Most family gatherings and community celebrations centre around food — all sorts of delicious food.
Lasagna, pizza, perogies, poutine, samosas, Chinese stir-fry, tacos, lox and bagels with creamed cheese, bannock with homemade wild blueberry jam ... .
Today, more people than ever are trying and enjoying the cooking styles of many different cultures and countries.
In efforts to build community and showcase the cultural diversity right here in Williams Lake, community multiculturalism co-ordinators Tom Salley and Marilyn Livingston are embarking on a project to create a community cookbook filled with favorite recipes from many cultures.
“Williams Lake has a wonderfully diverse community and we would like to embrace our ethnicities by celebrating our culinary arts and inviting the residents of the Cariboo to participate in a community cookbook,” say Salley and Livingston.
This will be more than just a cookbook, they say. They are asking people to submit a story to go with their recipe.
It can be a story about the history of the recipe, how the contributor came to Canada, about their culture or a cultural tradition, or a favourite story about Canada or their homeland.
They say the one thing many diverse cultures have in common is our relationship with food. We all have recipes passed down from generation to generation; enjoy meals at family and community gatherings. We dedicate our traditions, ceremonies, weddings, passing or the welcoming of a new baby around food.
People can submit their own story or if they prefer, Salley and Livingston will interview people for their stories to go with the recipe.
“We’d like to get a real picture of multiculturalism in our community and share it through food,” Livingston says.
Salley says the project will also promote good nutrition, cooking from scratch rather than using processed foods, and using local produce as much as possible. The project is also put forward as a way to advance the cause of sustainability of community, culture and food security.
Salley and Livingston say they have put out some feelers and there is a positive response to the idea of creating a community cookbook.
So far they say there has been interest from people with recipes from Mexico, Germany, Romania, Ukraine, Bangladesh, India, Norway, First Nations, and Cariboo chuck-wagon recipes and they are hoping for many more.
Livingston says they are planning for a book of about 200 pages with stories and pictures on one side and recipes for a meal on the opposite page.
Salley notes the recipes don’t have to be specifically for a dinner, they could also be for a breakfast or a lunch.
“It’s open,” Salley says. “We have room for quite a few submissions.”
They hope to collect the recipes between now and the end of March and have the book published by the fall.
To launch the book they plan to hold a community pot-luck dinner using the recipes in the book to bring the community together and give the contributors a chance to meet one another.
They hope to break even on the sale of the cookbooks at about $15 each.
“It’s a community building exercise. It is not about making money,” Salley explains.
Salley and Livingston say their vision for the book is that residents of Williams Lake will learn a little bit more about their neighbours and maybe find out just how much people have in common.
They hope the book will be found in kitchens and included in conversations of many homes for years to come.
To submit a recipe and story for the book call the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) at 250-398-8220 and ask for Tom Salley or Marilyn Livingston.