Cherry Truluck

This weekend @cherrytruluck and her travelling ‘library’ of food ‘The Hoo Heddern’ continue their journey gathering a living portrait of food culture on the Hoo Peninsula at Grain Coast Crafty Alpaca Farm, as part of @whoopheritagefestival . You’re invited to explore what the Heddern is carrying — to open drawers, read the snippets people have left behind, browse recipes and notes, and trace patterns between the salt‑pans, gardens, mudflats, and kitchens that make the Hoo Peninsula unique. Each stop along the peninsula adds another thread to the Heddern’s growing tapestry: a recipe rescued from a drawer, the smell of a childhood meal, a seed packet saved from a long‑gone allotment, a note about what once grew in the salt‑touched soil, or a catalogue that once lived in someone’s shed. Any and all contributions connected to food and the Hoo landscape are welcome. 🥕🗒️🗣️ → Saturday 16 & Sunday 27 May, 11am-4pm → Grain Coast Crafty Alpaca Farm, Isle of Grain → WHOOP Heritage Festival Free entry, no booking required — we look forward to seeing you there! ~~~~~~~~~~ ‘A Year Long Feast: The Hoo Heddern’ has been commissioned by Cement Fields and supported by Medway Council through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). This event is kindly supported by WHOOP Heritage Festival. Image: Cherry Truluck, ‘A Year Long Feast: The Hoo Heddern’ (A National Dish of Hoo? Community Feast), 2026. Photo: @wainwrightsam

Join artist and researcher @cherrytruluck next Saturday 16 & Sunday 17 May from 11am-4pm at Grain Coast Crafty Alpaca Farm, where the Hoo Heddern makes its next stop as part of the WHOOP Heritage Festival. 🦙 🗺️📍 Explore what the Heddern is carrying… Inside the Heddern, you’ll find a strange and beautiful mix of objects offered by neighbours across Hoo. You can open drawers, read the snippets people have left behind, browse recipes and notes, and trace patterns between the salt‑pans, gardens, mudflats, and kitchens that make this place unique. Bring something to place on the shelves… Each stop along the peninsula adds another thread to the Heddern’s growing tapestry: a recipe rescued from a drawer, the smell of a childhood meal, a seed packet saved from a long‑gone allotment, a note about what once grew in the salt‑touched soil, or a catalogue that once lived in someone’s shed. You’re welcome to share anything connected to food and the Hoo landscape: 🗯️ Stories of meals, marshes, gardens, and kitchens – written or just memories to share ✍️ Favourite recipes — smudged, typed, or half‑remembered 🫛 Ingredients grown, gathered, or simply loved 📒 Books, catalogues, clippings, foraging notes 🎣 Memories of fishing, foraging, cooking, preserving, and feasting. Every contribution will become part of a living, travelling portrait of what food means here and how it has shaped the peninsula, past and present. Free entry, no booking required — we look forward to seeing you there! ~~~~~~~~~~ ‘A Year Long Feast: The Hoo Heddern’ has been commissioned by Cement Fields and supported by Medway Council through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). This event is kindly supported by WHOOP Heritage Festival.

Yesterday I dropped in at Fivepenny Farm to pick up ingredients for our weekend of feasting with @commontreasures_ and @messumswest on 9th/10th may. Back in that distant era before COVID, I was a regional coordinator for the Landworkers Alliance, so this place feels pretty legendary to me as a place that has led and inspired so much important work in land justice and agroecology in the UK. But what really struck me as Ele showed us round was the relation that has been established between people on site and the land - the way the buildings feel both strong/resilient and soft/gentle, sitting so easily in the landscape. We'll be serving mutton breast from Fivepenny's beautiful Jacob sheep, a cut and a type of meat that is often avoided (or not available) in favour of a different joint of lamb. We love the contrast of this complex, older animal - a life lived, generations of lambs born - with the brand new spring vegetables that are the glowing centrepieces of our menus. We're also using the apple juice and rosy cider vinegar produced in the farm's communal apple press which they make available to their community each autumn, putting me in mind of what @cocina_colaboratorio have called 'technologies of mutual sustenance'. 💚🐑🍏

