There was a TV food show a few years ago where celebrity chefs were given random ingredients from which they had to make a fancy, fast meal. Janet Snashall-Woodhams, from Cape Woolamai, knows the scenario well.
Janet is one of four volunteer cooking supervisors in charge of Phillip Island’s community meal, which is held at the Uniting Church hall, on Chapel Street, every Monday during school term.
On Monday mornings cooking supervisors arrive to cook the meal – for up to 80 people – not knowing what ingredients they will be using. “Volunteers collect food from shops around the island, including Aldi, Coles and Bakers Delight, which would otherwise be thrown out,” Janet explains. “So that means there can be any kind of ingredients. One time I had 10 containers of bocconcini, another time 20 packets of fresh dill. We always have boxes and boxes of bananas so I’ve become adept at making banana recipes, like an upside down caramel banana cake that I invented myself. And bread is always common.”
The food is collected daily by volunteers, but while the Phillip Island Community and Learning Centre receives the donations Monday to Friday – transforming them into frozen meals or distributing through their food pantry – the community meal receives the Saturday to Sunday donations, to be used in the cooking of the Monday meal.
Given her food technology teaching background, Janet doesn’t break a sweat at the mountains of mystery ingredients awaiting her. “I love thinking of meal ideas and I’m very flexible, happy to use up whatever is there to be used. Recently there were four frozen turkeys that had to be cooked and I had so many ideas. We can only fit two turkeys in the oven at one time so that would be a seven hour cook, so instead I thought maybe a turkey pilaf. I have a million ideas, that is the fun. You can’t fail.”
Janet explains they also have a small budget to spend on non-perishable, non-donated items such as flour, cinnamon, stock powder or sometimes milk. And as for the skill required to cook for a large crowd, the mum-of-three says it’s all about the maths, with the community meal having a stock standard method to apply for how much mince or potatoes will feed each person.
The cooking supervisor generally cooks from about 11am to 5.30pm each Monday at the Anglican Church hall commercial kitchen, on the corner of Thompson Avenue and Church Street, together with about four volunteers. Once cooking is finished they are also required to wash all the pots and clean the kitchen.
The meals are then collected by volunteers in a hot box, driven to the Uniting Church hall where volunteer servers then distribute to the seated crowd, before another army of volunteers clean up.
Janet says the community meal serves a social service.
“It’s an open table and anyone is welcome. People come for a whole host of reasons. I sit down to eat with them and they’re not necessarily there because of food insecurity or poverty, but for the company because for some people points of connection can be limited. People connect in lots of different ways and this is another way to connect in the community. No one questions why you are there or should you be there. It’s just ok and they know your name and are happy to see you. Even volunteering is a way to connect. It’s a way to feel you are part of something bigger than your own little world.”
Janet says the community meal is also an environmental service, saving waste to landfill. “We can point the finger at supermarkets, but households waste a lot of food. I try very hard not to throw anything out so make soups, sauces and relishes, freeze what can be frozen – such as herbs, coconut milk, bananas or cream – and otherwise use the compost or feed the neighbour’s chooks. People need to get better at using what’s in their fridge.”
Janet, who is a member of the Uniting Church, grew up in a family with a strong social justice philosophy, and also a love of food. In the ‘70s her parents took young girls – who were no longer able to live with their families – into their home to care for them, with one staying a year. Even today her brother is a youth worker and her sister a director of wellbeing at a Melbourne school.
Janet studied to be a food technology teacher and worked in schools for nearly a decade, including in the Northern Territory, before pivoting to youth homelessness, community health and Koori education.
As for food, at a young age, Janet and her sister became vegetarians, “because of an interest in the planet”. So from about 15 they began dabbling in recipes, with her signature dish at that stage Hunza pie: wholemeal pastry with macrobiotic vegetables.
“We would give it to dad and ask him if he liked it and he’d say “I can feel it doing me good”,” Janet says, adding she is no longer vegetarian. “My sister and I still use that phrase today.”
She learnt valuable cooking skills through teaching kids to cook and then later in her career cooking for large groups, including up to 200 people at a First Nations conference, as well as for up to 90 people over an open fire in the bush. “I have no chef training but people who can cook all have an ability to know how ingredients behave and how to treat them, the science of food. They intuitively know. Anyone can cook a beef bourguignon in a slow cooker by adding all the ingredients, but if you want to make it excellent you have to take time to develop the flavours, marinate the meat, brown off, make stock.”
In January Janet was in charge of Devonshire teas at a car boot sale fundraiser in Cowes, making fresh scones. “People ate them and said ‘oh my gosh how do you make them so light’. I said if you start with rock hard dough you’ll end up with rock hard scones, and then I offered a few people scone baking lessons.”
For those of us who aren’t intuitive chefs, Janet suggests following skilled chefs online, such as RecipeTin Eats or Sally’s Baking Addiction, who test recipes to ensure they’re foolproof. If using other websites – such as Taste or BBC Food – she suggests to read people’s comments to find common mistakes.
Janet – who moved to Phillip Island in 2020 from Melbourne with her husband Brian – loves to watch food preparation videos. “I’d never made a croquembouche and so I watched a video to help me to spin toffee. During the pandemic I started to make cakes and made a special occasion one for my daughter’s wedding. One of the hardest colours to make is maroon and I tried seven times before I gave up.”
Janet will happily offer to host dinner parties for friends, understanding that for many people hosting and cooking is stressful. “For me cooking is my joy, zen, my happy place. It’s not stressful for me. No matter how many people I’m cooking for or what I’m cooking, I love it.”
By Sarah Hudson
Photos: Steph Thornborrow