This month is the last foodie outing of the year with my friends. Every month we try a non-chain restaurant in Vancouver because there are so many flavours to try around this lovely city.
I was speaking to some colleagues about Vancouver’s food culture and it seems that many people eat out rather than inviting people into their space. It’s an interesting cultural contrast from when I was visiting loads of family in my home island country Mauritius, which is close to South Africa. You can remember the country by saying “Delicious Mauritius.”
In Delicious Mauritius, if people come over to your place, you’re expected to provide the food. I was talking to one of my family members about potlucks and they didn’t know what that was. When I explained what a potluck was they said, “Oh, we call it bring and share here. But we don’t do that much because if we invite people over, we cook for everybody.”
I felt like I was living in 1950 when I stayed at one of my aunt’s place. Every day, she would take about two hours to prepare meals. Even before she went to work, she would take at least an hour to cook a full meal for the kids for breakfast.
I had some of the best meals in Mauritius.
Bonding with Food
I visited my cousins this weekend and they made amazing food for lunch. I pretty much had three meals in one. They came from Mauritius a year ago and they have both been cooking since they were teenagers.
Just before I left, I invited them over to my place for dinner and warned them that I only have a three-item menu and can get self-conscious when I make food for people who are great at cooking. I immediately declined when they offered to bring something for the dinner. But when they said they can show me how to make something, I said okay.
There is something appealing about cooking with people and for people. Besides my parents, I have only cooked with friends twice. But those two times were relaxing, fun and a good way to spend time with people you care about.
Ministry of Food
So the Brits went from having their own empire to having no clue on how to boil an egg. True story, grocery stores started selling pre-cooked eggs not because people were lazy, but because people “lacked the required knowledge.”
This kind of problem is not restricted to the UK, but certainly America and Canada. When the recession hit last year, as expected, fast food sales went up. But what many people don’t realize is that cooking is still cheaper than eating fast food. Superstar chef Jamie Oliver said in an interview, “There is not one fast food item that you can name that I couldn’t cook for cheaper.”
It is our severe disconnect from food that drove Jamie to start a food revolution to get people cooking again to improve their health and change the way they interact with people. He calls this movement Ministry of Food.
I caught his show on how he’s getting people to cook on the Food Network just when I started thinking a lot about the great things that come along with cooking with people.
Jamie wanted to begin his movement in the town of Rotherham in the UK because the area is the best reflection of the country’s demographic make-up. He believed if the movement could work there, it could work anywhere.
When he first set out to do this, he didn’t really have a plan to get the entire town cooking. He said, “I’ve got a lot of learning and listening to do.”
He began teaching eight people over the course of a few months and they would learn 10 recipes by the time all of their lessons were done. Part of the deal is that Jamie asked them to teach two other people the ten recipes after they mastered it themselves. It’s “mates teaching mates,” as he describes.
Cooking changes the way people interact with food and their social network.
Natasha was one of the people he was teaching. She was a 22-year-old mother with two children who were five and two years old. Until Jamie came, she had never cooked a meal for her children and relied completely on take-out food.
She wanted to learn how to be healthy because she worries they will be obese.
It was amazing to see how emotional Natasha got when she learned how to cook a pancake and the response from her child when he ate it for the first time. She quickly got hooked on cooking and also became a very good teacher for her friends.
“Natasha has a naturalness with food that she never knew about,” Jamie said. She’s natural and quick to the point when she’s teaching people.
When Jamie described Natasha’s newly-discovered passion, I immediately thought of the opportunities we give to kids and development. Everyone has a right to have access to the tools and environment to discover their passions and become better at the things they like.
That’s why Jamie opened a Ministry of Food Centre to give non-cooks a place to make simple foods and basic kitchen skills. Now it’s run by the Rotherham Council.
Natasha said she likes the feeling of being complimented and way her kids respond when they like her food when she cooks. Who wouldn’t?
Food and Social Change
Many of the posts I’ve been writing about have been about social change regarding heavier topics like humanitarian crisis. But social change can be sparked by one person with a big idea to at least try something and finding new ways of bringing people together.
People can cook for an hour and a half and finish eating in 10 minutes. But when you cook with someone else and a group of people, the process is much more enjoyable.
Once I have good hosting space and a big enough kitchen, I’ll turn the foodie restaurant club into a cooking club.
Bon appetit!