Love this magical dell by the chalk stream in the village where I grew up. I've visited so many times over the years and even hosted a feast for @cranborne.chase focusing on so-called "invasive species". It is indeed full of Himalayan balsam (seeds are tasty, leaves are very astringent), ground elder (one of those multi-purpose 'use like spinach' leaves), hemlock water dropwort (do not eat!!) and squirrels (honestly delicious!) but today I saw marsh marigold here for the first time in a few years and the riverside never fails to disappoint with an epic harvest of intoxicating meadowsweet and water mint. The air is filled with the smell of the mint right now.

Friends, creatives and fellow artists, please join us for an informal, intimate morning event built around art, conversation and community, marking the publication of writer, curator and broadcaster Hettie Judah’s new book, ‘How to Enter the Art World …After.’ Hosted as a relaxed daytime gathering, The After Session begins with an introduction by acclaimed textiles artist Alice Kettle, followed by short, informal presentations from Camilla Emson, Temujen Gunawardena, Sophie Mason, Cherry Truluck, Rachel Marshall, Alyssa Norton and Selina Ogilvy. Each artist will share recent and current work, offering insights into their practices. The presenting artists are part of a long‑standing group of critical friends, who support one another through monthly gatherings rooted in care, honesty and exchange. We will then move into a clustered circle, with Hettie Judah seated at the centre for an open, hour‑long Q&A. This will be a space for conversation and curiosity, questions about the art world, about sustaining a practice, about re‑entry, continuity and the realities of creative life. The morning will close gently, with a cup of tea and time to chat. Hettie will be selling and signing copies of ‘How to Enter the Art World …After’ - a generous, myth‑busting guide for artists whose lives are complicated and human. Tea and coffee will be provided, and there will be break‑out space for children, making this a family‑friendly event where parents and carers are warmly welcomed. @hettiejudah @silkmillinfrome The Art Crit Group introduced by @alicekettle @camillaemson @cherrytruluck @sophiemasonart @tem.jam @livesofthings @alyssanorton @selinaogilvy

I'm thrilled to announce that I’ll be part of ✨Rural Futures: Local Solutions to Planetary Problems 🌾— a weekend of talks and events bringing together people working in rural places across the UK on community-led projects that build social and economic resilience while actively caring for the landscapes and ecosystems they belong to. A collaboration between @messumswest and @commontreasures_ , the programme of symposium, feasts, walks and talks explores how creativity and collective problem-solving can offer practical responses to challenges facing rural communities, and how small local projects can connect to create wider change. I’ll be collaborating with @t.wilford2 and @lizzyhaughton to help launch their brand new project COMMONPLATE, a radical community-supported dining project emerging from Frome’s pay-what-you-can restaurant, @canteen_frome . Collectively held with @fromefoodnetwork , Commonplate reclaims food as a shared commons — re-localising control over the food system, expanding access to good food, and supporting nature rather than working against it . Across the weekend, alongside the fascinating programme of talks and discussions, you’re invited to shared meals that honour place, land and locality — celebrating food as a practice of care, memory and future resilience. Saturday — THE COMMONPLATE COMMUNAL LUNCH at Messums A generous shared lunch cooked on fire and shaped by hyper-local produce. Saturday — LOOKING BACK TO LOOK FORWARD: A FEAST at @springheadtrust Drawing on food traditions of the past to nourish the future. Sunday — RURAL VOICES BREAKFAST at Springhead A slow morning of food and conversation! Sunday — THE LEFTOVERS PICNIC Nothing wasted — the weekend’s leftovers transformed! Book on the Messums website (link in bio) Photos: 1,3,5,7,9 courtesy of @commontreasures_ 2: Cherry + Lizzy working on the Saltmother's Table, 📸 @nicolvizioli 4: Tom at @razaqa_frome , 📸 @celie.nigoumi 6: Canteen, 📸 @theartfultographer 8: Canteen, 📸 @suepalmer_23

