by Pamela Young
An Iranian student searched Edmonton unsuccessfully for months trying to find halal meats. A Nigerian student didn’t eat fruit and vegetables for a year because a friend said that in Canada, they were grown in labs for winter consumption and could cause cancer. A student from Mexico, where chili refers to the fruit, was surprised to be handed canned chili when she asked for chili at a grocery store.
These are only a few of the stories that participants shared with the University of Alberta’s Juanita Gnanapragasam during her research project on international students’ food-related beliefs, values and barriers to access. For these students, many of them away from home for the first time, eating culturally familiar foods provided important connections to their countries of origin, helping them to cope with homesickness and providing an anchor when so much about their lives had changed.
Their challenges with accessing familiar foods were compounded by differences in how Canadian stores display, package, and price foods, and getting heavy bags of groceries back to their homes using public transportation. Many of these students were inexperienced meal planners and cooks, so knowing how to prepare the foods they’d bought was often an issue.
Perhaps most poignantly, these students were lonely. They knew few, if any people, in Edmonton and missed the communal aspects of eating with family and friends. Some ended up going to restaurants more often than they could afford, simply to re-experience these feelings of connection.
At first, Juanita was disheartened by her research results. “My parents immigrated to Canada from Sri Lanka, and growing up we struggled to recreate culturally relevant, nutritious meals. It was tough knowing that in the twenty-some years since my parents came to Canada, newcomer and international populations still faced the same barriers to eating healthy and nutritious meals.”
But one theme of her research came as a pleasant surprise. The more social support the students had—from a helpful landlady, a group of friends facing the same issues, or a mom back home—the more quickly their access barriers disappeared.
“It was an interesting finding,” says Juanita, “because in a time when looking things up on the Internet is so prevalent, there is something to be said about human connections—especially when you’re adjusting to life in a new environment.”
Juanita shared her study results with her friend and fellow student Mishma Mukith. Both are first generation Canadians—Mishma’s parents emigrated from India and Bangladesh—so they understood the joys of cooking and eating together with family, and the role that food plays in maintaining cultural identity. They also shared a passion for developing community within student groups. When Juanita pointed out that no programming existed to address the issues identified in her study, Mishma said; “Why don’t we just do it ourselves?”
The Converse and Cook program they created became an instant hit on campus. The first class in January 2018 attracted 80 signups for 25 available spaces, and every subsequent session filled quickly. The classes were free to attend. Students worked in teams to make two recipes that they could easily recreate at home, sharing whatever cooking skills they had and helping each other with unfamiliar tasks. Together with a small team of volunteers, Juanita and Mishma encouraged students to experiment and innovate. When making roti, there were not enough rolling pins to go around, so they challenged the students to use what they had to flatten the dough. Some students created rolling pins by wrapping cans in tin foil, others whacked their dough flat with cutting boards. “We learn together, and sometimes we fail together, and that’s okay,” says Mishma.
As the students cooked and ate their creations together at the end of the session, they sometimes discovered they were sitting in the same enormous class and made plans to help each other academically. Graduate students advised undergraduates on program choices. A student whose husband was having visa issues found help in her cooking team. Sometimes, Juanita and Mishma invited a guest from a program such as the Student Food Bank to join the cooking session. Students were much more likely to access the resources that program offered if they’d cooked and shared a meal with one of its representatives.
“We noticed participants came for the free food and stayed for the connection,” says Juanita.
When the pandemic hit, and all in-person classes were canceled, creating those connections became more challenging. Juanita and Mishma wanted to keep their volunteers engaged and provide programming that stayed true to their mission statement of empowering people to explore food, so they organized the volunteers into two teams. The cookbook team compiled recipes from Edmontonians that had brought them comfort and connection during the pandemic. The education team looked for opportunities to engage students online through cooking classes, food-related social events, and a food styling workshop, which attracted participants from around the world.
Going forward, Juanita and Mishma will continue to explore programming in online spaces while expanding their in-person reach to other non-profit agencies and post-secondary institutions in Edmonton. They envision their classes serving the needs of seniors and children, people of various ethnicities, and the differently-abled. Juanita and Mishma have made all their resources available on their website and are happy to provide support so that others can put their spin on the joys of conversing and cooking.
To find out more about Converse and Cook, contribute to their comfort food cookbook, make a donation, or start a program for your group, visit conversecook.com.