#dishingupto

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Gautam Nath came to Canada in 2008 as a landed immigrant and he faced the relative obscurity that all new immigrants face. Despite years of achievements back in his country of origin, he felt a stranger in Canada. Gautam had to move fast and had to build his brand fresh in Canada. On the professional front he volunteered, networked and used digital media to great effect.

Gautam soon realized that it was not all about volunteering, networking and looking for jobs. To maintain his sense of balance, he started cultivating his passion, FOOD. Gautam started a Facebook group called Foodies Unite II that has close to 2000 members from Toronto as well as all across the globe.

Gautam used to run a crab lovers club back in India and felt passionate about cooking similar tasting delicacies here in Toronto. He sourced his raw ingredients from a variety of outlets and found the biggest BC crabs in a Vietnamese grocery outlet on Jane Street. Other ingredients came from the Indian food mart on Eddystone Avenue and the aromatic basmati rice from Iqbals on Overlea Drive. In this short video, Gautam talks us through the making of awesome spicy crabs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HTwXnTzdN8

— submitted by Gautam Nath

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In many Ethiopian-Eritrean dishes, the use of aromatic spices that fill the kitchen and neighborhood are very common. One can recognize when an Ethiopian-Eritrean restaurant or home is around just by the aroma of the fused spices in the air.  One of the main ingredients used in many Ethiopian-Eritrean cuisines is Berbere, a spice that consists of a combination of red chili peppers, cumin, garlic, coriander, ginger, basil, and corrorima. This spice is indigenous to Ethiopia-Eritrea, as it originates in these countries. Because it is produced regionally, most farmers grow the red chili peppers on their farm or backyard. When ripened, the red chili peppers are then picked out by women and laid outside to be sundried. This process takes about a week, depending on how sunny it is outside. After the chili peppers have completely dried, they are then grounded with the other dried ingredients listed above, using a hollow wood container and heavy logs to turn it into powder.

Niter Kibbeh which is a clarified butter mixed with grounded forms of ginger, garlic and salt. Berbere and Niter Kibbeh are traditionally prepared at home in Ethiopia-Eritrea. These ingredients can also be found in convenient stores that carry imported Ethiopian-Eritrean products. Although Teff is a very important indigenous food ingredient used to make Injera, another substitute used by Diaspora to make Injera is rice flour. This is due to the convenience of rice flour as compared to Teff. Teff is hard to grow, as it requires specific climate and areas of high altitude. Other non-indigenous ingredients used consist of red onions, tomatoes, potatoes, salt, chickpea powder, cabbage, carrots, green lentil, red lentils, string beans, and beet.

— Submitted by Bethlehem 

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Missing Home

I would like to share my experience on migration and how food helped in my immigration. I moved to Canada when I was 18 years old. I came here by myself to study. Initially, I had some difficulty to adapt with Canadian culture.I am from Indian and our has food has a lot of species. First few months I couldn’t find any grocery store to buy Indian species. Then after few weeks, I met a friend in college who took me to very nice indian restaurant and she also took me to Indian grocery store. I was very happy that I can still make my home made food. But now over the years, I been to different restaurants and I really like to try different food. Also , people in Canada are very helpful. Moving to a different country was a big challenge as I was very young. But with the help of my friends and relatives, I established myself in this country and I really like Canadian culture.

- Monal Bawa

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Working in the fast food industry

I’ve worked at a lot of restaurants this past year, some of them being Paramount Lebanese cuisine and Bamiyon Kabob at Markham Rd and 14th Avenue. Obviously, the majority of people that come are Arab or Afghan. But still, there are always new people that want to come and try new foods. A lot of people come there and don’t even know what’s going on and where they are. They’re usually just intrigued by the appearance of the place – one person dropped by once because they though the name ‘Paramount’ was unique and wanted to know what it was about. Others dropped in because they said the building looks nice and  they want to come inside. When working at Bamiyon, I see a lot of visitors that come in and ask about Afghan culture. Some people come in and ask me, “is this Afghan food?” or “Are the spices you use directly from Afghanistan?” At Paramount, I got a lot of questions about the Arab coffee. It’s cool to be able to see people genuinely take interests in other cultures while working in the fast food industry.