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us @thriftandthrivemedway on Saturday with @cherrytruluck to explore the food culture of the Hoo Peninsula and feast with friends new and old! 🥣♥️ We tucked into a mouthwatering spread of rhubarb salsa, goats cheese and beetroot, squash salad, spring greens and pumpkin seeds, roast chicken with roast apples, roast potatoes and a scrumptious onion gravy, as well as an enormous rhubarb cream cheese crumble cake which was demolished in minutes! We hope you left with full bellies. 🍰 The meal wove together foraged herbs, farmers market finds, historic recipes, memories of meals cooked in kitchens across Hoo, and a whole lot of regional character, all gathered by Cherry in her mobile pantry ‘The Hoo Heddern’, which has been travelling the Peninsula asking “What does Hoo taste like?” Stay tuned for more to come from The Hoo Heddern and sign up to our newsletter via the link in our bio to hear about events like this and more. 🗞️ ~~~~~~~~~~ The Hoo Heddern has been commissioned by Cement Fields and supported by Medway Council through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). Images by @wainwrightsam

Prep is well underway for tomorrow’s community feast at Thrift and Thrive 💚 Here’s a little teaser of what’s coming: - A glimpse behind the scenes from today’s preparations - Some of the delicious food being prepared - A fully stocked greengrocer’s - And a sneak peek of the Hoo Heddern itself… We can’t wait to share it all with you and come together as a community. If you’re planning to join us, please remember to book your free place - Link in the comments. If you’re having trouble accessing the link, feel free to message us — we’ve got a few paper tickets available. See you tomorrow! #thriftandthrivemedway #therevival #communityfeast #medway #food

Gather with @cherrytruluck this Saturday for a free community feast celebrating food memories, growing and imagination on the Hoo Peninsula. 🥦🍅🧀 Everyone is warmly invited to pull up a chair at the communal feasting table @thriftandthrivemedway to enjoy a generous spread of dishes including breads, salads, pâtés and nibbles, all made using ingredients and recipes that have a close connection to Hoo. Join neighbours, growers, cooks, farmers, and other curious folk as we sit down to taste the land, share stories and reflect on past, present and future food practices. 🪏 Cherry will be cooking and experimenting live in the Header’s culinary laboratory. Chat with Cherry as she tests, tweaks and builds recipes exploring ideas gathered during the Hoo Heddern’s travels to create a ‘National Dish of Hoo’. Will it be… 🍝 A historic or remembered recipe like Ann’s Ploughing Match Country Pudding or Josie’s Mulligatawny Spag Bol? 🍓A dish which celebrates a ‘new-to-Hoo’ ingredient like Myatt’s delicately pink forced rhubarb? 🐄 A dish that reconnects us with ingredients no longer grown or produced here — estuary sea salt, market garden veg, local poultry and dairy products 🥟 A newly imagined dish for a shared future like the ‘Hoo dumpling’, blending new cultural influences and family food memories. (Because every culture has a dumpling — Polish workers in the fruit farms have brought us pierogies, settled Gurkha families from Gravesend to Gilligham have brought momos, we even have the historic Kent suet dumpling with cheddar and chives) Let us know below if you have an idea for a National Dish of Hoo below and book via the link in our bio to guarantee your place at the table. 🍽️ → Saturday 28 March → Food will be served between 12-2 – drop in anytime within this window → Thrift + Thrive, Chatham → Free to attend, booking required ~~~~~~~~~~ A Year Long Feast: The Hoo Heddern has been commissioned by Cement Fields and supported by Medway Council through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). Images from the Heddern’s recent stops at Rochester Farmer’s Market, Myatts of Mockbeggar Farm Shop and Chalk Vi

