It started with a dumpling and became so much more. For the last seven years, the humble parcel-shaped delicacy has been at the core of Heart & Parcel - a social enterprise based out of south Manchester, which uses food as a medium to bring women from ethnic minority communities around Manchester together to practice and develop their English language skills.
The dumpling is, after all, universal. Every culture has their own version, whether it's momos typically found in northern Indian, Tibetan and Nepali cuisine; pierogi, Polish dumplings made using unleavened dough; or kubbeh, an Iraqi-Jewish variation filled with bulgar, minced onions and ground meat, they’re a staple of many cuisines across the world.
As Heart & Parcel co-founder Clare Courtney explains, they’re also a metaphor. “It symbolises the hidden skills and knowledge of those people who are coming into the country, but not being recognised for those attributes.
