling meaning that a once difficult allergy to grow up with is now not unheard of meaning that silly wishes from when I was six to be able to eat a gluten free doughnut can now come true.

Gluten free is relatively easy now living with extensive foods that cater for my diet, however there is still one minor setback and that being…holidays abroad. A lot of planning goes into holidays, I’m forever packing translation cards for restaurants, allergy tablets in case I slip up and of course back up food supplies in case there is nothing I can eat; taking these types of precautions will be done for every holiday and at the moment I don’t see it ending. I have fond memories of stealing any gluten free snacks of food at breakfast buffets to keep me going throughout the day. Growing up I always felt it was such an inconvenience but now there is a certain charm about seeing family members leave the hotel table with pockets full of food for me. On a recent trip to Paris I researched a great gluten free restaurant in the city and managed to get by with the usual preparing of snacks for the day ahead using hotel breakfast bits and eating salads at restaurants at night (I’ve come to realise over the years they are always the safest option), I’ve even managed to eat a French cake in the capital… a macaroon of course.

Coeliac disease has come to be such a big part of my life, I feel if I wasn’t allergic to something I wouldn’t be me.  Because of being gluten free I appreciate good, simple food more, I love going to places and finding they do gluten free food, the novelty to me will never wear off. Even the comments I used to dread as a child ‘so why can’t you eat that?’ don’t phase me anymore, now I proudly talk about being a coeliac to anyone who will listen. Growing up eating different food has made me sympathetic to people with allergies and want to educate people who don’t understand about coeliac disease. It was once a thing I wished I would grow out of but now I couldn’t be happier that I’m gluten free.

This month I was challenged by The Global Poverty Project to live off the diminutive sum of one pound a day, for five – full to the brim with deadlines – working days. Now, I’m never one to turn down a challenge but the thought of living off something as meagre as this, in London of all places, seemed ludicrous. However, for 1.4 billion people worldwide (Londoners n’all) this is a stark reality. If I were to accept this challenge, then I would be placing myself in the footsteps of what the World Bank defines as ‘extreme poverty.’ But then again, living off a fiver won’t exactly be hard will it? And besides, it’s only five days.

On average I spend around £30 a week on the ‘essential’ foods, you know: bread, yoghurt, cereal, vegetables and meat. Although I still like to indulge on simple things such as the occasional Pret sandwich, Costa Coffee latte and then I have to set money aside for my tube fees, of course. That adds up to approximately £60 a week, which seems perfectly acceptable in the context of my life; that is however, until I attempt my first food shop. Pounding the aisles of Sainsbury’s I’m surprised to learn how outrageously expensive food is. I never gave buying free range eggs a second thought because I was being altruistic, by putting the vulnerability of another animal before myself; yet I still walked past the homeless man sat outside without even offering a glance. Oh how the tables have turned, now as I fly past my usual options and jot down the prices of each value item meticulously, I silently think to myself ‘how on earth am I going to make a single fiver last me all week?’ The answer comes in the form of the basics, super noodles, cous cous, baked beans and tinned tomatoes (my only 5 a day) and the luxury item is a bag of bread. On arrival back at the flat, I’m only one hour into the 120 I have left to go and I’ve already began to realise how hard this way of life is; I curse myself for thinking this was going to be easy.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the definition of ‘homeless’ is someone who is ‘without a home and therefore typically living on the street’. Informative as this is, it fails to mention the stereotypical prejudices that go along with it. To gain a better understanding of these I spoke to Ceriann Tunnah, a substance misuse officer for Conway and Derbyshire Community and Safety Partnership. ‘The definition should be based around whether someone feels as if they have somewhere safe and secure to return to each day, somewhere you feel as if it’s your own’. This is why Ceriann’s company commissions services for ARC Communities, an open-door drop in centre, where the homeless can gain the invaluable help and support they desperately need. There are facilities such as the use of a toilet, a hot shower and washing machines, all the things I perceived as life’s givens. ‘Being able to wash means a lot to someone who is homeless because when you can’t wash, that’s when you begin to look like the stereotypical shaggy homeless person, and they also end up being treated worse by the local community’. Later on I am appalled but more disappointed to learn the cruelty of what society throws at the most vulnerable, things like being beaten up, spat on and name called, just for having the wrong appearance. ‘The stereotypical view is that being homeless is your own fault. Often people don’t know the story of why someone has lost their home and believe they caused it themselves’, however I still do not think this justifies the foul behaviour our society hurls at them.

