Byline: JMABC

Global Jewish cuisine

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.

Contribute to new podcast

The Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia’s Feeding Community project wants your story. (photo from JMABC)

What does an egg taste like when it’s been boiled for hours with onion peels and coffee? Have you ever consumed a meal while sipping on a carbonated yogurt beverage? What kind of oven do you need to make cubana, a dough that you leave on the fire from Friday late afternoon to Saturday?

These are just some of the questions the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia has encountered in the early days of its research for the Feeding Community project. JMABC researchers have devoured cheesecake on Shavuot while talking about the use of dried lime in Persian cooking. They have asked a rabbi to divulge the secrets of his cholent recipe. They have pored over handwritten recipes and black and white photographs of Sephardi Jews in Seattle’s Pike Place Market. It’s been a rewarding and immersive sensory experience, learning about the community’s diverse roots and traditions – and the findings will be shared through a podcast being developed for the JMABC.

Some might say that too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth, but the opposite goes for making a podcast. The more people the JMABC hears from, the richer the podcast will be. The JMABC is interviewing members of the community, hoping to unravel what the act of eating and traditions of food mean for individuals and in terms of family. As much as the JMABC hopes people will listen to the series, it also encourages people to be contributors.

Whether your family arrived in Canada by way of Mexico, Minsk or Morocco, Argentina, Albany or Azerbaijan, South Africa, Sri Lanka or Shanghai, the JMABC would like to hear from you. To learn more about Feeding Community or to contribute information, email [email protected] or call 604-257-5199.

Saving community’s stories

Calof family festive meal, spring 1942. This is but one of the thousands of photos that have been collected and preserved by the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia. (photo by Cyril Leonoff; JWB fonds, JMABC L.13866)

The Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia (JMABC) has launched a new campaign called Sustainers of the Archives. The B.C. Jewish Community Archives contains an unmatched collection of material documenting the more than 150-year history of Jewish life in the province, from family mementos to the founding documents of major organizations.

Housed in a secure, climate-controlled 3,000-square-foot facility in Richmond, the collection includes 750 oral history audio and video recordings, extensive photographic collections, as well as art and artifacts. This invaluable community asset is managed by a full-time professional archivist, and access to the material in the archives is available to researchers and other interested parties through the offices of the JMABC.

The purpose of the Sustainers campaign is to invite members of the public to become friends of the archives by making an ongoing financial commitment. These funds will help the JMABC preserve the archives for future generations, as well as help the JMABC achieve its mandate: to tell the story of Jewish life in British Columbia. To become a Friend of the Archives, visit jewishmuseum.ca/become-a-sustainer. For more information, visit jewishmuseum.ca or contact the museum at 604-257-5199.