I have always found that they best way to learn about a culture is through food and drink so it makes sense that we want to share our recipes and want our students to share theirs. We always ask students to bring a couple favorite recipes from home and we can try to create them here, if we can find the ingredients (or substitute them). We love a lot of different types of food, so our “American” food is a blend of everyone ones, which I think is very American in itself. We do share some more “pure” American food/recipes but in general we are heavily influenced by other food cultures.
(Homemade Italian pizza)
All of our “welcome meetings” were our students and families together and been potluck style with a dish from the students home country. I enjoy getting to taste everyone’s food and I think it is a good ice breaker for not just the meeting but the family too. The meeting is within the first month of the students arrival so this helps break down some walls (if there are any), cooking together is a challenge especially with students who aren’t very experienced in cooking or are nervous about their English still. We have made Italian lasagna, German potato salad, Albanian “burgers”, Norwegian cheese and bread plate, and an Italian chocolate “pie”.
(Lasagna, German Pizza, and making the Italian chocolate cake/pie)
We have learned how to make many different foreign dishes and learned that the students are just as excited to share their food as learn about ours. We always include them in the preparation of Thanksgiving dinner, they get to massage and inject the turkey, and help with the sides. We also like to include some of their food into Thanksgiving, as a side dish or a dessert. For Christmas we try to get some of their sweets for it as well, a lot of the time their parents will send a care package full of their local goodies. Last year we got 3 different panettone cakes, the Lindt one…omg…I am trying to figure out how to get another one this year haha. So delicious.
(Mix of Thanksgiving and Christmas cooking pictures)
Regional food is also very fun to share, and if you travel any through the United States to share other regions food to compare is also exciting. We are from North Carolina (on the Virginia line) but my family is from Connecticut and we took one student up for Thanksgiving and she got to try a steamed burger, which is a very local thing there. And we took two students with us to visit my mom in Arizona and they got to try all the different tacos—we pretty much did a taco tour of southern Arizona. Those students also were able to try a low county boil when we went to Georgia for spring break. But around home we get to share bbq culture, biscuits and gravy or chicken and waffles (students are always excited about the BIG American breakfast), pecan pie, and mid-Atlantic seafood.
(Low Country boil, BIG southern American breakfast, and Arizona tacos)
Food is culture and culture is food, or at least it’s an opening. Cooking together and sharing your favorite foods and theirs is a great ice breaker and/or bonding experiencing. So ask your students to bring or ask mom/dad/grandma for some recipes to share with you. And ask them what American foods they want to try and maybe you can try something new together.
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