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Tasteful Experiences

At first glance, my life is luxurious, my experiences rich and my growth native to each geographic region of visit: the deserts of United Arab Emirates, the districts of Sri Lanka, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the provinces of Canada, the states of America, the intercontinental futuristic vision of Dubai, and back again to the human rights of Canada. I have vividly enjoyed every faucet of it all.  

Each country, unique with its own traditions, formed a colourful array of values that composed a multiculturally enthusiastic family. Being the third culture kid, food allowed me to bring a piece of my childhood and past experiences along with me. Just like the sense of hearing is an avenue to connect memories associated with sound from the past to the present, taste buds help you taste every ethnicity no matter where you situate. 

My fondest memory of growing up in Dubai revolves around Ramadhan. It was a time of breaks for people of all religions, cultures, and colour. But most importantly, it was special time that brought families together with one simple thing. Food. Many homes around the United Arab Emirates cooked in excess to share with neighbours, friends, and loved ones. Two very common dishes associated with Ramadhan are Harees (an Emirati porridge) and Luqaimat (a sweet crunchy dumpling). Everyday just before sunset, families would line up outside the villas of neighbours' to either give or take one of the dishes. This made Ramadhan, a time of giving, even more meaningful.

As a Muslim, my migration to Canada 11 years ago caused a dent in my Ramadhan spirit and continues to do so every year. Fasting in North America can never feel the same for my family and I. But in order to compensate, my family practises re-creating the memories of our life in Dubai every year for thirty special days. My mother has an authentic Emirati recipe book, which we use to cook both Harees and Luqaimat. Since the trickiest part of food making is getting the right consistencies, recently we have decided to stick to Luqaimat more often than Harees. An excitement rushes through me each time I bite into a crispy sweet dumpling tossed in farm honey. It takes all my worries away and brings flashes of my laidback childhood, where I had the luxury of running around the streets with the desert sand under my feet. 

I am grateful for the experiences that have allowed me to not only learn about other cultures but also given me an opportunity to mould into my own individualistic differences as an Emirates-born, ethnically Sri Lankan-Canadian. 

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Missing my hometown food !

My family and I immigrated from here in 2004 from South Africa, and we were in culture shock. In my village in South Africa, we were a very tight knit community with everyone in the village being very close. I used to love cooking Bunny chow, and no its not what it sounds like haha, it is bread, stuffed with spicy curry and chicken or any time of meat. When we came to Canada, there was no place that I could get my beloved foods from back home. I need to visit my hometown at least two times a year, one to make sure my mom is healthy and secondly to get my food cravings HAHAHA.

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Durian and my childhood in SIngapore

When I was 14, i moved from singapore to montreal and left behind the best years of my life. i’ve been in canada for majority of my life now . i can’t take the authentic malay stuff anymore. but on my birthdays when my family asks where i want to go to eat, i always suggest a malay place. one thing that i really enjoy is the ‘durian’ fruit-  it reminds me of my younger days in singapore. a couple of years ago we were driving back from montreal to toronto from my parents house and i brought it back with me during the 6 hour drive. one thing you have to know is that durian has a very distinct smell. my wife and kids complained for 6 hours about the smell in the car. but i refused to let them throw it away. funny story - we discovered that the fruit was actually rotten when we got back home, and that we couldn’t have eaten it anyway. they never let me live that one down!

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Migration from the Philippines

When we first moved here, we lived in an apartment downtown, and we didn’t have that much money. We didn’t have any money actually. My mom was working part time and my dad didn’t have a steady job. Basically when we got there, we didn’t have any furniture, the superintendent helped us find furniture and stuff like that. The first thing we ate was pizza pizza. We didn’t have any Filipino food to cook. We didn’t have pizza pizza in the Philippines. I had no clue what pizza pizza was. I had pizza before but this tomato sauce was different. It was weird for me to have pizza and not Filipino food. We never used to get take out. My mom always cooked dinner. We maybe got take out once in 6 months. It was very weird to me that she let us eat pizza for dinner.