Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia hosts a new supper club and a podcast. (photo from JMABC)
The Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia is launching two new programs celebrating the diversity of food traditions represented within the B.C. Jewish community. From all corners of the world, from Baghdad to Bangalore, Kiev to Cape Town, Jewish families have made a new home here, bringing with them a wealth of culinary traditions.
One of the programs, the Chosen Food Supper Club, will give guests the opportunity to try these foods and hear the stories behind them. Why do Syrian Jews eat leeks, Swiss chard and gourds on Rosh Hashanah? What are boerewors and bobotie? How do you prepare the ultimate chicken tagine? These mysteries and more will be solved (deliciously) at the supper club, which will take place over 10 evenings between April and September. Each dining experience will run from 5-8 p.m. on a Sunday evening. Guests will enjoy a complete dinner while hearing firsthand stories from members of the Jewish community. All meals are kosher-style, not certified kosher. Tickets are $40 per person per meal, and are available at jewishmuseum.ca/programs/the-chosen-food; they must be purchased in advance.
The JMABC’s other new program is The Kitchen Stories podcast.
When we talk about food, we often end up talking about so much more. Family traditions, patterns of migration, gender dynamics, our relationship to the land. More than just a source of nourishment, food is a means of communication. And, in The Kitchen Stories series, listeners will hear what it was like to be a Jewish family living in far-flung places such as Eritrea, Chile and India. They will hear about the pressures to fit in or stand out, and how food was often a means of doing both. They will hear about the difficulty of maintaining family culinary traditions after migrating to a new country.
Podcast episodes will include community members developing new traditions or reviving long-forgotten ones, a Jew by choice who is learning to cook Jewish cuisine while not wanting to forget her own family’s food traditions, and families adopting new traditions to strengthen their relationship to the land.
The 12-episode series will be available for download on the iTunes store, Google Play, Soundcloud and at jewishmuseum.ca.