Soup for Good, both inside and out

In 2019, Karen Mattison and Robinne Collie founded the Cook for Good social enterprise in Priory Green housing estate in London’s Kings Cross. The pair have worked hard ever since to tackle food insecurity, social isolation and barriers to work through an extensive community programme that includes free cooking courses, training and work experience to encourage people into hospitality jobs, a weekly surplus food pantry and soup café and regular community meals.

The social enterprise is now largely funded by profits from cooking-based team-building events, in which corporate groups cook meals to share with the local community. But what it all really started with was a flask of soup.

Mattison shared her homemade soup with a volunteer at the community pantry, which led to the team establishing a weekly soup café and fuelled an obsession with soup that spread across the whole community.

Now, half a decade later, the project has launched its first cookbook, Soup for Good, sharing 50 recipes for delicious and nutritious soups such as traditional Jewish chicken; west African peanut and chicken; celeriac, kale, apple and chilli; broccoli stalk and Italian meatball; and gnocchi and kale.

The book includes a number of recipes donated by Cook for Good supporters Karan Gokani, Nigella Lawson, Ed Balls, Wichet Khongphoon and Gordon Brown.

And as well as recipes for toppings and accompanying breads, there are moving stories from the community members who have benefitted from the incredible work Cook for Good has achieved.

Cook for Good’s culinary partners – caterers BaxterStorey, Genuine Dining, Houston & Hawkes and Restaurant Associates – have donated recipes and supported the book financially, allowing profits to be invested into Cook for Good’s community programme.

Those recipes include Genuine Dining’s roasted red pepper and fennel soup with wild garlic pesto, or BaxterStorey’s fragrant chickpea soup with a seeded garnish. But these recipes are not just handed over blindly; the red pepper soup comes from Genuine Dining’s chef Mircel McSween, who taught the very first Community Brigade, while BaxterStorey’s recipe was donated by its wellness ambassador and Foodservice Cateys 2024’s Extra Mile Award recipient Andy Aston, who is a frequent visitor at Cook for Good.

As Aston says: “There is nothing more warming or reassuring than a bowl of delicious and comforting soup”. And if you buy Soup for Good, you’ll know you are not just simply buying a cookbook – you can take comfort in the fact you are helping a very good cause indeed.

Soup for Good – Recipes and Stories from the Cook for Good Community by Cook for Good (Cook For Good Community Interest Company, £25). Cook the cauliflower and coconut soup from the book here

Photography: Jason Boswell