• 5
• The "roots" of veggy London

"Wholefood Ltd" has helped / inspired so many organic / veggy businesses. I make a point of visiting every time that I am in London. Some "40 years ago" memories from Craig Sams who is the current "Chair" of the Soil Association - see http://www.craigsams.com/pages/soil.html "1968" excerpts mentioning "Wholefood Ltd" - taken from _ http://macrobiotics.co.uk/thecraigsamsstory.htm - "In August I found new premises, in the basement of the Gloucester Hotel on Westbourne Terrace. My brother Gregory joined me in the business and the restaurant, known as "Seed" was opened in early 1968." . "The kitchen was small, but we had an outside yard where we stored organic vegetables that were delivered by Ivan Seruya or Michael van Straten, both of whom also supplied Wholefood, the Soil Association's shop in Baker Street. Gregory struck up a good relationship with Lilian Schofield, who managed Wholefood and we regularly took their surpluses of vegetables to use in the restaurant." . "Our basis menu (called 'Tomorrow's You') was Rice and Vegetables for 4 shillings (20p)." . "Mary Langman, one of the Soil Association's founders, grew vegetables for Wholefood on a smallholding in Beckenham, Kent but anyone who was a Soil Association member felt they could just put a few boxes of organic cabbages on the train to Paddington, tell Wholefood it was on the way and that it would be dealt with. . "We also supplied, as part of our outreach and education mission, a free meal, which comprised the Brown Rice and vegetables plus a cup of kukicha from the always-on-help-yourself tea boiler. You could order an umeboshi plum, a mu tea, a seaweed dish or vegetable tempura as side orders. The tape recorder belted out the latest sounds and grooves from a wide variety of rock genres, but mostly psychedelic rock and mellow blues." . "Marc Bolan of Tyrannosaurus Rex walked to Seed to get the free meal and it was at Seed that he met Mickey Finn, an event that rock historians cited when calling for a blue plaque for historical buildings to be put up on the site many years later. Regular visitors included John and Yoko, Terence Stamp, most of the Stones as well as vegetarian/macrobiotic activists and enthusiasts and most of the denizens of the Underground alternative culture that was springing up all over the country."