As I approach the third day of my journey, I’m feeling absolutely drained, ratty, unable to concentrate, and to top it off my feet are riddled with blisters because I can’t afford public transport. The solution to this, provided by The British Dietetic Association is to eat more glucose. Apparently it provides the essential fuels needed to stimulate the brain. I’m unable to do this however, because I am bankrupt due to my idiotic food choices three days ago. Quite frankly, I am poorer than a church mouse. My journey has also made me increasingly aware of the homeless bodies that amass the streets of Camden each day. Now, as I feel closer than ever to the man begging outside my local Sainsbury’s, I watch as people swerve to avoid him as if he’s the sole carrier of the plague. But what cuts me the most is the pitiful smile people offer him, and the added layer of humiliation that he must feel, ‘you are seen as the lowest of the low’ explains Ceriann despondently.

I wanted to learn more about why the term homelessness generates such bad press, I am beginning to feel that it is misunderstood due to the negative messages that are being passed down to us from generation to generation which we have allowed to shape us unwittingly. According to the statistical releases from the DCLG Statutory Homelessness England, ‘homelessness both causes and is caused by many other aspects of poverty and social exclusion, including financial problems, lack of work and deterioration in mental and physical health.’ In agreement to this Amanda Allmark, a drugs and alcohol practitioner with ESPAS, explains how ‘nine times out of ten the person I will encounter has suffered from serious abuse in their life, and for whatever reason they’ve not been able to deal with it…so they get into a pattern of life where drugs and alcohol they use means they don’t have to think about the pain they have suffered’.  For this reason, Amanda broaches her clients problems holistically, hoping to cure their internal scars before the outside wounds can be healed. This method is known as Neuro-Linguistic Programming whereby it focuses on the values and beliefs of a person. Amanda’s aim is to break the patterns of behaviour learnt on the street by turning the negatives into positives. It is a method she feels very passionately about but unfortunately this technique is often overlooked by recruiting companies. She tells me ‘it’s difficult for this to work because some places are not that concerned about who they employ; there seems to be a sort of clinical way of working with the vulnerable. But this shouldn’t be allowed because the same treatment plan won’t work for every person.’

I’m now drawing to the end of the fourth day of my journey and I’m excited at the prospect of it being over. This week has been miserable; although I am aware how significantly harder this journey would have been if I had been without the comfort and safety of my own home along with the wholesome support of my family. To be honest, I don’t think I would have taken up the challenge if I had to sleep rough, even if it was just for one night. It is something I feel angst with guilt about but the truth of it all is I know I am not alone in this decision. ‘Living on the streets is tough and one of the things that softens the experience is by taking drugs and alcohol. Heroin for example, is like a blanket. It’s a big snugly blanket, and if you think of being street bound and homeless amongst the horrible weather, you can see why someone would meet with a drug like that because it takes all the pain away.’ Drugs are one of the reasons why people choose not to give their money away to the homeless, feeling that it will only fuel their drug habit which in turn prevents them exercising their kind nature.

However, there are other ways to tackle homelessness; first of all ‘we need to think very differently about the homeless and see them as people not drug addicts’. Interestingly enough, Amanda explains how at a needle exchange programme she worked for, wealthy men addicted to the gym and steroids would come to them for fresh needles. They would make the valid point of excusing their behaviour for something that is completely different and less degrading than the crack addicts at either side of them. ‘Of course they were no different to anyone else’, says Amanda ‘they were still pumping something in their body to make themselves feel better’. Even so, often homelessness is not the only issue and therefore donating to a charity will make a world of difference. ‘We have a stereotypical homeless man who is a very well known individual in the community, someone gave him a flat to live in out of the kindness of their heart, but even then he couldn’t be helped because he needed support to go along with it.  He just wasn’t equipped to know how to live on his own… our services are equipped to help them in the right way’ explains Ceriann. Obviously, there is the hesitation of ‘where does my money go to’ because unfortunately in a lot of cases, the money donated is poured into administration fees and scarcely makes it to the deserving person. This is why laudable charities such as Street Smart were born. It describes itself as ‘an innovative, easy fundraising scheme which works during the holiday months when people begin to think about those less fortunate than themselves’. All they ask is that you donate a minimum of a pound at the end of the bill and they will do the rest. It works by using electronic tills which record donations therefore administration is minimal. Most importantly Deutsche Bank, the leading global investment bank, pays StreetSmart’s admin costs for the London campaign, so every penny raised in the capital is spent on the homeless.

Thankfully, I have made it to the end of my journey. Although I’m 5 pounds lighter, my skin is a shade of grey and people now approach me with caution, I made it. By doing this, I have learnt how we are a society where poverty and the privileged have become secret neighbours yet we act as if no man’s land leaves them miles apart. Although I am not proud to admit it, before this week I would look at the homeless in pity and even felt threatened at times, but I am only human and it is in our nature to judge. I doubt we will solve the problems of homelessness and poverty in the near future but hopefully we can abolish our prejudices. The vulnerable men and women who are forced to demean themselves day in day out for the sake of making it through another day are not the problem. We are, and our approach towards them is what needs to change.