@cherrytruluck has been travelling the Hoo peninsula with a mobile pantry, the Hoo Heddern, asking 🗯️ “What does Hoo taste like?” On a chilly afternoon last week, a group of students from Leigh Academy Hundred of Hoo joined Cherry to discover the wonders of the Heddern and what their contribution to this library of food might be. They played ‘Forage Bingo’ and scoured the field margins to spot edible or medicinal wild plants on their bingo board. In this small area they found nettles, alexanders, mallow, purple dead nettle, sweet violet, hawthorn, brambles, plantain, hogweed, daisy, yarrow and dandelion. ☘️ The students made ‘field notes’ to furnish the Heddern with — drawings and descriptions of foods which represent this place where they live. Responses included blackberry picking with siblings, ’the perfect roast potato’, every detail of a cheeseburger from Ozzie’s Plaice in Grain, and the smell of spring onions growing in a field near Allhallows. They ate flapjacks and talked farming and food systems before striding up to the field overlooking Hoo Fort to collectively hand sow a test plot of Cherry’s own ‘matriarchal’ oats. Whether you’re a long-time resident or just Hoo-curious, join Cherry this Saturday @thriftandthrivemedway for a free, drop-in community feast to step into this culinary laboratory and get a taste of it’s journey so far. 🥣🗺️❣️ → Saturday 28 March → Food will be served between 12-2 – drop in anytime within this window → Thrift + Thrive, Chatham → Free to attend, booking required via the link in bio ~~~~~~~~~~ 'A Year Long Feast: The Hoo Heddern' has been commissioned by Cement Fields and supported by Medway Council through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). Photos: @wainwrightsam

Join artist and researcher @cherrytruluck next Saturday for a free community feast and celebration of the unique character, ecology, and deliciously local imagination found in the Hoo Peninsula. 🍎 → Saturday 28 March → Food will be served between 12-2, drop in anytime within this window → Thrift + Thrive, Chatham → Free to attend, booking required Cherry has been travelling the peninsula with a mobile pantry, the ‘Hoo Heddern’, asking 🗨️ “What does Hoo taste like?” The Heddern has been all over collecting flavours and stories around Hoo: recipes swapped over cups of tea, seeds from carefully tended gardens, tales of seaweed gathered on mudflats. Foraged herbs, market vegetables, family favourites, and memories of meals cooked in kitchens across Hoo. These contributions have come together to shape the dishes at the heart of this community feast. Join neighbours, growers, cooks, farmers, and other curious folk as we sit down to eat and celebrate what the Heddern has gathered. This is a feast for everyone: long‑time residents, newcomers, the Hoo‑curious, and anyone who likes good company and good food. You’re invited to the table! Book for free via the link in our bio to come and share in “The National Dish of Hoo”.🍴 ~~~~~~~~~~ Images from ’The Saltmother’s Table’ — a coastal feast conceived and prepared by Cherry Truluck, inspired by future harvests from Andrew Merritt’s 'Intertidal Allotment’. Sheerness, 2025. Photos: @nicolvizioli ‘The Hoo Heddern’ has been commissioned by Cement Fields and supported by Medway Council through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF).

Cherry Truluck invites you to a free, drop-in community feast and celebration of the beautifully entangled identities, ecologies, and flavours of the Hoo peninsula. 🗺️🥣 → Saturday 28 March, 12-2pm → Thrift + Thrive, Chatham → Free to attend, booking required With a wink and a generous serving of imagination, artist Cherry has been travelling the peninsula with a mobile pantry, the ‘Hoo Heddern’, asking “What does Hoo taste like?” The Heddern has been out collecting flavours and stories around Hoo: recipes swapped over cups of tea, seeds from carefully tended gardens, tales of seaweed gathered on mudflats. Foraged herbs, market vegetables, family favourites, and memories of meals cooked in kitchens across Hoo. Together, these contributions and connections between land, water, people, and place have helped shape the “National Dish of Hoo”. You’re invited to the table. Join neighbours, growers, cooks, farmers, and other curious folk as we sit down to eat and celebrate what the Heddern has gathered. This is a feast for everyone: long‑time residents, newcomers, the Hoo‑curious, and anyone who likes good company and good food. Pull up a chair. Bring your appetite. Link in bio to book!🍴💌 ~~~~~~~~~~ The Hoo Heddern has been commissioned by Cement Fields and supported by Medway Council through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF).